Idaho Hot Springs, Day 5, Ketchum to Smiley Creek, 40 miles, 3,012 feet elevation | Singletrack Smackdown

Riding Stats

Accommodations

Our route out of Ketchum took us north as we will ride into Stanley on Tuesday.

Harriman Trail, a very well maintained double track with spectacular views of the Boulder Mountains on the right took us to Galena Lodge and on the way we met four cyclists brand new to bikepacking having just completed their first outing.

All agreed next time they will pack even less and figure out how to make their bike saddles play nice.

The tentative plan that Tom put together weeks ago for the Idaho Hot Springs ride (he’s an excellent planner) had us riding up and over Galena Summit and camping at Smiley Creek which was about the halfway point to Stanley, Idaho.

Galena summit is an 11 mile climb, however the grade is more gradual than Steel and Dollarhide Mountains. Still, we’d get up over 8,700 feet at the summit and the last four miles were going to be steep.

After a quick stop at Galena Lodge which is actually not much more than a restaurant and bike shop that serves hand dipped ice cream cones, we continued cycling up to the Galena summit.

So glad to have stopped for ice cream and water. We met 15 year old Edyn who just finished riding the Tour Divide this year in 1️⃣9️⃣ days which is so fast, especially with all the snow.

Today’s twist didn’t involve losing a sandal, meeting a snake or an unexpected eight mile (for me) Hike-A-Bike, but four miles of uphill rocky single track along a steep ridge.

Whew! Don’t look over the edge, keep my focus just ahead of me on the trail and pedal punch over the big rock clusters. When water features or bridges appear, get off the bike and walk them.

We sure didn’t expect singletrack on Galena’s Old Toll Road but here we were. I thought the Toll Roads were for road improvements. Someone’s not doing their job.😂

At the top of Galena we saw weather coming in quickly so we decided to take State Highway 75 down to Smiley Creek. The paved two lane highway with good line of site allowed for one of our most memorable descents as we could let it loose peddling downhill.

Drops began to fall as we came off the mountain but we were able to skirt around the storm and rolled into Smiley Creek where Brian and Karl (friends we met on Dollarhide Mountain) came out with smiles of their own to say hello.

Food tastes best to us when we’ve earned it and tonight was no different. The four of us, Brian, Karl, Tom and I ate dinner together and swapped bike stories after which Tom celebrated the day with a Huckleberry milkshake.

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