Where Is Your Place of Zen.

Close your eyes. Think of where you would rather be. Not in traffic, or the middle seat in economy class, or watching the West burn, or reading Trump tweets. Where do you go?

I expect that for everyone the first image is one of friends and family laughing and listening around a table. The people you love, a bottle of wine, a sunny day, and a fresh meal from the garden. Hugging the kids and enjoying conversation with your friends.

After that, our reveries go all over the place. For some it’s being on a yoga mat or up to their waist in a trout stream, behind the wheel of an old car or in the front row of the opera. There are a few notions competing for my attention, but right up there is the feeling of standing on a big bike heading down a narrow track into the wilderness. There is the physical challenge, a significant element of risk, and a mental focus that pushes out all other distractions – this is an activity with a low tolerance for lapses of attention and I have had a few broken bones to prove it.

In the last few days we have ridden some of the best adventure bike roads anywhere in America. The Steens Mountain loop to Oregon’s highest road and across the trackless Alvord Desert – the Elk City Wagon Road from Grangeville, Idaho where the remnants and ruts are still there from a hundred and fifty years ago – the Magruder Trail that runs through the Frank Church Wilderness over the Bitterroots into Montana – the Lolo Motorway from Missoula high along the ridge line down to Pierce back in Idaho – the Lewiston-Enterprise Highway with its spectacular road ride down and across the Grande Ronde River into Oregon. These are all classic adventures with almost no other people out there because they are not easily accessible from any large population centre – you have to deserve them.

The ONLY disappointment has been the pall of smoke in all four states that has reminded us of the destruction around us and blocked all the views. Steens Mountain was invisible from the centre of the Alvord Desert and we could not see the Wallowas from the center of Joseph.

Pictures here :

– Bill leading down French Creek Road down to the Salmon River, Idaho – Rattlesnake Grade and a view of the map on my GPS explaining why this road is called that – One of many signs warning of fire activity, this one was heading down Lolo Pass with the side roads all blocked by the National Guard – the forest either side of the Magruder Trail showing an older burn with the forest burning in the distance – Rocky Ridge Lake off the Lolo Motorway – the Alvord Desert obligatory picture with smoke blocking Steens Mountain – the gang at the start.