Easier's Not Better

I rode a big dirt loop around the "Washboards" yesterday starting and ending in Clarkston, Utah.  The route crosses into Idaho, up to the edge of Weston, up the bottom of Black Canyon and back to Clarkston via the Dirty Head Road.  The ride to Weston went fine.  Then I got lost, even though I had a map.  After two miles or more pedaling up Black Canyon, I saw two pick-up trucks at the end of a driveway.  I rolled up between them and asked, "Where's the four-wheeler road that leads back to Clarkston, I think I must have passed it?"  One Mormon pioneer-stock cowboy said there was no such road.  The other said, "No, it's about a mile or more back down this road after the straight-away.  Someone came down it this morning, you can see the mud and their tracks.  That road is all greasy, you'll never get up it on a bicycle."  He said the word bicycle with the stress and emphasis on the first syllable, like some folks say the word bisexual.  I held my tongue.  I let a smile slowly form on my face, and then allowed it to turn into a big grin.  I do love a challenge.  I know greasy.  Greasy is when so much silt and clay stick to your tires that they no longer turn.  Yesterday's greasy was easy.  In the picture below, the Washboards is the long spine of low mountains between Bergeson Hill and the big mountains to the west.