Day 15, Whitebird Idaho- 67 miles

I pedaled out of New Meadow this morning and continued my northerly movement toward the town of Whitebird which sits at the base of Whitebird Mountain, a challenging 11 plus mile climb of roughly 3,000 feet. I didn't get two miles out of town before Mother Nature said good morning and released the Cracken again on my soul. The winds............they came back. I was looking for a good sturdy tree to hang myself on but quickly remembered that today, unlike yesterday, was primarily downhill about 3,000 feet and the winds that caused me to change religions several times yesterday might be a little less effective. I was almost entirely wrong. I also figured that being in the canyon during the downhill portions would provide me with some additional deflection or protection from the Cracken. Wrong again.

I spent most of the morning going about 9 mph on a downhill that I would normally expect to be cranking out at 25 or 30 mph, and I had to keep pedaling hard to get that. The winds funneled into a ferocious compressed blast straight up the canyon. At one point, just to see what would happen, I stopped pedaling all together on a 4 % downhill and came to a complete stop within 10 seconds! Needless to say I had another butt buster of a day and although I thought I wrecked myself yesterday, I was sure of it today and wondered how on earth I was going to be able to climb the next day. The ponies were dead.

I limped into Whitebird in the mid afternoon and surveyed the four building town. A hotel, a cafe, a bar and a church. I checked into the hotel, ate at the cafe and had some beers at the bar. I was in no mood for church. Keystone beer sold for a dollar a glass and if you wanted to upgrade to top shelf, Budweiser was two and quarter. I went big to impress the town folk.

I fell into a deep sleep at 7 pm. I convinced myself to drink water like there was no tomorrow, get up real early and get over that mountain. There was no food here and no coffee so breakfast, and much need fuel was on the other side of that there hill. Nothing keeps me from coffee..........

If this blog got through it is a miracle. I am in a canyon along the Clearwater River, cell service is non existent and the lodge WiFi is a joke. But the scenery is unbelievable.......