April and May have felt extremely busy. April wrapped up the early season race season with my first time running the Robie Creek Half Marathon, and I had a pretty good time at 9.5 hours of Disco MTB race. May consisted of attending four awesome rock concerts, a quick bikepack trip, and a Memorial Day weekend down in Ely, Nevada, for some riding with Josh. Needless to say, I’ve been a bit busy to drum up new content. But when I started this blog, I told myself I have to post once a month. Now that it’s May 31st, 2026, I feel like I have some content obligations to fulfill.
With the time constraints, I started going through some old hard drives to see what old ride photos I have. I found this old roll of photos from the first Memorial Day weekend trip I took with Josh four years ago in 2022. This felt fitting coming off the heels of our great bike trip down to Ely, NV.
Josh put this route together with the intention of riding Cottonwood Creek Road, an underexplored (by bicycle), section of road that heads north from Arrowrock Road. If you are not from Boise or familiar with Arrowrock Road, it’s a popular section of road that is incorporated into a lot of Boise bikepacking routes, including the idaho HOT SPRINGS route, the out-and-back from Atlanta, ID, and the Trinity Pines loop.
Day 1 Lucky Peak MARINA
Setting out to ride Cottonwood Creek Rd., we parked at the Lucky Peak Marina and headed about 25 miles down Arrowrock Rd. We camped near the start of the climb.
Day 2 Cottonwood creek to grimes creek
I DON’T remember much about the specific about the climb, but here is photo from the summit lol.
despite not remembing much from the climb, i remember that the DESCENT towards hwy 21 had six or seven creek crossings. once we got to highway 21, we crossed the highway and we were able to connect onto the grimes creek with minimal hwy time
Day 3
From Grimes Creek, we headed towards Robie Creek State Park. We shared the road with a Hispanic off-roading club and were passed by a procession of 50 to 100 ATVs, side-by-sides, and dirt bikes. Eventually, we ended up at Robie Creek State Park, where we ate lunch and did some fishing. Morgan caught the only fish on the trip. After lunch, we got onto Hwy 21 for a few miles of highway riding back to Lucky Peak Marina.
Fun fact: I shot all of the images on a thrifted disposable camera. You can tell the film was old by the red tint; the cyans and yellows break down more quickly, leaving the dominant red colors on the film. I haven’t made it back to bike Cottonwood Creek Rd since this trip. I heard that there is a monastery or some sort of cult compound if you turn right onto Ponderosa Dr at the intersection of Cottonwood Creek Rd (imagine coming to a T-intersection and going the other direction), but that might be for some future pedaling.
THX
Lawrence
lawrenceshaw.blog 