There has been a continual flow of cyclists almost from the beginning of the Great Divide route. The frequency of seeing them seems to have increased in the last week to the point that I’ve finally lost count. What is most surprising is the number of cycle tourers travel the opposite direction. Every time I come down a long downhill or get a generous boost from a westerly wind I say to myself, “Sure glad I’m not going the other direction”.

These two bikes belong to a Basque couple traveling north and represent just about the maximum you can put on a touring bike, outside of China.

Not sure if you can read the notice posted on a Forest Service roadside board, so I’ll interpret: Grizzly trapping during 6/20 and 8/19. Everywhere we’ve camped and traveled the warnings about storing food away from your camp are everywhere, with many official campgrounds providing bear boxes and even one site two days ago had a horse trailer set up as a bear proof storage cage. I rolled my bike right inside so I didn’t have to unload the food stashed in the frame packs,

Much of the last several days route has been in high plains of
the continental divide. Unfenced prairie that rolls and undulates on and on, with the Tetons or Wind River ranges as a backdrop.

There has also been a number of CDT thru hikers that I’ve come across, as the two routes converge quite often in this region. Not sure a six month trek is in my cards.

When you ride longer every day it’s hard to find time to blog. Plus there’s been some sections with A paucity of Internet connections.

I’ll just include a couple of photos from the road for example my last nights camping spot along a creek. Still a lot of warnings about grizzly bears so I have to hang my food every night here’s a photo of the food bag hanging in a tree 25 feet up.

Just now passing into the Teton national Park area which is spectacular and Jackson lake is also beautiful

Just read this blog item which shames my blog :
One more follow-up regarding the connection between clear thinking and clear writing: Orwell’s famous essay, Politics and the English Language:

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly? But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you — even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent — and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself. It is at this point that the special connection between politics and the debasement of language becomes clear.

Don’s enroute to California, his wife Jann came to help him.

Lots more climbing and big sky vistas now that the smoke has cleared. Finally catching up to other riders in Wise River. 2 Dutch, 2 from Florida and supposedly 6 more just ahead. [BREAK: lost wifi at the biker bar where I started this day’s blog.]

I caught up with a clot of riders at the big joe campground along the scenic byways between Wise River and the town at the end of my second map (6 maps total). There were seven riders in the campground plus myself, among them two more retired fellows from Fort Collins riding together, a solo retired man from Dallas (who has done Rawlins to Del Norte before) and a solo fellow in his forties who was the lightest of them and I forgot to ask his home town.

The ride out of Wise River is on one of Montana’s Scenic Byways and, if you discount the head winds in the earliest open valleys, is quiet spectacular. After the first 8 or 10 miles there was maybe one car every half hour on this late Sunday afternoon.

Of the eight riders there were five different camp stoves in use. One canister, one Jet Boil, one MSR white gas, another I couldn’t recognize, and my Caldera. The Dutch boys ate ramen, canned green beans and Tuna, the Forida guys Ramen and canned meat, and the rest all had their Mountain House foil backpacking meals. I wonder how many foil packages they travel with? I had a Knorr rice and chicken pack ($2 in Wise River, $1 in City Market at home).

Don just text messaged me that he took a 20+ MPH fall and broke 7 ribs and separated one end of his clavicle from the sternum. After a careful ride downhill from the Divide, he hit loose gravel in a bad washboard and lost control.  He thinks all the smoke in the air caused congestion which exacerbates his Meniere’s disease, which affects his balance.   He’s in Helena and his wife Jann is flying in to help him.  They should be flying home Sunday, where Don will be evaluated to determine if surgery is necessary or not to repair the clavicle.

Real sorry to get the news, I was looking forward to hooking back up and finishing the ride together.

Not a good start for a 65-mile three-pass day, when you don’t realize you’ve camped past the turn off for the next leg of the route. Using false logic and no help from the considerable resources, I turned left out of the high school football field I’d been invited to pitch my tent in, and started looking for the first crossroad mentioned on the map. After 4 miles I was suspicious and at the six-mile curve that turned north convinced I’d missed the road described. About half way back I realized it could have been something I passed the day before, prior to the hosted camping. Oh well, a 12-mile warmup on a cool morning.

Backing up a bit, we’d caught up with the ACA touring cyclists (mentioned in the prior blog post), and they offered once again to let us camp with them in Lincoln if we planned to stay there as well. Don and I hadn’t been committing to any daily destinations, primarily because we’d had a number of diversions that slowed our progress already. (Ends up Don did have still more problems – bent derailleur hanger again [from a single track fall] and a loose cassette.)

