Roadtrip Numero Two – Southern Idaho (with pictures!)

[discRabbit]

Just got back from another really fun roadtrip this spring – this time with my DGCR partner in crime, Sillybizz. Unlike the last daytrip to British Columbia I reported on, this one was an all-out long weekend of playing new courses!

We started out from Seattle late night on Thursday planning to make it to Boise by sunup and hit the ground running on Friday. After packing up, printing out our DGCR directions/maps, and readying first mate SuperPretzel, we hit the road at around 9pm.

First mate and Frisbee dog extraordinaire, SuperPretzel:

We were making great time right from the very start with little to no traffic late into the night – this was a good thing because the drive would last, in total, around 9 hours. After passing through Pendleton, Oregon, we hit a major snag – snow…

The section from Pendleton to nearby La Grande passes over the Wallowa Mountain Range on the relatively small route 30. Only a few miles into this section of the drive we were hitting pretty strong snow which wasn't in the forecast at all. Until halfway through we were able to sit back behind a snow plow but it turned off leaving us nearly 20 miles of driving left. At several sections, I thought we were going to be spending the night on the shoulder of the road, but somehow we managed to slowly make it through the passes and back down to the flat lands in La Grande. After that, the snow kept coming but at least it wasn't sticking.

A few driver changes later and the sun began to creep up over the expansive Idaho horizon. At around 6am, we hit our first course of the trip, New Plymouth DGC. The houses and town this course is in is pretty shady and the course pretty much matches that – we had four unleashed, outside dogs come up and hassle SuperPretzel during the round. I had to hold him up in the air while avoiding the dogs. This was one of the few '0' ratings that I've ever given and Thomas (Sillybizz) matched my '0'.

Not cool, New Plymouth, not cool:

While finishing up here, we decided that it is really a great way to start a trip with such a junky course – you get a bunch of laughs, warm up a bit, save the good golf for warmer temps in the afternoon, and you know that the golf only gets better from here!

Next up was West Park in Nampa, ID. This course was quite a bit better, although not great – but would be a relaxing stroll through a nice park if it wasn't for the Friday morning conditions. When we played, it was just below freezing, with light snow and driving, biting wind. My fingers were freezing the second I pulled my gloves off and putting was pretty much non-existent. On a side note, Thomas started one of the two themes of this trip by losing a buzzz on one of the two water shots

Snow plastered to the sides of trees at West Park:

Osborne Park is right nearby and also a fairly fun community park. After walking past some really spooky folks staring out of their window at us, we played through the course which includes pretty average holes and one amazing par 4 hole in the back:

 

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Eagle Island State Park was the first quality course of the trip and reminded me a lot of some of the 'nicer' courses back in Illinois – lots of marshes, birds chirping, and of course, old school DGA signs on each hole.

Tom and some awesome clouds at Eagle Island:

Next up, we played the courses at Ann Morrison Park. There are two, 20 hole courses listed at this park but only one of them is in the ground at any given time depending on the season (summer/winter). These courses are a bit too open for my taste but had several pretty stunning water holes, which offered safety and more aggressive routes. SuperPretzel began the second theme of this trip by snapping up every bit of goose poop that he could find (yes, he is one of 'those' dogs) and yes, of course, Thomas ended up putting one in the drink here too

Pretty tree colors on the Winter side of Ann Morrison:

Our final course of the day was the beautiful urban city park at Julia Davis. This park is also a seasonal course and is only playable in the winter – likely because it gets oodles of pedestrians in the summer months. Even though it was like 45 degrees out AND sunny, we got hailed/snowed on for the sixth course in a row! Even so, this course is terribly fun, although very short, and made a great end to our looong day. We fared better here – Sir Thomas protected his discs from the water, Pretzel munched more goose crap, and I got my first ace in Idaho and first SuperClass ace!

After finishing up for the day, we hit the hotel room for a much needed nap and then headed out to get a nice dinner and plan for tomorrow's courses.

Spring goslings at Julia Davis:

 

[discRabbit]

DAY 2

We were up and ready to make the most of our Saturday, hitting Eastman Park bright and early. This course was also very short but is very well kept in a quiet little town and has a lot of nice trees. I tossed SuperClass against Thomas's Buzzz/Challenger combo – not sure what the score ended up as but we both agreed that this was a pretty fun play.

We called this one the 'Tank Hole' for obvious reasons:

Another morning 'ticker' to get us warmed up was the O'Leary Jr High course. This course was nearly wide open but had a couple of fun holes including one that played around a hammer/shotput fence and one that played right down a track and field triple jump – I of course, had to showoff my perfect triple jump putt form but ended up missing high and left :doh:

Another hilarious feature of this course were the record ultra small teepads – you've got to really set your run-up steps to avoid the foot fault!

The weather was looking decidedly better and we were nearly ready to take off the coats. The golf was about to heat up too as we pulled into Rock Creek Park. All I can say about this course is that it is one of those epic adventure courses I dream about. It isn't terribly challenging but you play up and down a steep, narrow rock-walled canyon that is out of this world beautiful. Several baskets are set on or along the rock walls and, on one hole, the best strategy that Tom and I could figure out was to bounce a hyzer off the rock wall and drop it onto the basket below – freaking sweet hole! Finally, among the rock walls live a massive population of tiny marmots that make alarm whistles as you progress around the course. These things were making high pitched chirps everywhere and scurrying up to their protected rock caves from the grassy fairways below. Pretzel found that along with marmots comes marmot crap, an even more delectable treat than yesterday's goose glop. Tom fulfilled theme number two by turning over a buzzz a bit too much into the winter runoff enhanced creek. Although the best course was yet to come, this was without a doubt the highlight of my trip.

