Ponderosa State Park- Tuesday, July 10

Since our other riders were out of town, we decided to go toodle around Ponderosa State Park.

We parked at the Day Use beach area, and headed down the gravel road to the Lily Marsh parking area, where we caught the Huckleberry Loop trail. The Huckleberry loop is a nice easy loop for hikers & bikers both, but we wanted to try out the mountain bike single track that branches off the huckleberry loop. So at the appropriate little brown bicycle sign, we headed off.
Almost immediately we hit a steep rocky section that I almost was able to ride. Gordy blasted up with no problem, and we both stopped to breath on the more level section. Suddenly we were swarmed by mosquito's! Argg! Must keep riding! Single track, is of course, just that... a narrow, single track. This one weaves in between trees, over roots, up rocks, etc. It was fun and challenging. The hardest part was not sucking in mosquito's when I stopped to catch my breath. At some point the trail comes out onto the road to the Payette Lake overlook, which is a great spot to stop and enjoy the breeze before cruising back to the day use beach. 4 miles round trip, and sorry, no pictures. Here is a link for the park: http://www.idahoparks.org/parks/ponderosa.html