Anyway, we camped at the high school football field and enjoyed all the amenities the group did this time, including hot showers in the locker room (didn’t remember the nozzles were so low) and even better the farewell BBQ. The intentionally-delayed dessert after the evening debriefing was Bananas Foster with all the trimmings. I made more trips back to the table than I’ll put in print. “Plenty”connotes plural doesn’t it?

Don was uncertain how to tackle the next portion of the route (3 passes and almost 4,000′ climbing in 67 miles) so we agreed that he’d get himself to Helena in an easier or more leisurely fashion and I’d carry on. He’s hoping to shuttle himself down route and meet up again after he’s recovered, the bike is dependable and maybe even a new pair of riding shorts.

Photos for this leg of the trip are all masked with fairly dense smoke-filled skies. Lovely vistas and greenery just hazy from all the forest fires to the west.

According to those that know the Great Divide route there is only about 10% single track and today we got treated to 1% of that 10. It must be some of the more spectacular because the adventure cycling Association chose this portion of the trail for one of their supported trips. ACA GD Montana

The climb to get there was 1500 feet in 5 miles. Views were spectacular and the trailer was pretty narrow and exposed in a few spots. Don says, “it was overgrown for many miles”. Downhill was fast and furious, not allowing for sightseeing unless you stopped to look.

We came into Sealy Lake where the ACA was camped in the local campground. Kind of overwhelmed the campground single stall male female restrooms were crowded with 38 riders and 10 support to say the least. There are also two thru-riders totally overloaded on heavy bikes. Since I am mentioning other riders we met with three northbound riders from Tennessee just about to complete their tour. All young guys who have carpetbags for a front handlebar bag.

Riding thru ranch lands south of Columbia Falls the distinctive aroma of Dill led me to notice almost a section of land behind split rail fence was entirely dill. As this was horse country, with every spread featuring corrals, stalls and hay stacks it seemed incongruous. It set me to thinking, ” do horses eat dill?” I doubt it, but it was a pleasant surprise.

Don’s rear tire was still losing air even with a new tire installed just the day before. Fortunately there was a bike shop only five miles off route half-way thru the days ride so we stopped in Big Foot for a fix. Unfortunately the sealant was on a. UPS truck due in by 3pm, hopefully. We took a real leisurely late breakfast and hung out until the delivery which came in early at 2pm.

On a long downhill high above a lake we were pretty surprised to come across an eight inch turtle smack in the middle of the gravel road. After watching him for a short spell we placed him on the down slope hoping he wouldn’t be road kill.

It was hard to start out once again in the mid afternoon especially when the route involved most the days climbing remaining. We opted for an off route campground near Swan River that was more swamp than campsite. At best you’d call it abandoned, however there was already a Canadian couple with there tent set-up next to the only broken picnic table. We asked to share the site, pitching our tents in the gravel driveway. Before long still one more couple cycled in and we had five tents clustered around.

Bugs and Mosquitos were the best redeeming factor of that site.

Not a zero today but two digit day with a zero after it and only a one in front. Between bike repairs, catching up on blogging, sleeping in, shopping and a rainstorm we didn’t get very far. We’re calling it a rest and recovery day.

Yesterday Don had to pump his rear tire up about four or five times and this morning we woke up tire was entirely flat and couldn’t get the tire to seal on the rim. We tried to seal the rim on the local picnic table but that didn’t work and so he walked a mile and a bit to the bike shop where they put it on the rack and determined that he needed a new tire.  And it was time to restore the supplies so we spent quite a bit of time in the local Safeway trying to figure out what we could fit on the bike, have high calories and protein and tasty at the same time.

We weren’t the only ones getting reorganized and recovering. Our local Commonwealth friends spent quite a bit of time in Whitefish as well. We found them on the corner lawn going thru all their gear. They said they sent a combined 20 pounds home. Young folks from Washington State sent home 15 pounds from their Bob trailers.

In early afternoon we found ourselves in Columbia Falls, Montana. Yes, only 10 miles down the road, where it started raining. After waiting over a hour for it to stop, Don found an Air BnB for a reasonable price and checked us in. Bunks tonight.

Tough day yesterday, lots of climbing, lots of dust on the road. Not to mention heat was probably somewhere between 99 and 100 and we’re only at about 4000 feet. We did manage 60 miles, actually 62 miles, yesterday but today we got 60 miles of them off the map.

It was hard not to jump into this lake at the top half called Red Meadow Lake, we still had 22 miles down into Whitefish, Montana. Whitefish is evidently a recreation town of less than 10,000. Lots of trophy homes along the lake and very small downtown area. We found a restaurant specializing in pork before we even looked for a place to lie down. Grilled pork salad went down with 3 16-ounce tumblers of water.

The hardest part of the day is gone climbing is riding with a semi-flat tire. A slow grind, it had to be pumped four times in 60 miles. Don says, “should’ve been 10 times”. He tried fixing it once we got to town on a picnic table, no joy. Now it’s on the bike stand shown above.

