Virginia
Kentucky
Illinois
Missouri
Kansas
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Wyoming
Idaho/Washington
We spent 18 days and travelled 687 miles in Montana. Big sky country.
As we left Yellowstone we also left the RV's behind which was a relief. This was a day of lakes; we rode alongside the beautiful Hebgen Lake.
We stopped at a charming little bar and had the most expensive soda of the whole trip, we left feeling we had been ripped off, for the first time on the entire trip. Moving on we reached Earthquake Lake. A powerful earthquake triggered a massive landslide on August 7th 1959, in the course of a minute over 20 million tons of rock plunged into the narrow canyon and blocked the Madison River, forming Earthquake Lake. This is a very popular fly fishing area, with wide open country side, seamed with streams and rivers and framed by mountains, it offered nice easy riding.
After 35 miles we hit a 10 mile climb, the grades sometimes as much as 7 per cent with no shoulder, but the ride down to Virginia City was a breeze. It was a strange old place to say the least. It was as though time had stood still for a very long time. We had planed to stay here but with the downward trend and after speaking with other cyclists who were travelling in the opposite direction we decided to cover the next 30 miles and stop at Twin Bridges. We camped in the fairgrounds, and put our tent up right in the middle of the local kennel clubs dog assault course. (Different)No problem encountered by us or the dogs, we were just one more obstacle.
We had to cover some miles on the Interstate which wasn't as bad as it sounds. Not pretty, but the shoulder was wide we had an easy downhill grade, so we covered the 17 miles at a good pace, then turned onto the Pintlar scenic route. We had discovered early on in the tour that scenic route means [take the hilliest, longest way round] anyway it's a high altitude highway and our destination was Georgetown Lake, said to be one of the best fishing lakes in North America, and it was stunning. Rock hounds have found Garnets, Sapphires, Fossils, Crystals and gold here. Our camp site was in the forest next to the lake and we were back in bear territory. We woke up to a clearing sky and began the steep descent through a scenic canyon with steep walls, a cascading river and a thick blanket of pines. The scent from the pines after the rain was delicious. We were frozen stiff by the time we reached the end so we turned into Philipsburg, which hadn't woken up yet, but we did find a café where we had a big breakfast with plenty of hot coffee and a chat with the locals.
It was easy to see why Highway 1 is better known as the Pintlar Scenic Route with its quiet roads, wide open spaces and snow capped mountains in the distance. We passed the Flint Creek ski area, and then rode on through the Clark River Valley passing ranches, farms and lovely log cabins. It all looked very nice and romantic, but when thought about realistically, the first settlers must have had a hell of a hard life trying to eke out a living on this harsh land.
We reached Missoula, the home of the Adventure Cycling Association on the 14th of July, where we planed to spend a couple of days. First reason was to visit the cycling association offices as was the tradition of cyclists on this route. We received a warm welcome a cold ice cream and some useful advice about our onward journey. We had our pictures taken and they joined the many other intrepid cyclists in the photo gallery, it was nice to see quite a few faces we recognised there. The second reason was my Birthday on the 15th.
We splashed out and stayed in a rather nice camp site, and went to Famous Dave's for Ribs n Beer. We had the feast for two and took half of it back with us to put on ice for the next day.
We had a very interesting tour of the Missoula Fire Jumpers Base. They are incredible people who parachute into forest fires to do battle with this terrifying phenomenon. Not my idea of a good career move. But thank heaven for them.
Moving on we had a not so pleasant day on highway 93. Very narrow road no shoulder very busy and 20 miles of road construction, and huge amounts of heavy trucks. To top it all Jeff had a puncture. By the end of the day we were dusty, tired and the nerves were a bit frayed.
We found a nice quiet camp site [with hot showers] over looking the fantastic Mission Mountains. We were in the Flat Head Indian Reservation, with great place names such as Wild Horse Island, Nine Pipe Reservoir, Kicking Horse Reservoir and Grey Wolf Lake. We settled down and watched the sun set over the mountains and decided it wasn't such a bad day after all.
We rode alongside Flat Head Lake through pine forest and cherry orchards heading for the Glacier National Park and Whitefish. Carrie's home, we met Carrie on route back in Kentucky, she was riding alone, and our paths crossed several times over the next few weeks. "If you get to Whitefish come and see me" she said. So here we are. The camp site was a bit out of town, in the National Park next to a lake, it looked very peaceful so we were quite surprised when we were given a free set of ear plugs each. All became clear when the 6.30 train came thundering by and there after every 4 hours day and night.
We were extremely happy when Carrie turned up and offered us accommodation at her place right in the middle of town. So we packed up and moved to Carrie's garden. [No trains]
Carrie and her friends had arranged to climb a mountain in the Glacier National Park so we were invited to join them. Sinopah was an impossible looking mountain at 8271ft but we were assured by the girls that it was possible and we were in good hands. So Carrie, Anna, Chris, Jeff and I trekked the 5 miles to the base of the climb and scrambled through scree and rocks to the summit, we were rewarded with a breath taking view of the Glaciers. After the painful descent we headed to the bar and ate burgers and fries washed down with cold beer. As fit as we were after almost 3 months on the road we could barley move the next day, cycling was defiantly out, hobbling around town was about all we could manage.
We rode up Big Mountain [in a cable car] it was very hot, unusually so, and the heat haze meant that the views weren’t as good as they could have been but it was still worth the trip. The week we spent in Whitefish had been the height of the heat wave and we were very happy not to be on the road. But it was time to move on so we said farewell to Carrie and all our new friends and hit the road once more.
