Gabe Flicker was vacationing near Austin, Texas, when he had a chance encounter with a large group of cyclists that included many veterans with disabilities riding adaptive bikes.

Impressed by what he witnessed, Flicker, an amateur photographer and retired executive director of Grace Lutheran School in Pocatello, documented the event with his camera.

On April 22-23, Flicker will get his long-awaited opportunity to ride with the group, which will include about 350 able-bodied riders accompanying about 150 veteran cyclists with disabilities.

He’ll be a participant in the annual Face of America ride, which has moved from Texas and has been based in Washington, D.C., in recent years. The purpose of the ride is to raise funds to help veterans with disabilities participate in adaptive cycling.

Each able-bodied participant must raise at least $800 from sponsors to help veterans with disabilities, who come from throughout the country, cover hotels and transportation costs, as well as to fund their bike repairs or new adaptive cycling equipment.

“When you get down to the bottom line, it’s a way for cyclists to get together and raise money and help these adaptive cyclists who don’t necessarily have the resources to buy an adaptive bike,” Flicker said.

Flicker and his group will cover 112 miles over the course of two days, starting near the Pentagon, passing through Arlington National Cemetery and ending on the battlefields of Gettysburg.

“The adaptive athletes they like a challenge and these are veterans who cycle a lot,” Flicker said.

Flicker said the ride will double as a personal birthday activity. He’ll turn 70 two days after the ride.

Veterans with disabilities ranging from missing limbs to post traumatic stress disorder participate.

Flicker said the course is hilly and includes about 4,000 feet of elevation gain. It can be challenging for adaptive cyclists to climb steep hills. Flicker explained many of the veterans have push bars fitted on their bikes so the able-bodied riders can take turns giving them a helping hand on steeper climbs.

Flicker has already far exceed the minimum sponsorship goal, bringing in about $3,000. Visit http://engdr.co/32-10273 to make a contribution to Flicker’s ride.

INKOM — The schedule at Pebble Creek Ski Area will be packed with popular events during the final few weekends of the ski season.

On Saturday and Sunday, the 10 Barrel Beer Cat from 10 Barrel Brewing in Boise will be at the ski area selling beer and offering free swag.

The annual Cowboy Classic will be hosted starting at 1 p.m. Sunday. The event entails two tethers and a rider on barrel negotiating through gates and over bumps, with the rider hopping off the barrel at the end to rope a “steer.” Registration for the event is $30 per team and it is limited to 50 teams. Register in advance at the Pebble Creek office by noon on race day. Cash prizes will be awarded. The minimum age for tethers is 18 and barrel riders must be at least 16.

Starting at 2 p.m. on March 19, which is a Saturday, Pebble Creek will host its annual Monster Dummy Jump. Dummies mounted on skis or snowboards will cruise down the hill and launch from a massive jump, with points awarded to entries for big air, style, staying on course, staying intact and proximity to a landing target. The entrance fee is $15 per dummy. First place will receive $100. Prizes will also be awarded for second place, third place and the People’s Choice winner.

The Kings Pond Skim is scheduled for March 26, which is a Saturday. Participants are encouraged to wear a costume. The event entails skiing down to a pond between Skyline Lift and the lodge and attempting to skim across without sinking. There is no fee to enter but participants must have a wristband.

The last day of the season will be March 27, which is a Sunday. Best by Yesterday will provide live music on the deck, and drink and food specials will be available.

Pebble Creek is now offering season passes for next winter. People who buy a pass now may use it for the remainder of this season, as well. Pass prices will go up by 10 percent from last year’s rates, with the lowest rates offered through May 1. Through May 1, passes will be $423 for adults, $297 for children ages 6 to 12, $363 for youth ages 13 to 17, $363 for seniors ages 66 and older, and $1,589 for family passes. Passes may be purchased online or at the Pebble Creek office.

Dana Kmetz, Pebble Creek’s marketing and guest services manager, said the ski area started the season strong in late December with ample snowfall, but a dry January and February followed.

