EC3 18 Jun 2006 Second Ride Up Canfield Mountain
The ride to Canfield is only ten minutes from our home. Our four-wheelers are street licensed so we drive straight from home.
Here we are at the first trail junction. All the trails on Canfield are well marked for vehicles and hikers. I have to check the map (when I get one!) but according to my GPS, this junction is at 3600 feet. Our home is 2500 feet and the city of Coeur d'Alene is at 2200 feet.
The pictures below are of my son (left) and myself (right) just before starting out on our trip!
Well, here we go!
This picture presents a well groomed trail, and for the most part, they are. However, this is a rocky hill and often the trail is laden with deep ruts and exposed rock -- sharp rock. We have had a lot of rain lately, in fact we have had record rainfall -- 3 inches the first two weeks of June -- almost like Seattle! So it wasn't uncommon to find large puddles -- some large enough to gobble up my little 250!
The last time we were up this mountain, we had the trails mostly to ourselves. Today though, being Father's Day, the hill was pretty busy. Had a couple near wrecks until I got used to that fact. Usually the close calls came while trying to avoid large puddles on blind corners!
The scenery up here is beautiful. Almost everywhere you look are hills upon hills with beautiful meadows mixed in between large, majestic forests of evergreen trees. Traveling in the wild really gives me an appreciation for the beauty of God's creation.
North Idaho is full of lakes. And though Coeur d'Alene is famous for the lake that bears its name, there are several beautiful lakes in the immediate area. In this picture, I think one of the lakes is Fernan, but I am not sure about this.
This beauty is Hayden Lake. It is on the north side of the mountain. It is very long and the road around the lake is very winding. The drive around the lake is beautiful but to watch the whole area from up on the mountain is a real treat. You can't see it very well in the photo, but there are a lot of boaters out enjoying the Lake today.
On the southwest side of the mountain is the famous and beautiful Coeur d'Alene Lake.
And is any story about Coeur d'Alene complete without some mention of the resort? There she is, seventeen floors (or something like that), standing head and shoulders above anything in that small town. The owners of this building think it is a destination but there are so many beautiful features to this town that no man-made building will ever duplicate.
Well, when our trip was completed, we spent a little over two hours on our vehicles and covered thirty-five miles. It was a fun trip! -- and I have now logged in six hours on this fun little machine!
That's about all for today. We will be fixing this site up as time goes by: making it more beautiful, functional and informative. It is going to be a blog of the mountain climbing adventures on my ATV -- basically therapy. We will take this boring life and by adding some internet spice and intrigue, we can pretend it is larger than it really is!
Hope to see you soon!