Tailwind, Headwind

Good morning Idaho

The howls of the coyotes drifted through the pines at night.

I awoke around sunrise in my makeshift campsite at the edge of the Bridger-Teton National Forest and thought about the day ahead. The first priority was to get some tent poles so I wouldn’t have to rely on trees to rig my tent. I planned to go north through Afton, Wyo., then cross back into Idaho to make camp. From there, I’d head north of Idaho Falls and on to Salmon and eventually Missoula, Montana.

That was still hundreds of miles ahead of me.

I carried my bike out of the trees, got loaded up, and bumped down the potholed forest road to the main highway.

I flew on a downhill for several miles getting chilled from the morning air rushing by me. The sun climbed above the undulating hillsides and farmland, casting its golden illumination upon the countryside.

I rolled into Afton, Wyo., which had an enormous bridge made entirely of elk antlers spanning Main Street. It was the largest of its kind in the world, a sign announced.

There was a place downtown that sold sets of tent poles. I guestimated how many I’d need by measuring off lengths with my arm and determined I’d need to buy two sets in order to reconstruct my earlier setup. If my future self from several hours later could have reached me then, he would have begged me to buy one more.

Afton

Unaware of my error, I merrily peddled out of town on a long stretch of downhill. The beautiful morning gave way to dark clouds. Then rain. The hail, flung into my face by the wind. Well, what else would you expect from Wyoming?

My progress slowed to a bitter crawl. The more I fought, the more fury nature flung against me. I was sick of it. Eventually, I wheeled into the tiny town of Etna where I ducked into a coffee shop to take a break and suck down a Red Bull (when did I start drinking that swill anyway?).

The weather cleared, but I was still exhausted after the fight. I made another stop in Alpine by the Snake River. One road went north to Jackson, the Tetons and Yellowstone, the other went to Idaho. Tempting as it was to take the north road through some of my favorite landscapes, I resolved to head west toward Idaho Falls which was the faster route and also new territory for me.

The storm that chased me into Idaho

As I loitered outside a gas station, I felt a strong wind out of the east. A line of storm clouds was coming at me from that direction. I remounted my bike and started peddling west for all I was worth.

I didn’t hold much hope for beating the storm, but figured it would be worth it to try for a couple miles before the downpour.

One thing that I had in my favor was that the wind was going my way this time. I flew past the Idaho border and along the line of an immense reservoir. There was new energy in my legs as well. I flew effortlessly up and down hills, using the storm’s energy to keep away from it. There were several downhill straight-aways after the reservoir that gave me even more speed.

Thirty miles outside of Wyoming, I began to tell myself that I might have actually beat the storm, which had fallen a good distance behind me. All around me, fields of grain soaked in the sunlight. There were still boaters on the Snake River nearby. 

Then I started climbing a massive hill. At the crest, I saw a new thundercloud coming from the west, raking the landscape with dark bands of rain. What the hell?

 Lightning flashes cut across the sky and boomed across the empty fields. I realized that I had minutes to spare if I wanted to get the tent set up. So, I probably wouldn’t to have the time to assemble the tent poles properly. I flew down a mile of road with the storm looming larger and larger in my sites. Everything looked like private farmland and was wide out in the open. Finally, I veered down a cobbly road and into a small depression beneath some cottonwood trees.

I didn’t have time to put the string through all the poles, so I just fitted them together, counting on the torque between the bendy rods to hold the structure in one piece. That part worked.

What didn’t work was that I had grossly underestimated just how much tent pole I really needed. By the time that the rods bent upwards, I barely had five feet of tent at the bottom.

I kept the poles in place by stabbing them right into the soft ground and curled into my undersized structure, waiting for the downpour.

When the rain didn’t come immediately, I decided to move my tent back a bit to where there were some trees and I could build myself some more ground space with rope. This I accomplished, but it was a pretty crappy sight.

 The first droplets began to spatter, and I closed my eyes, praying that the next day would be dry weather.

The next morning was sunny, but cold and windy as all hell.

There were only a couple miles to get to Rigby, Idaho, but it took hours of fighting the wind. I hopelessly shoved my bike against the air, barely making managing a walking pace.

Rigby has the dubious distinction of being the fist community in the United States to have television. It did however have a fine library, which I used to check email, refill water bottles and try to plot a route through the suburban sprawl around Idaho Falls. I also found another store that sold tent poles, so that crisis was averted for the time being. Now the question was if there would be anywhere to pitch the thing.

Being near a big city is worrisome because it means that camp spots are few and far between. I didn’t see any public land on the maps, and figured I’d either have to peddle many miles until I reached public land or just wing it somehow.

When I got back on the bike, it was still the same discouraging struggle against wind. I was glad that I didn’t have a speedometer on my bike, because otherwise I might have lost my mind when I saw I was going four miles an hour across the countryside. At least with hills, I knew that I would get to go down at some point. The headwind in my face offered no such relief.

Even more maddening was the fact that I was surrounded by bland pastures and suburban houses. As I strained with all my will against the elements, other people were going about their ordinary lives, driving in cars, vaguely aware that it was a bit breezy outside.

I’d barely made it nine miles out of Rigby when I saw a small municipal campsite by the edge of the Snake. I’d planned for big miles that day, but I was sick of giving everything I had and getting almost no miles in return.

I pitched my tent  a couple of feet away from the parking lot and cracked a beer that I had bought from a convenience store nearby. The room temperature can had the taste and feel of baby spit, but I was even more disgusted when I opened my atlas. I’d barely made 30 miles. It had been a helluva day.