“Like all of the ski areas in the region, we really suffered from a lack of snow through February,” Kmetz said.

Kmetz said Pebble Creek will be able to remain open through the end of the season thanks to some snow in late February, as well as some recent snow. Furthermore, the weather has remained cold, enabling Pebble Creek to continue making snow.

Kmetz said skier visits for the season were slightly below average.

“As far as staffing wise, just like a lot of businesses in town and the ski industry as a whole, we really suffered from a lack of employees,” Kmetz added. “The group we have working for us really pulled through. We worked together as a team. Every department helped out every other department. It was pretty neat to see everyone come together like that.”

During the summer, Kmetz said Pebble will host its annual wildflower concert, and the lodge will be available to book for weddings and other events.

Seventh-grade teacher Diane Anderson started a skiing and snowboarding club at Franklin Middle School in 2009, at the urging of a former principal who wanted to reward students for good behavior, grades and attendance.

“I’m looking for something to do for our good kids because we spend so much time on our (challenging) kids,” former Principal Howard Peck, who died in 2010, told Anderson. “What do you think about doing something with skiing?”

Apparently, there are a lot of good kids at the Pocatello middle school, and Peck chose the right activity to appeal to his student body.

When the Franklin Snow Club made its first field trip of the year to go night skiing and snowboarding at Pebble Creek Ski Area in Inkom on Jan. 11, it took four buses to transport the roughly 140 children.

Anderson said the club, which started with 30 to 40 members, now boasts 225 participants. The club makes four Friday night field trips throughout the season and one trip for all-day skiing and snowboarding during a school records day, when classes aren’t in session.

“It gives kids a safe thing to do on Friday nights, gets them away from electronics and forces them to communicate with friends,” Anderson said. “I think that’s huge in our generation of kids coming through right now.”

Dana Crist, winter sports school programs director at Pebble Creek, said William Thomas Middle School in American Falls and Firth Middle School also have long-established ski clubs, and Highland High School has a new ski club. In addition to the clubs, Pebble Creek hosts local schools that take field trips during school days after Christmas break.

“We have schools basically five days a week from then into mid-March,” Crist said, adding that all Pocatello-Chubbuck School District 25 middle schools participate in field trips at Pebble Creek.

Pebble Creek offers students a discounted rate for lift tickets and rentals. Lessons are also offered for Franklin Snow Club members.

Ann Swanson said her son Kevin joined the Franklin club after some of his friends signed up. This is his first season of skiing, and Swanson, who isn’t an avid skier, said the lessons have been invaluable.

“It’s given him the opportunity to get on that hill with some lessons without me having to drive him up and show him how to do it myself,” Swanson said. “I’m grateful for the program because it’s an easy way to get kids to experience skiing for the first time without a lot of extra hurt on the parents.”

Classmates Eo’in O’Doherty and Jacob Shroll are both accomplished at winter sports and have season passes to Pebble Creek. But they also look forward to the camaraderie of participating in the club — even though only the beginner lift runs at night.

“It’s pretty hyped up at our school. We talk about it a lot, and the teachers encourage us to do it,” O’Doherty said. “It’s pushed a lot of kids to come out here and ski.”

Shroll appreciates the ride, providing him bonus skiing time, and he’s seen friends improve significantly after they complete lessons.

“I’ve met a lot more who ski doing the ski club,” Shroll said.

Other Franklin teachers have helped Anderson as chaperones. She’s required to have one teacher per bus. Anderson believes the students benefit from the opportunity to participate in an activity away from school and independent of their parents.

She says many students discover a love for a lifetime sport through the club. Most importantly, she said the club motivates students to come to class, study a bit harder and maintain a positive attitude. Franklin excludes students from club events if they misbehave, skip classes or don’t achieve passing grades.

“I think it does kind of get them to toe the line a little bit,” Anderson said.

Franklin club members pay a fee at the start of the program covering transportation, the cost of a club T-shirt and skiing or snowboarding expenses. Anderson said the club uses any extra funds to buy hot chocolate or other treats for the group during ski trips, or to cover expenses for students who couldn’t otherwise afford to participate.