Yup, this one is going to be good:

 

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Is that the pin?:

Bouncing off the rock wall…on purpose!:

Up, up, up:

Elevated jump putt:

Last one I swear:

 

[discRabbit]

After a short rest, we hit up the 3.5+ rated College of Southern Idaho course. It plays over rolling green grass with a fast, cold creek splitting the front and back halves of the course. We both found this course to be nice but, overall, it didn't live up to our expectations – it just lacks the technical challenge I like to see and had a couple of very strange choices for basket positions. After yesterday's snow, we were surprisingly feeling the burn of the midday sun and even switched it up to shorts/tee shirts by the end of this round.

Cute putter shot at CSI:

Lake Walcott is another absolutely gorgeous county park which has a great mix of bomber and semi-technical shorter holes. Plenty of dual fairways, shot variety, and multiple pin placements would make this an excellent home course, but in the end, IMO it didn't really live up to the 4.15 rating it is currently getting. Thomas nearly aced hole nine with a perfect gliding Predator hyzer which ended up just an inch too low, slamming into the side of the cage.

Trees are still a bit bare at Lake Walcott:

 

[discRabbit]

The sun was getting low so we skipped a couple of courses along our route and opted for the highly rated Bengal Ridge course in Pocatello, Idaho. After being a bit disappointed by the last two courses, this course really made my jaw drop. Bengal Ridge plays over steep hills and a subalpine forest with short evergreen trees dotting most of the course – add in the awesome views of the Bannock Mountain range to the east for one of the most gorgeous courses I've ever played. This course requires serious power and punishes errant drives with huge elevation drop-offs. At over 5000', you really start to feel the elevation when pushing up and down the steep hills. We both had some great and not so great holes but the highlight had to be Thomas's perfect birdie '3' on the finishing hole 18. Opting to play a bit safer, he hit the landing zone high on the hill and then floated a buzzz to within 20'. Meanwhile, I tried for the hyperaggresive route and paid dearly for it after hyzering off down the hill. SuperPretzel found his last gourmet treat out here in the form of some soft deer pellets 

Peek-a-boo:

Hole 11 – Basket to tee below:

Paradise:

The sun was setting but we had one more course to go, Upper Ross Park, just a mile or so to the south. Another great finishing course, this relatively short niner plays though a well manicured grassy park and has a lot of fun shots. One of the coolest aspects is the use of concreted locks which fasten to portable DisCatchers – this system allows the designers to change hole positions to one of two concrete platforms OR to move holes ANYWHERE on the course for safari or tournaments - Very cool idea guys!

After getting some dinner we drove back to Boise so we'd have a head start on our final day.


Permanent/Portable Pins:

 

[discRabbit]

Day 3 - Final day!

Sunday was a day to tie up some loose ends and meet up with SheilaT who was in Walla Walla playing in the Aloha Sushi Classic B-tier tournament. In the morning we played in La Grande at the Eastern Oregon University course. The course is so-so at best but the town of La Grande itself is awesome and seems to be thriving with the nearby college and lots of healthy local businesses in the downtown area.

Fun, but uber easy EOU:

While I'd already played the front, we stopped next at Pendleton DGC to play the updated course, which unmercifully, has added another 9 holes high up on an open hill. Pendleton is a much better noob course than anything else but with the new nine, it tries, unsuccessfully to break into real course territory. Although I enjoyed it somewhat the first time through, I strongly suspect I won't be back anytime soon.

We hit Walla Walla in the early afternoon, just in time to watch some of the exhibition cash skins match featuring the top four pros. We also had the chance to play the alternate temp course venue set up as a complement to the regular Fort WW course. We met up with SheilaT and two other friends who decided to join us in trying out the brand new Jenda Jones course in town. We had no idea what to expect here with no reviews yet added. Sillybizz's review put it best – "Open Field DGC" There isn't anything to get excited about at this one, but we still had fun times finishing our trip in the company of good friends.

Another fun disc golf adventure in the books and plenty of memorable courses along the way!

 

[snappyfingers]

 

[wolito]

What a cool thing you posted. A neat summary of your whole trip. The pictures were great and nice commentary.

 

[drkstr]

ahhhh man.....you guys have all the fun :thmbup:
Thanks for the great run down of your trip.
You should top the adventure off with a trip up to Lake Stevens today for Doubles ~ 6:00 start ~ and we can trade Travel Tags :hfive:

 

[discRabbit]

Oh man, that would be awesome Don - I really do need to pass this tag off, its getting too many courses to list - unfortunately can't get out of work early enough!

 

[sillybizz]

Why is every single picture of me with my butt hanging out? Thank you Andrew, awesome trip report!

 

[Martin Dewgarita]

Awesome Thanks for sharing, many of those courses look familiar and maybe some I'll hit later this summer, lots of good pictures there. I always enjoy hearing about others trips