Riding Every Trail in the Boise Foothills
Over the last 5 seasons, I've taken part in a few of the organized trail challenges around Boise. They are a lot of fun, but I've also learned something about myself by attempting these big challenges.
Over the last 5 seasons, I've taken part in a few of the organized trail challenges around Boise. They are a lot of fun, and there's something very satisfying about checking off trails and watching the elevation and miles add up as you go. But I've also learned something about myself during my attempts to complete these big challenges.
The part I enjoy most has aways been the adventure.
It has never been leaderboard, or trying to squeeze hundreds of miles of riding into a few weeks time crunch. The part I enjoy is finding a trail I've never ridden before, or riding a familiar trail in the opposite direction, or ending up somewhere new and that feeling of making a new memory in a new place.
The time constraints of many trail challenges eventually started to feel more like a commitment to suffering than a commitment to adventure. Instead of looking forward to the rides, I found myself looking at calendar, and spreadsheets and wondering how I was going to fit everything in and still manage to have healthy family life too.
So this year I'm doing the trail challenge, but I'm doing it at my pace. My goal is simple: ride every trail in the Boise Foothills in 2026. I've got 6 months.
No rushing to beat a deadline, no leaderboard tracking my progress and no stress if I fail. Just a slow ride on all the trails in the treasure valley. I mean, really this is just a season-long excuse to explore more of the trail system that has given me so many great adventures over the years.
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Depending on how you count connectors, seasonal trails, and newly built trails, there are roughly 200 named trails in the system. I don't know exactly how many I'll end up riding, but I'm going to find out.
Some of these trails I've ridden dozens of times. Others I've somehow only rode once or twice. There are connectors I've skipped because they didn't loop well with my route. There are complete areas of the foothills I've ignored (Homestead), and I'm looking forward to exploring them.
I'll be sharing most of the progress over on Instagram as I work my way through the map, with occasional updates here on the website. I am using OnX trail maps to track my progress. The app shows me where I've ridden, so I don't need anything special to document this. Just go out and ride and the app does the work for me. But I do want to create a tracker to share here so I can update everyone on the progress of tails ridden.
If I finish or not isn't really the point. But I hope you'll join me exploring the treasure valley this season.
Forever Two Wheels!
-Myles
Some photos from the 2023 trail challenge. The last year that I participated in one of these trail challenge events.
2023 Trail Challenge ended with me putting myself in a dangerous situation for the second year in a row and it was time for me to call it.