Leaders in Idaho and Oregon have reportedly settled an endangered species dispute with major financial ramifications for both Idaho Power rates payers and Idaho irrigators.

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality had proposed reintroducing endangered steelhead trout and salmon into Pine Creek, which originates in Oregon but flows into Hells Canyon Reservoir in Idaho, as a condition of re-licensing Idaho Power Co.’s Brownlee, Oxbow and Hells Canyon dams.

Idaho leaders vociferously opposed Oregon’s plan, concerned that regulations governing a re-introduced endangered species would substantially increase the cost of producing power and irrigating crops.

The dams, which are located on the Snake River near the Idaho and Oregon border, were built from the mid-1950s through 1967 and have blocked a historic spawning route for steelhead and Chinook salmon originating from the ocean.

Oregon’s draft Clean Water Act certification to re-license the operation would have required Idaho Power to trap the endangered anadromous fish upstream of the dam and release them downstream, enabling them to reach the Pacific Ocean to complete a stage of their life cycle.

Terms of the recent settlement, announced Friday, would allow stocking of Pine Creek only with hatchery-raised spring Chinook salmon and steelhead, resulting in no new Endangered Species Act requirements in Idaho. Idaho Power has agreed to spend $20 million throughout the next 20 years to research obstacles that may hinder the ability of the hatchery-raised fish to establish a self-sustaining population using Pine Creek.

The settlement doesn’t call for the reintroduction of any endangered fish during the 20-year research period. The states will reconsider the issue based on the study findings upon completion of the research, which will be done by Idaho Power scientists in conjunction with the DEQs of both states.

The settlement funds would also help Idaho Power increase salmon production at its Rapid Creek hatchery by 800,000 fish and support water-quality improvements, working in partnership with willing landowners within the Malheur and Owyhee river drainages, which flow into Brownlee Resrevoir.

“I can say unequivocally that it’s great to have that issue behind us,” said Idaho House Speaker Scott Bedke, R-Twin Falls. “It gives us stability for a major part of our economy going forward. Water and its use are the lifeblood of the state of Idaho, particularly in Southern Idaho, and our economy is built around the Snake River and our ability to use that.”

Oregon DEQ officials are also pleased by the settlement. Oregon DEQ spokesman Donnie Oliveira said language in the settlement calls for roughly 100 miles of habitat improvements to reaches of more than 20 rivers and creeks in Idaho and Oregon.

“We think this is going to advance a long-overdue certification process for the complex, and we think this will result in significant water-quality improvements for Oregon,” Oliveira said.

The three dams produce about 70 percent of Idaho Power’s hydro-electricity. The company has operated the dams on annual licenses ever since 2005, when the original federal license to operate the dams expired.

Brett Dumas, director of environmental affairs with Idaho Power, said the investments required under the settlement won’t be made until the dams have been issued a new license by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. He expects the new license to be issued by no earlier than 2022.

Both state DEQs should issue final certifications by June 2019, after reviewing feedback from the public. FERC will re-evaluate a final environmental impact statement it issued in 2007 for the dam license. Endangered Species Act evaluations and biological opinions must also be submitted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, governing bull trout, and NOAA Fisheries, regarding steelhead and salmon.

Dumas said there are already hatchery steelhead and salmon in the Snake River upstream of Hells Canyon Dam, but researchers haven’t studied the ability of the fish to survive and reproduce in current conditions.

POCATELLO — Officials with a local land trust say they hope to use revenue from phosphate mining and hydro-electric power generation to prevent development of important regional wildlife habitat.

The Sagebrush Steppe Land Trust works to preserve key habitat throughout Southeast Idaho’s seven counties, mostly by purchasing development rights of farm and ranch land from willing owners, explained Matt Lucia, who became the nonprofit’s executive director in February 2017.

The land trust has long been a beneficiary of funding provided by PacifiCorp, in compliance with a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission re-licensing settlement requiring the company to mitigate for its Bear River Dam operations through 2033.

