It’s a 5 Moose Day!

August 25, 2021

Today was an incredible 5 moose day! The day started with a delicious breakfast at the Osprey Inn, our bed and breakfast. Then we headed out on the Couer d’ Alene trail toward Kellogg. The scenery was stunning with all of the vibrant colors but it was the wildlife that made it really incredible. We saw four female moose and one baby, they were are different spots along the trail so we did lots of stopping and watching. Many of us had never seen moose before and were surprised at how awkward and gangly they look. One moose trotted down the trail in front of us for a ways. As we followed her she had a really strange gangly, knock kneed, bow legged sort of trot.

We stopped for lunch at the Snake Pit Saloon. The Snake Pit has been a local landmark for over 138 years. Located at the fork of the Coeur d’Alene River, it has served as a boom-town bar, railroad layover, hotel, house of ill repute and starting point for loggers and miners of yesteryear. Today we had a great lunch and enjoyed soaking in the historic flavor.

Six miles later we got to Kellogg and the silver mountain resort, our hotel for the night. We checked in quickly, stowed our bikes and hopped on the gondola to ride to the top of silver mountain. The Bitteroot mountains are so much larger and vast when looking at them from up high than we realized from down on the trail in one little valley.

While up on the mountain we got to see some mountain bikers take off down the hill on a black diamond trail, the Hammer. At the beginning of the trail there is a steep drop off into a hole and then a hairpin turn with a wood wall that they ride up on to get horizontal…. That’s a “little” more than we can manage…

Back down the mountain to the resort and we all had pizza outside and enjoyed the evening which cooled off rapidly.