Greenhorn Gulch and Imperial Gulch Trails (August 17, 2010)

Greenhorn Gulch, the start of the trail. It looks innocent from this point of view. Little do you realize how high you are to begin with, and much you are going to climb from this point of view. The trailhead started at over 5,000ft and climbed to just over 7,000ft.

This view is from the parking lot for the trailhead. This trail is not very far from town and yet you do not see anything but the trail and the mountains, very cool place.

This trailhead area is where multiple trails begin and end. We had to cross the creek here in the beginning multiple times before it started to climb up, up, and up...

We had stopped in to the local bike shop and they recommended these trails and we were glad we listened to their advice.

This trail system, like many in the area, is multi-user friendly. Which includes allowing motorcycles on the trail system. This might not sound like a good thing, but the motorcyclist actually play a huge role in maintaining many of the trails here in Idaho.

We stopped for a snack and a map check here at the point where the three main trails in this area meet up. Greenhorn, Imperial and Mahoney Gulch Trails. The map was a little bit deceptive, we thought that at this point that there was only a little bit of climbing left, but oh no...

And trust me I was tired here from the climbing, and hoping that the hills were going to relent to the anticipated downhill fun.

So we get out from the trees and looked around to see what looked like an easy section of the trail, before what we thought was the ascent. Derek was tired, but the trail being so much fun took his mind off of that!

This was me...

Before...

And then this climb showed up... It was not a horrible climb, but the trail was really sandy in this section, making a hill climb like this into a hike-a-bike section.

It wasn't bad to begin, but I only made it a little further before I lost traction and had to step off the bike.

Oh how sweet the downhill was though when it started. At that point unfortunately the pictures stopped, because of the fun we were having! We went down Imperial Gulch, and about a couple of miles from the end crossed back over to Greenhorn Gulch. Which meant that there was a little climb at the end, but worth it.

Our Camp at East Baker Creek (August 16 - 20, 2010)

We were so lucky to find a great camp at the convergence of East Baker Creek and Baker Creek. This was between Stanley and Sun Valley, Idaho. We were a little paranoid about bears and brought Bear Pepper Spray. There were bears sited in the area. A friend of ours was here a couple of weeks before us and saw one only a couple of miles from our campsite.

Mountain bikers were riding by the entire time we were camping here. There were a couple of trails in the area, but we had an agenda and we stuck to it! Next time we return we might check out the trails near camp. We rode Fisher Creek Trail, Warm Springs Trail (at the Sun Valley Ski Resort) and Greenhorn Gulch Trail. There are just so many trails in the area, we are going to have to return for more adventures in the future.

Right next to our spot (5 feet behind the tent) was Baker Creek, soothing sounds to sleep next to. The creek was really cold, not something that I would jump in.

The temperatures during the day were perfect, in the 70s. The nights were a little chilly (in the 40s) but I think that it is easier to sleep when it is a little chilly. The views were amazing, still some snow on some of the peaks that we could see from the camp.

The best part about this camp though was the hot spring that was only a couple of miles away. Every night we went and soaked away our aches and pains from the rides. It was warm, but not HOT, so it was very comfortable to soak in. No one else ever showed up while we were in it. The spot was just off the main state route in the area. It was free too which is nice. There were other hot springs closer to Sun Valley that were close to camp, but charged fees to access and my guess is that there would have been more people to have to share the pool with.

Our Trip to Sun Valley August 16 - 20, 2010

We decided on my break from school to go to Sun Valley for a few days. We had never been there before, it was amazing. We drove from Boise to Stanley, then on to our camping area near Baker Creek. Stopping along the way to look at the amazing Stanley Lake, Red Fish Lake and some amazing views along the way...