Lucia said the land trust has applications pending with the committee that allocates PacifiCorp’s funding, seeking to buy development rights of two agricultural parcels along a major Bear River tributary, Mink Creek.

The Pocatello-based land trust is also poised to apply for some of the $1.2 million earmarked last fall by the former Agrium agricultural company for conservation projects, Lucia said. The land trust has a couple of projects in mind that would involve securing protective easements and hiring a contractor to make wildlife enhancements on habitat within the so-called phosphate patch.

Lucia explained Agrium, now operating as Itafos, voluntarily agreed to offer the funds as a means of offsetting environmental impacts of its new Rasmussen Valley Mine near the headwaters of the Blackfoot River. Lucia said a Habitat Improvement Team composed of state, tribal and federal resource managers will accept proposals for consideration from October through mid-December.

The land trust was tasked by the committee with recruiting other entities to apply for the Agrium funds and building a website with information regarding the application process.

“It’s going to be competitive, and the committee that will select projects hopes to receive applications from a variety of agencies and organizations and will focus on habitat restoration and enhancement,” Lucia said.

Jon Goode, manager of special projects at the Itafos Conda site, said his company’s desire is for the chosen projects to be as close as possible to the new mine, though Itafos doesn’t serve on the selection committee.

“I believe there’s a lot of opportunities for wildlife enhancement in that area,” Goode said.

Goode said his company started mining ore from the new mine early this year. He said the company also made a cash payment of approximately $500,000 to the Idaho Department of Fish and Game to make wildlife enhancements within the Blackfoot Wildlife Management Area it operates in the mining area.

The Bureau of Land Management encouraged such off-site mitigation projects under the Obama administration. Off-site mitigation isn’t a consideration under the agency’s current policy.

Nonetheless, Jeff Cundick, minerals branch chief with the BLM in Pocatello, believes offering conservation funding is a “phenomenal way wildlife may benefit from phosphate mining.”

“We were able to look in our environmental impact statement to show basically when you calculate everything Agrium put together, there was going to be no residual effect to wildlife habitat,” Cundick said.

Lucia admits he’s “wrestled” with the idea of accepting money from extractive industries. But he reasons mines and dams will continue operating, and it’s in everyone’s best interests to help them offset their effects on the environment.

“I know there are critics,” Lucia said.

Regarding the planned Mink Creek projects along the Bear River, Lucia said one parcel encompasses 500 acres, and the farmer and rancher who owns the land has expressed a willingness to also participate in wildlife enhancement work. He said it’s too early to offer details of the second parcel.

“Both properties have tremendous conservation value for fish and wildlife, particularly Bonneville cutthroat trout,” Lucia said.

The land trust received its nonprofit status in 2004. It currently holds 25 conservation easements and owns three properties outright, protecting a total of 5,500 acres from development. Lucia said 18 of those easements are located along the Bear River, where PacifiCorps settlement dollars may be invested.

The land trust updated its strategic plan at the start of this year, emphasizing the need to branch out from the Bear River corridor into a broader area. Lucia said the plan sets specific goals for individual service areas, based on watersheds. He said the land trust has eight projects currently in the works throughout the seven counties.

Partnerships with other nonprofits and governmental entities are vital to the land trust’s success, Lucia said. He said the land trust completed the first phase of a major project in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service, USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Governor’s Office of Species Conservation and the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, which restored a channelized stretch of Deep Creek through the Curlew National Grassland near Malad.

Work on the second phase of the project — which will restore a lengthy channelized stretch of Rock Creek, thereby bringing back “natural processes” in the adjacent floodplain — will commence within a couple of weeks within the Curlew.

The land trust has scheduled a 6-mile hike to showcase one of its conservation easements, located within Oneida Canyon. Participants will gather at 7:45 a.m. Saturday at the land trust office in Pocatello, 109 N. Arthur Ave., Suite 300. The group will leave at 8 a.m. and return at 5 p.m.

POCATELLO — Brennen Dye thought about playing football at Pocatello High School, but ultimately decided he was undersized.

