(bear with me, there will be mtb content....)
Some how all the planets aligned just right, and AMB-ID was pulled off after
all - this makes it the fifth year running if I'm counting right.
Sandpoint was the original plan but that was not meant to be this year.
Maybe it wasn't going to happen at all! Then, within the last 10 days a
revised plan to go back to McCall was put into short notice action. Leave it
to my wonderful non biking friends who live in McCall to be the center of
this planetary wonder.
I had planned to go to this fun little folk festival in McCall anyway. Then,
word gets around that Per and Elisabeth should hit central Idaho about that
time. Gab pencils it in. Paladin and Gman, well, they just couldn't make it
work this time. And my wonderful friends - their attitude is: the more the
merrier, when we run out of beds you can tent in the yard.
I drove down Thursday, helped out at the music fest that night, and then
Friday helped prepare for the onslaught of house guests. Per had mapquested
a map to this location ahead of time, so it was just a matter of them
showing up. Sure enough a knock on the door and there's one very tall and
one very small Swede ( Per and Elisabeth) It was too hot and too late to
put a ride together so it was beer and swim in the lake time, and then off
to the show. (free tickets for all by the way, that was a sweet deal!!)
Did anyone ever mention that Swedes had "Swe-dar"? Per had mentioned
somewhere in the flurry of emails that were part of the planning that there
was another couple from HappyMTB involved in this. Somehow, I hadn't put
together that this was a net connection and that Per and Elisabeth had never
met these other folks. They had planned to hookup somehow in McCall - so
this other couple came to the music fest on a hunch, and picked Per and
Elisabeth out of the crowd as being Swedes on tour. Next thing you know, we
are now up to **11** houseguests at my friend's house ( they had non mtb
folks up for the weekend too!)
The temps up there are breaking records, so the plan was for the 6 of us
riders to get an early start. This seems quite do able, much less of a
potential cluster**** than some of the huge groups we've had in the past. We
also plan for a maximum singletrack ride with no shuttle, to reduce the PITA
factor. Gab and I are anxious to redo this ride, as the large group in 03
was not conducive to "flow". Jonas and Karin, the happy mtb folks that Per
and E. invited along, are also anxious for a rematch, as they'd started the
ride the day before but there was a biff involving a faceplant, so they had
turned around only 3 miles into it.
I had studied the maps, and the idea was to not have a shuttle and maximize
the singletrack, without a shuttle. I had a little help from some other
Idaho folks in figuring out how to do this ride, which ended up being shaped
like an upside down lollypop.
So off to Chinook trailhead we go.....
(part 2 to follow)