Montana Part 1 - Big Mountain Passes and Ghost Towns

Back over the continental divide into Montana,
14 miles later!

1st time over the continental divide into Idaho

High lake in Idaho in the slanting morning light

Southern Montana & Idah are split by the Continental divide, where if you were to take a pee, it would head of on one side to the Atlantic and the other to the Pacific. After a night in Montana I quickly found myself climbing again, over a pass and into Idaho for all of about 15 miles - probably less than an hour and then another pass back over the continental divide, my first attack on the pacific was not exactly successful. My brief stay in Idah was eventful though, I saw a Jackal (or Cayote) run in front of me, almost collided with a truck and took a pee. Pretty much the only other activity available to me would have been swimming or fishing in a lake.


Back over the continental divide it felt like I was going backwards but a long downhill soon cheered me up, my North America Atlas suggested a smooth downhill all day, but failed to mention another 6,900 ft pass intothe old wild west, an old gold mining valley complete with ghost towns, wrecked river beds from dredging and stories of vigilantes, heros and villains - An early sheriff and his gang had been hijacking anybody with a horde of gold and murdering them, the miners eventually got sick of this and ganged together as vigilantes to hang the sheriff, his cronies and maybe a few others as well. Maybe the attitude to law and order out here is best illustrated by 2 young boys under 10 who, facinated by my bike, asked their Mum "but where does he keep his gun?" Downhill into Virginia City the road dropped 8% for about 6 miles, I hit 50.0mph fully loaded up, then immediately hit the brakes - exhilarating but scary all the same.

Even in the ghost town i managed to find a bar...

Montana: Dry prairie and big mountains

I rode with, or rather in the same area as, Richard & Peter
for a couple of days, they`d both lost cycling partners and
paired up along the way

After finding my own way to Yellowstone, I`d only seen 4 other long distance tourers (3 in south Dakota, 1 in Wyoming), I hit the Adventure Cycling Association routes in Montana and was suddenly inundated with cyclists at almost every turn - on a single day into Missoula I probably saw 15 - too many to keep my promise to stop and talk to everybody. It was awesome to swap stories though - one guy, Seth, had been riding coast -to-coast for 18 months, was on his 3rd bike (2 got stolen) and was in no hurry to finish. thers had stories of the people they`d lost or met along the way - A crazy young guy who ran out of money and was stealing his way across America (fortunately I didn`t meet him), partners who picked up injuries had to leave pushing two guys into riding together. It seems I`ve been pretty lucky and am also flying compared to others that do somewhere between 30 and 70 miles a day.

The deluge of cyclists also had a polarising effect on towns:

One of 2 big passes into a raging headwind in my hardest day
since the heat and humidity of Wisconsin & Illinois

At Twin Bridges I found a free cyclist`s shelter had been added to the rest area by the river, complete with soft grass, common room, shower and toilet - heaven! Unfortunately I arrived just after the county fair and rodeo had finished, but everybody in the local bar was super friendly and maybe a little drunk, after a couple of hours in their company maybe so was I. However, at Jackson Hot Springs, after an 86 mile ride into dry head winds over 2 big mountain passes that batterred the hell out of me, the local hotel insited on $30 to simply pitch a tent and would not shift, clearly cyclists had become part of the economy here. It took 3 litres of water and another burger to see me right again - only in America could your body get so used to burgers that it begins to crave them when tired, dehydrated and hungry.

Since Iowa, I`d been hammering the miles to make sure I could ride all the way up to Vancouver to see my friends there on time, as a result I hadn`t had a rest day in 2 weeks, I felt good but didn`t want to overly abuse my body. On a freezing morning, a last push over the beautiful forested slopes of Chief Joseph Pass took me over the continental divide and gave me the the luxury of a 90 mile fast (30mph plus for 8 miles chasing trucks around sweeping bends) then gentle descent brought me into Missoula and 139 miles at an average of 17mph bought me the day off I`d been craving for. Jim and Mel were kind enough to put me up for 2 days, allowing me to rest up and catch up with life, which I`d kind of ignored for a couple of weeks.

Over the divide for the last time, just before a 90 mile, 4,000ft descent into Missoula

Finally I`d left the Sturgis bikers behind, but now I had to decide how to get to Vancouver.