Sydnie George was “devastated” when she was cut from Highland High School’s freshman volleyball team.

Today, they’re both seniors, thriving as athletes in a relatively new, but rapidly growing, youth team sport in Idaho: mountain biking.

They race along with students from five area middle schools and five area high schools as members of the Pocatello Pioneers. It’s a team in which nobody gets cut and every athlete can claim victories measured in personal growth.

Dye, a boys’ captain, has become one of just a dozen elite riders in Idaho who race in the varsity class. He routinely stands atop the podium during post-race medal ceremonies. And George, now a girls’ captain, has found her path to personal achievement on the trails, rather than the volleyball court.

“I can tell you, I was the slowest of the slow, the worst of the worst,” George recalled. “But I have come to love it, and it has taught me so much more than I know I could ever learn playing volleyball about hard work, dedication and about myself.”

The Pioneers compete in the National Interscholastic Cycling Association.

The club team isn’t affiliated with any school district, though organizers recruit talent during local schools’ fall sports assemblies.

For trail users who encounter the Pioneers on practice days — at least before the team divides into smaller groups — yielding to the passing riders can be like waiting on a freight train.

The team has grown from just 13 students during its first season five years ago to 75 current athletes. The Pioneers are no longer allowed to compete as a single team, and must now register racers based on their schools.

Coaches have been especially pleased by recent growth in the number of girls donning the lime-green Pioneers’ jersey.

“When I joined the team, I raced against one girl,” recalled Kobae Dye, a Pocatello High School freshman who joined while in middle school. “Nowadays, I race against like 30 people.”

Victoria Horrocks, a Century High School sophomore in her first season with the Pioneers, appreciates that her teammates have made her feel included. She also loves race days and “just coming to the finish line and feeling so accomplished.”

Practice rides, usually hosted in the City Creek or Mink Creek areas, can range from 5 to 17 miles. Many of the high school girls look forward to the practices as much for the social outlet as for the physical training.

“It really is like therapy,” said Erica Gardner, a Highland junior. “You just come out and ride with your friends and talk to them and have fun.”

Bob Walker, a competitive road cyclist from Pocatello, proposed establishing the Pioneers after he discovered a youth mountain biking league in Utah while cycling there. Walker and Barrie Hunt, owner of Barrie’s Ski & Sports in Pocatello, put up the seed money to buy jerseys and cover the team’s gas. Dan VanWasshenova, the founding head coach, would drive a bus transporting the original 13 athletes to races in Utah, and Troy Gardner, who is still a Pioneers’ coach, would haul the kids’ mountain bikes in a trailer.

Idaho Falls fielded a team for the Utah league during that same season, in the fall of 2013. Several other Idaho cities have since started teams, enabling the Pioneers to compete in state.

“I think this team has added so much,” Gardner said. “All of these kids wouldn’t have anything to do in high school if it wasn’t for this.”

Teams in Wyoming and Montana have joined the Idaho league, though Montana plans to start its own league next season. Idaho currently has five racing sites — in Twin Falls, Sun Valley, McCall, Boise and Driggs.

Pioneers’ head coach Jordon Marshall said about 650 racers competed in the most recent Idaho competitions, hosted in Driggs and Sun Valley. The Pioneers plan to build a race course in Pocatello, on Bureau of Land Management ground above the Satterfield neighborhood on the east bench. Marshall said the course could be open for races within the next few years and would have a significant economic impact on the community, as races would draw hundreds of athletes and their friends and family members.

Marshall, an emergency room doctor with Portneuf Medical Center, said the Pioneers host an event each April in which students can borrow bikes and see how they like mountain biking, without an obligation to register for the team. Trek Bikes lends mountain bikes to Idaho league members who can’t afford their own equipment.

Local sponsors such as Phil Meador Subaru, Sand Trap Grill and Barrie’s Ski & Sports also support the team.

“You had a lot of kids who love being outdoors and riding bikes, and they needed their own niche, their own community,” Marshall said. “Not everybody loves ball sports and running cross country.”