Feeling good and with high mileage expectations we headed out to Whitefish, Montana, as our Great Divide map says, “not by the most expeditious route.” If you discount Don’s brakes not working right out of the campground (a consequence of laying the bike over next to the tent in a downtown park), we had a great ride south out of Eureka. A beautiful slight uphill ride into the mountains on a newly paved one lane road, added to the delight. It wasn’t until we couldn’t make the map match the sparse road signs that we even sensed a problem. We’d been leapfrogging back and forth with the Commonwealth boys, and when they were stopped at a remote intersection none of us could suss out which fork to take. After 20 minutes of debate I flagged down the only truck who quickly said, “You aren’t the first ones to miss the turn 10 miles back. Let me show you where you are. That ridge line is the Canadian border.”

Incredulity turned to resignation and the error turned out to be 14 miles one-way of gravel uphill climbing, 28 miles total. The right turn we missed was still on that new-minted macadam. Turns out the two-track we’d missed was the bane of all the racers three weeks earlier. Avalanche chute after avalanche chute left debris we had to stoop under and climb over. One run of debris was over two football fields’ long and we had to side-hill more than 100′ feet above the last detritus of downed trees and rubble.

The “glorious downhill” section proffered in the map text was a very tired run down to a primitive campground. We got the mileage we’d anticipated, just not the distance. Only good thing to be said is we didn’t climb that mountain and thru the avalanche debris in the rain and cold temps the racers experienced.

It was anti-climactic crossing back into the US, as it should be. I wasn’t sure if we’d be treated to a TSA screening or not, but it was fast and easy and they weren’t surprised to see cyclists coming thru this checkpoint. We’ve seen about ten GD tourers so far, with three going north bound and seven following the same course as us. We’ve met Buck and Bob from California. Buck was on a custom Pugsley Surley with a German 14-speed internal rear hub with it’s 4″ fat tires. Jenny and Josh from Washington were towing Bob trailers, and there were three commonwealth boys from NZ, AUS and Canada.

The most interesting rider we met so far was Jill from Denver who had just finished her 27-day ride northbound from Mexico. She’s done numerous bikepacking races, twice on the Colorado Trail in five days, the Arizona 750 twice and now the GD in 27. Not bad for only taking up mountain biking in the last 3 years. She was gracious enough to answer my countless questions about gear, food, sleeping and nutrition.

Normally a vegan, Jill practices what Don and I have agreed on, “What happens (what you eat) on the Tour, stays on the Tour.” The best thing I learned, we asked, “I heard you racers can be in your sleeping bags within 10 minutes of stopping to rest, how do you do it?” She showed me her sleeping rig: a tent with the NeoLite air mattress and Mont Bell 30-degree SS 3 tucked inside. She rolls the entire thing up and stuffs it in her front handlebar pack. As of this morning, my tent, pad and sleeping bag are rolled up just like hers.

Very nice feature the town of Eureka offers is a 2-acre public park in the center of town that allows overnight tent camping. The Commonwealth boys, Don and I plus Jill on her trip back to Denver stayed in this park. It even has a shower, albeit a cold one. Weather report for next two days is 98 and 100.

The Canadian Rockies are spectacular. We’ve always been told, while living in Silverton, that the San Juans are really beautiful but second to the mountains around Banff. It would be hard for me to put Banff in first place but I’m sure I’m not an impartial judge. The highway up here does get you a closer and longer look at the Rockies above tree line, and the forests surrounding them are pristine and beautiful. It’s just hard to say.

We’ve travelled shorter daily distances than I’d imagined, but that’s a good thing for several reasons. My riding partner, Don, spent the month before the ride rowing lots of whitewater and not biking; he had to configure all his gear bags, several of which I delivered to the trailhead. And most importantly, the last time I tried to knock off miles on the Great Divide, I DNF’ed the route due to saddle sores. So this time, with a different saddle (Brooks, which they say takes 500-1,000 miles to break-in and I’ve only got 750 miles on it), it’s probably prudent to take it easier. And lastly, I asked a northbound Rider who was about to finish in 30 days, “What would you do differently?”  His answer was, “I would take more time.”

The second night we made it to a trail-side old cabin that is posted as “User Maintained.” It was nice not to have to get the tents out and we stopped early enough to do wash and sponge ourselves off with very chilly creek water.

Most of the riding has been on old forest service roads, some power line access tracks, primitive campground access roads, a delightful old logging road around a very long lake, and occasionally some paved highway between gravel roads. Two sections have been described as “a pusher” and the other as “Start climbing a virtual wall”. Fortunately these are short-lived and soon overcome without cardiovasculating.

We are now in the British Columbia side of the Great Divide and have about 75 miles to the US border.