Hello there!
It has been a while, 2+ years. A good bit has happened since then. I have planted roots in Teton Valley, Tetonia Idaho to be exact. My roots now include a house, a yard with a garden, and elected to the school board (will be joining school board in July)! No pets, yet. I may have planted roots but my soul will need to travel to breathe. This is one of my first summers where I am not in the field for most of the summer. July I will working a NOLS course but I wanted a trip for myself. My favorite method of travel is on a bike so later this week I am leaving for the Idaho Hot Springs Loop!
I will be bikepacking. Bikepacking is the kid brother of bike touring, the twist is trading pavement for dirt and gravel. So I will be taking my trustly Sunshine (my racing mountain bike from college) on the 500 mile trip. I am expecting for the trip to take two weeks. So no IPAD on this trip just my phone, so I will be updating the Blog from the library or my phone.I will be starting from Boise. Kyle and Sarah (from my last trip) moved to Boise last summer. It is great to start another trip with them. Then I will travel counterclockwise around the loop. I will travel though mostly small towns the big cities Ketchum, Stanley, McCall, and Idaho City (each with a population under 5,000). As the name of the loop says there are tons of hot springs to soak in along the way. I will mostly be on gravel roads going over passes and camping next to hot springs. In classic Nan style I will be solo + bear spray. One of my big challenges right now, is figuring out how to pack for bikepacking. On my last tour I had two large panniers and two big stuff sacks. This trip I will have two stuff sacks and a small frame bag, about 1/2 of the volume of my first tour. Well, I am cheating a bit with a bigger backpack. I still have to be careful too much weight in a pack isn't good. But I am having to pair down a good bit, smaller cook set, less clothes, more basic food, and less electronics :) I will post pictures once I have figured out how pack everything.
Here is to life on bike! The mountain bike is calling and I must go. Cheers from Nanland
