Boise Ridge Traverse.

I spent a day out traversing the Boise Ridge with John.  The traverse starts out on the road to Bogus.  You climb up to the antennas on the backside of Bogus and then get some downhill.  The road was nicely filled in and the turns were sweet!  John had a nice touring set up for Tele and I was on AT gear.  After some turns we hit some rollie-pollie terrain.  I really didn't want to put my skins back on so John taught me a quick lesson on using kick wax.  It worked very well.  I am going to study applying kick wax a little more.  You got a good kick and glide and didn't have the weight of skins.

It was an excellent day to be out.  The sun was trying to poke through the clouds, but never did.  We stopped for a quick lunch and became cold just sitting there.  After lunch, we got a few more turns in and then started the climb up to Eagleson.  I had to switch to skins and finally made it to John waiting under a tree.  He said that I was only a few minutes behind him, but I think he was just being nice.  Let this serve a warning, if you go out and do endurance activities with a national cycling champion, expect to be humbled!  He was even breaking trail!

We descended down 8th street.  We were in "survival ski" mode.  The conditions were horrid.  Drifts that were 3 to 5 feet tall led to ice.  The wind was blowing very hard and I was exhausted.  We made good time on the descent and John's friend Tom picked us up after a short walk down 8th after we ran out of skiable ice.  My altimeter told me that we ascended 1,920 feet and descended over 5,000 feet in almost 20 miles.  It was a most excellent day!