839. Cervidae

I’m trying to get back on the horse with Z&Me’s good things. Last week was super dooper work-week busy for me so I lapsed in daily postings here. That’s okay. It’s a three-day weekend and Saturday mornings happen. And Saturday’s usually are my day to re-connect my soul with the trails. This morning I did Cervidae…certainly not a peak-bagging peak, but a high point for the area nonetheless. Such beautiful views and wonderful accessibility. Cervidae is the genus or species…(I dunno which one) for cloven-hooved animals like deer and elk. It’s named so for on how many roam tend to roam there.

What’s fascinating about this area is that it’s a major migratory route for animals. I think it has something to do with it being close to the confluence of More’s Creek, the Boise River, and Anderson and Luck Peak Reservoirs. Animals need water. There’s a story of how a herd of elks fell through the ice nearby Cervidae Peak in the winter and froze in clocks of ice. They remained there in the ice for a bit. We are talking about 30 or so Elks. Freaky deaky. As such, the place has plenty of bones along the route. Sure enough we weren’t far into the climb before the dogs found them. So Koufax, boy dog, starts carrying this one Deer or Elk…who can really tell such a thing, right off the bat. The dogs are funny because I’m only trying to get a picture of them carrying around a partial deer leg In their mouth but in this picture, Koufax is looking to me… like hey dude, you okay with this? I know some owners try to control their pets from picking up what humans would consider gross things. But I find the pups and I are just happier on the trail if I let them be who they are and they let me be who I am. If they want to carry around a dead deer leg, who am I to say drop it? They do this all the time and carry seemingly gross stuff for miles. So here’s the after picture when he realized I was cool with it.

Where the Boise River gets all dammed up in Lucky Peak Reservoir, the river becomes a lake. Nearby high point, Cervidae, is so accessible from Boise. From my house…let me do the Googles… maybe a 40 minute drive. Easy Peasy. If you started early enough and took the easy route up I’m sure you could be home by 9am or 10am. Some people I know do it before work. Impressive. It’s very typical Idaho foothills terrain. Meaning dry scrub. I took this cross-country route to meet the trail at some point. It wasn’t the intention but I didn’t read the directions I found online so well and just went with the moment. Kinda glad I did.

The Dirty Souls reference is the trail running crew led by Holly Finch owner of the excellent Pulse Running Store in Meridian. She puts a lot of time and effort into fostering a running community here. Mad props Hollis Queen.

So I learned I took the cross country route. I heard rumors that there was a run-able trail to the top. There is, but kudos to those who can run up it. My route wasn’t run-able. I’m sure someone could have, but not I. The interesting thing about that fence is that it had these interesting gates every so often that weren’t latched. Usually gates swing from the side horizontally. These could be pushed open from the bottom and I’m assuming it’s for game to get past the fence. It would be cool to see one use it. On the other side of the fence along the way were bones.

And Kyra couldn’t figure out the cruelty of the fence that didn’t allow her to get at those bones!!!

On the way up this was playing in my ears.

By now, I’m tired of writing and you are tired of reading, so I’ll just let the pictures and videos tell the rest of the story.

For some reason I did a second summit vid. The thinking is that it would be shorter and easier to post.

We came down via the trail for the most part and reached the road which, on a Saturday morning, 3-day weekend, got kind of busy. The pups weren’t so good like I thought they would be at staying close… so an innovation was in need. I used my Adidas jacket as a leash and it worked quite dandy!!!

Cervidae, a good thing.