Randy's Private Idaho

     A few days ago, I commented on the Sidewinder Trail.  It is a well marked, well maintained trail with a clear beginning and a clear conclusion.  This is the story of its opposite.  The guys from the Snake River Mountain Bike Club have done a lot of work exploring and mapping the maze of trails in the Kelly Canyon and Moody Creek areas.  They recommend that you ride these trails with a GPS or with someone who knows the area well.

     I have a decent mental map of the Kelly Canyon side, but things get pretty hazy for me in the Moody.

I have been fortunate to ride a Moody-Kelly-Moody linkup a couple of times this year with Randy Huskinson.  Randy likely has the most complete mental map of the trails in the area of any person alive.  He knows every road, trail, cow trail, and game trail in the area.  He knows where they start, where they end, and where they are in relation to each other.  The animals in the area ask him for directions.  Seriously, when I ride the Moody with Randy, I am happy to have a general sense of where I am and a vague idea of how I got there.  In contrast, you could drop Randy into the area at night blindfolded and he could tell you precisely where he is and how far a trail junction is in any direction.

     The routine is like this.  You are riding an unmarked trail in the middle of nowhere and Randy says:  “Be ready for a hard right in 20 meters” and you turn onto an even fainter trail. Our ride today was classic late season mountain biking, cool and a little muddy, golden leaves still on the aspens, and small flurries of snowflakes falling from time to time.  Our plan was to take the grand tour of the area, linking up most of the major trails.  We had to scale our expectations back a little on the Moody side due to mud which was heavy in some places.  You can probably tell from the pictures that it was a great day.

     On a sad note, there has been quite a bit of logging in the Moody Creek area.  Some of the best areas that we rode today are already marked for logging.  Generations will pass before the old growth forest returns.