30 miles, 4 hours on the bike, 5 hrs 20 mins. with breaks

Another day of climbing but shorter in length, though the last bit was so steep and without a break that I had to stop a couple times to catch my breath. My bike weighs a million pounds. In a month I’ll feel so much stronger!

I’m sitting here by the lake and the fish are jumping, we just saw a moose across the lake, and we nearly have the place to ourselves. It feels like we’re days from any town. Mostly dirt today, rough roads that we hardly ever see anyone driving on. We’re getting into a bit of smoke from the fires around this part of the state, but not too bad.

Edited to add: There was a wall of smoke upon cresting the Whitefish divide, and the second half of the day was like riding through a smoky campground. We know there are several big fires, but don’t know which are the closest and where this smoke is coming from. Fires are on the front page of every newspaper we can see…

42 miles, 5 hrs riding, 7 hours with breaks.

Today started out on pavement so it was a nice warmup with the loaded bikes on easy roads. It turned out to be a fairly hot day as we got a late start, but the rolling hills gave us a nice breeze now and then. As the day went on we moved on to dirt and gravel roads, with nearly 3,000 feet of climbing through the mountains. I wasn’t feeling ready for the climb in that heat, and actually laid down to cool off at the top of the pass near the end of the day. Dave was patient over and over, waiting for me and giving encouragement. He said he felt it too, though he was obviously stronger than I. We had a quiet spot at the nearly empty campground, though in the evening other cyclists on the route came to say hi. They started in Canada and would be finishing the next day or two.

That night I was nervous about bears because the book said the area is so remote that they often relocate unruly bears there from other parts of the state. We hung our food and settled in for the night with the bear spray in the tent at the ready.

Some time near 2 am we heard some rustling nearby. Dave got out to check it out but didn’t see anything. I went back to sleep but I guess Dave couldn’t knowing something was messing around the campsite. At about 3 am there was more rustling, a sort of digging sound and some thumping. Again, Dave gets the spray and his headlamp and looks around. At 3:30 he heard it again and said, “Hey bear!” to announce his presence. Again he looked, again he could see nothing. Then at nearly 5 am he heard it again, and as he popped out of the tent, ready with the pepper spray he paused. “What is it?” I said. “It’s a deer,” he said, and I had to have a look. Yep, it was a dang deer giving us a fright all night. It wasn’t afraid of us, and later that morning I had to throw a couple rocks at it because it kept coming nearer and seemed aggressive or something. Menacing deer! Argh!

Photos by Rich Snowberg. Click to see full size.

Here is a map of the section we’re starting tomorrow:

We just went through Glacier National Park and are now on the west side in a small town, eating huckleberry pie and doing a last bit of internet business before we start the ride tomorrow. Driving up through Western Montana we encountered several large forest and range fires, such that we’ve been in the thick of smoke for a couple days. I called Adventure Cycling and they’re not aware of any closures on the route due to fires, but we already know there are many fire restrictions in place due to extreme dryness and heat. So, we will start out with the hope that these first three weeks go as planned, though we’ll keep the phone numbers of the forest service offices handy.

Here’s a picture of the food we bought in Golden, which is now packed up with the food we dried and in boxes that will arrive every ten days or so by general delivery along our ride. The food you don’t see here is the dried sauces and vegetables we dehydrated this spring. We’ll supplement this with rice, pasta, oatmeal, bread, cheese and other perishables in the stores we’ll encounter along the way. And the ice cream we’ll buy whenever possible!

Photo by Rich Snowberg, Dave’s Dad! Click to see full size.