I went fishing with my father in Copper Basin a time or two in the early nineties. I drove the Trooper over Trail Creek Pass in 1995, after riding the White Knob Challenge MTB race in Mackay. I had not planned on crashing that day, so naturally I did not pack a first-aid kit. After the race, we went to Mackay’s single grocery store and bought most of their supply of Telfa Pads and gauze wraps. I paid for a shower at a local RV camp to scrub out the gravel. That night, we camped on Trail Creek Pass and drove down into Ketchum the next morning. I have always had a vague plan to go back. Although almost twenty years have passed, I had not returned to Copper Basin or Trail Creek Pass until yesterday.
If you are unfamiliar with the geography, Trail Creek Pass is a long mostly unpaved connection between the Big Lost River Valley (Mackay) on the east and the Wood River Valley (Ketchum) on the West. Copper Basin is a high mountain valley near the east end of Trail Creek Pass.
In just a couple of years, Rebecca’s Private Idaho has become a pretty big deal. It is Idaho’s premier gravel racing event, essentially our version of the Crusher. There are a lot of parallels between Rebecca’s and the Crusher. I do not know Rebecca Rusch personally, but if you have met her even in passing it is obvious that she is a real force of nature. Her vision and boundless energy set the tone for the event. Like Burke Swindlehurst, organizer of the Crusher, she has industry connections and understands how to organize and put on a top quality event. Participation has grown from 150 or so last year to about 350 this year.
This year’s Upper Valley participants included me, Brian, Ryan, Tim, Bart, and Cobe. The weather was cool all day long and road conditions were unusually good due to recent rains. We all managed to finish in less than six hours probably due in large part to the favorable conditions. Congratulations to Cobe on a well deserved age-group victory with a time of 5 hours and 43 minutes. Dawn came along for the trip and found some fine singletrack while she was waiting for us to come in.
One of the reasons to pay the registration for an event like Rebecca’s or the Crusher is to provide the logistical support for an epic ride in the absolute middle of nowhere. It would be very tough to ride this route without external support. The quality of the Rebecca’s support was very good with bottle hand-ups (water tasted like a decaying rubber hose), bananas, and various Gu products. I had a couple of packs of Gu Chomps in Watermelon flavor which reminded me of on me of one of those really weird kids candies, and one packet of Salted Carmel Gu Gel which I would totally eat over ice cream. The best thing I grabbed at a feed zone was a couple of boiled red potatoes. I did not take the time to really analyze them, but they appeared to be coated with olive oil and rosemary and heavily salted.
When other cyclists ask about an event like this the questions generally fall into two basic categories: 1. Was it fun? 2. How hard was it? It was lots of fun with great scenery and a really adventurous feel. In terms of difficulty, as far as I am concerned it was plenty hard. If you push the pace a little, you are guaranteed of some suffering. Rebecca’s lacks the soul-crushing agony of the Col du Crush, but it is longer than the Crusher and the climb up Trail Creek Pass is impressive in its own right. I did not meet anyone at the end who said it was OK, but I wish it could have been harder.
A postscript: As the day has gone on, I feel like I should have commented more on the scenery of RPI. On some level, when you go to an event like this in the Mountain West, spectacular scenery is almost a given. On that account, Rebecca's does not disappoint. Here are some images from their website.
