Mark, Ken, and I initially planned to ride Succor Creek Loop, a 30 mile loop with about 3,000 ft of elevation gain in the eastern Owyhee Mountains. I tried to drum up more interest in our Boise riding group and got only one person interested. Things changed. Mark and Ken wanted to RV it. Then Mark dropped out, and Ken suggested he and I go ride the route and explore the area from his RV over a few days, and he'd act as chef. I, a tent camper whose only luxury is having a 2 person tent when a 1 person tent would be adequate, couldn't turn that down! The 15 miles of gravel washboard road from outside Homedale was rough and slow in the RV, and the exit from the area would be worse, but everything else was great.
Day 1: Fri 24 May 2023
The Succor Creek Loop
30.3 miles, 4:42 riding time, 2,787 ft elevation gain
Succor Creek State Park is in the bottom of a narrow rock walled canyon. Oregon is for Adventure and other websites paint a far too negative image of the campground- making it seem there's a rattlesnake under every rock and puncture weed throughout the camp that would ruin any sleeping pad. We saw no snakes and no puncture weed (albeit in late May). The park has no potable water though and was over-full by mid day Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. The ride's first 1,000 ft of elevation gain is on a steep gravel road with great vistas climbing out of the canyon. Because my Garmin Edge had lost its satellite on the recent Wilson Creek ride, I was using it and a Garmin Fenix- just in case, and throughout the ride was glad I had both.
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| Succor Creek Canyon as we climbed out of it |
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| Ken with Succor Creek Canyon in the background |
As we topped out of the canyon where a dirt road intersected our gravel road, we saw a man with his 3 young daughters stopped by a flat tire on their 4 wheeler. We stopped to briefly talk, but they knew even less of the area than we did. Neither Garmin signaled a turn here, but as we continued down the gravel road both Garmins soon accurately beeped that we were off course. A quick turn around to the dirt road fixed that, but I was loosing confidence in the Garmins as the Edge had been reading "Do a U Turn" from about 2 minutes out of the campground. Apparently when one hits the "navigate to the course beginning" he must come very close to the actual starting point; we had likely left the campground on what the Garmins considered the wrong exit. My confidence in them was dropping. Ken had taken care of almost everything, and as he's the better map
reader of the two of us, I thought he was doing the paper maps while
I was loading the route on the Garmins. Turns out neither one of us had paper maps or even the written "cue sheet", but a post ride review of the cue sheets shows they don't even acknowledge the two confusing intersections.
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| Ken on McIntyre Spring Rd a most pleasant section of riding |
At the next intersection where the Garmin Edge was still reading "reverse course" I was beginning to wonder if we needed to turn around to avoid getting lost. I decided to try reloading the course. This time that worked without starting the ride over. The error messages stopped, and the course appeared without the units trying to get me back to that particular starting point in the campground. I could relax without worrying that I was taking Ken out to die lost in the desert though we knew we were still dependent on the Garmins in which we didn't have full confidence. Here I did try to pawn one of the Garmins off on Ken, but he declined saying that taking one would give him some responsibility for our following the course.
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| Ken topping out on that winding climb |
When we came off this hill, we found a cattle wallow at an intersection not shown in the "cue sheets" that we didn't have with us. We walked 100 ft or so down the creek where we could jump the stream and avoid that wallow, and looking back saw in the middle of that wallow an intersection that wasn't acknowledged by the Garmins with all vehicular traffic going the other way. The Garmins didn't like the 100 ft diversion to miss the wallow and read "off course" for a brief while that to us, being totally dependent on them, seemed long. It was confusing, but as we continued on the path least taken, (the direction that no vehicles have recently gone to disrupt the hoof prints) the Garmins realized we were on course and stopped that error message.
However, the route was now a bit obscure with no evidence of vehicular traffic, but with hoof prints imbedded in the dried clay- and steep uphill. Until this point I had the advantage of a quicker hardtail, but here the advantage switched to Ken with his full suspension bike. For maybe 3 miles I didn't enjoy the route, and with a developing bad attitude began to get tired, which apparently caused me to stop taking photos. Ken observed we were only 20 miles into a 30 mile ride, and if we kept the same avg speed, it would be dark by the time we arrived back in camp. I couldn't argue that, but according to the Garmin Edge we had climbed about 2,500 ft which gave us only about 500 ft more climbing- as long as the Garmins were leading us down the right path. My Garmin Edge habitually overstates elevation gain and would overstate today's by about 500 ft. (I've used Stava's elevation correction feature on the figures here, but I didn't have those on the ride). I knew I had good lights with me, but I didn't have a 2nd set for Ken, and I didn't believe that bringing that up would encourage him as he was tiring.
We soon rounded a corner and happily saw the Snake River Plain below us. Ken's always faster than I on the downhills, and his eagerness to return to camp sped him up even more as we descended to the Snake River Plain, but there were still hills between us and the campground.
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| me in front of a "gap" typical of the Owyhees. This is near the area where we first saw the Snake River Plain which ended any remaining fear of my leading Ken off to die in the desert. The downhill and knowing where I was without relying on the Garmins reinvigorated me, and I resumed having fun and taking photos |
Light rain started as we hit Succor Creek Road, and there was still about 500 ft of climbing left which Ken would feel. My Garmin was overstating elevation gain by that 500 ft which made us believe we had almost no climbing left, but once on Succor Creek Rd I had the excitement of a horse seeing his barn while Ken was noticing every climb.
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| We were happy to see this sign |
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| The light rain gave us this view entering into Succor Creek's Canyon |
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| entering the heart of Succor Creek State Park as the rain stopped |
We got in about 6:30. Tired though he may have been, Ken still fixed dinner. We had hot showers in this "dry campground" as well as a gas refirg, freezer (from which we enjoyed our solidly frozen ice cream!), stove, and hot running water. Scattered rain showers hit us off and on through the night, but except for a brief rain at the end of the ride, the weather had been nearly perfect with very little wind, no heat, and clear clean skies under a slowly building overcast.
Day 2: Sat 24 May 2023
Relaxing and hiking thru Succor Creek State Park
5.2 miles Time 1:21 Elevation Gain 636'
Neither Ken nor I are sleep-in people, so we were up at dawn for a leisurely breakfast and some reading before heading off through the park on a hike in which we felt free to talk at length to all we met. Initially, this was the planned riding day, but the forecast had been for this to be a cold windy day, so to avoid that we endured yesterday's after lunch departure to spare our riding on a windy day. Although we had several strong gusts throughout the day and some early morning sprinkles, it wasn't cold; the sun was out most of the time; and at least in our narrow twisting canyon there was no steady wind.
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| Ken's RV. I looked out my bedroom window to those spires which at night were lighted by a full moon |
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| We hiked up the steep road in the center of this photo |
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| Looking down Succor Canyon from that knoll |
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| Looking up Succor Canyon from that knoll |
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| Looking down the canyon from higher up on the hike |
After enjoying these views, we decided to hike up the creek, but high water stopped us where this photo was taken, and where the canyon suddenly narrows and likely becomes more interesting again.
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| High water stopped us from going further upstream |
Day 3:Sun 26 May 2023
Exploring Leslie Gulch
0.5 mile walk Time 0:12
The plan had been to explore Leslie Gulch and ride along its Owyhee Reservoir section to determine if we'd like to do the 33 mile Leslie Gulch loop with 4,047' of elevation gain. We expected to ride a few easy miles along the reservoir but found a narrow trail with rock drops, twisting, and turning at least initially along the 13.9 miles that it follows the Owyhee Reservoir. We found the initial feet of the trail so technical that we lost interest in riding it, but in retrospect we should have hopped on the bikes and ridden it until it got better or we tired of it though my hardtail was definitely the wrong bike for this trail- which appears to be designed for hiking. The drive down Leslie Gulch was stunning, but I took only 3 photos from the RV. The photos don't capture the height of the rock formations.
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| view going into Leslie Gulch |
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| these formations tower over the gulch and are bigger than they look in the photo - running almost the entire length of the gulch |
We drove out on gravel roads to hwy 95 and Marsing which we found a slow tedious route though on the map that direction looks closer than the exit thru Homedale. Despite the slow entrance and exit, it was a great 3 day get-away.
Thanks, Ken, for the use of your RV, your hosting me, your sense of adventure, and your ability to tolerate the unknown- the last two qualities being necessary to enjoy an adventure!
Happy cycling for fun, fitness, and transportation!
Steve
