Day 30, Montana! And the two Nancys…

64 miles, 6:41, 9.6 mph

As I was noodling along today, it struck me that soon I would be a state with a Democratic Governor, and two Democratic Senators.  Not a ‘blue’ state, but close.  And as I thought further, after Montana is North Dakota, with its state bank, good education system and prairie socialism.  Then good ol’ Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.  No more red state nonsense, although I will be passing through a lot of ‘red’ areas.  However, as I found in Oregon, and have experienced in California and other places, rural areas in blue states just have a better vibe, because the poor and down and out are better taken care of.

Somehow Frank Zappa  got into my head to his morning “Going to Montana soon, gonna be a dental floss tycoon,” and from time to time, I just sang it out loud!

I had a super hard time getting started this morning, and really didn’t want to face today’s 3200 feet of climbing.  I’d done 200 miles in 3 days, and after a mellow afternoon and evening in Salmon,  I just wanted to chill today.  So I promised myself that I would do the first 20 miles, and if I still felt crappy, I would stay at the River Forks Lodge.  I had spoken with the owner about staying there the night before, but it was too hot when I got to Salmon to push on yesterday.  She was super accommodating, and I thought from the website it looked great, so that was my plan B for today.

Following the brave and courageous folk today

 

The day dawned cloudy and cool and it was about 60 when I finally headed out around 9 o’clock.  The ride down the Salmon Valley went quickly, although the suburbanization went on and on.  At around mile 8, I spied something fluorescent pink on the other side of the road.  Could it be a cyclist I thought?  After  few minutes, it clearly was, and we stopped by the side of the road for a chat.

Her name was Nancy, and her blog is ride4restoration.blogspot.com.  She used to work for the National Park Service at Haleakala, so we had a chat about my trip around the Big Island in January.  Turns out she works for a cool environmental  education program up near Kalispell, and having just finished teaching one program, she was going to follow the Lewis and Clark trail to St. Louis!  She’s taking a leisurely 3 months to do it.   After a 15 or 20 minute chat we bid each other good bye. 

An osprey nest

Tahoe anyone?

Something about meeting another solitary cyclist of a similar age on a big adventure really gave me a boost, and I happily rolled along the next 10 or 11 miles.  About  2 miles from my ‘bail’ point, a car with California plates whizzed by, then pulled into a really nice little rest stop that had a lovely stone wall and a stream coming off the hillside.  I thought, oh what a nice place to stop.  As I approached the pullout, I could tell the driver wanted to talk to me, and when I got up to the car, it was my dear friend Nancy Kerrebrock!  We had talked last week about meeting up in Missoula, and here she was! 

We chatted for a couple minutes, and I told her we could hang out at my ‘bail’ point, which was only a couple miles ahead.  She headed there, and 7-8 minutes later I got there as well.

The owner, who had been full last night with firefighters, was super busy cleaning, but told us to enjoy ourselves and just hang out.  So we went down to the river at a picnic table, and I ate my first lunch, while we caught up.

Our original plan had been to meet up in Glacier, but between my delayed departure from Berkeley, and Nancy’s need to be home by July 24,  meeting up in Glacier wasn’t going to work sadly.  Nancy was planning to do the five hour drive to Glacier today, so we weren’t going to be able to hang there. It was super fun to hang out though, hear about her hiking and mountain biking adventures.  She said that as she drove over part of my route in eastern Oregon and thought of me going over all those hills in the heat, she was feeling really bad for me!  She was worried that she was going to feel the same way about today’s climb, but I told her not to, since I had a cool and cloudy day.  As we were leaving I got her son Lance’s number in Ann Arbor, where I will be in late August, and where he is already a junior! at my alma mater.

Heading out after meeting up with Nancy K.

 

Thus energized I began the 25 miles of climbing to Lost Trail Pass, following the path of Lewis and Clark.  As I went north and gained elevation, the vegetation became much denser and it felt like there was way more precipitation than in other Idaho mountains.  I saw cedar, douglas fir, spruce, alders, and lots of wetter mountain trees as I rolled along.

 

After 11 miles of steady, but gentle climbing, I reached the Broken Arrow cabins, my second ‘bail’ point.  I was looking forward to some Mexican food at their restaurant, but it was only open for dinner today!  While I was bummed, I had a nice chat with a woman who works there, around my age, who grew up in Hailey, near Sun Valley.  She had lived in the Salmon area since high school, and I quizzed her about the area, and why there were hundreds of “For Sale” signs along the 33 miles from Salmon.  Turns out the recession has really hit hard here, with lots of folks moving to North Dakota (for the oil boom).  She was the fourth or fifth person to tell me about locals moving to North Dakota, and I even have a bartender to look up in Williston so far!

The other thing that’s driving the market is that all those southern Californians have been heading out, because at the end of the day it’s 3+ hour trip for shopping, and medical care is far away.  If you ever wanted to live in this part of Idaho, now’s the time!

I started the last 14 miles of climbing, still feeling good, but after another 3 miles or so, it was time for second lunch.  Powered up, I continued climbing, and with about 6 miles to go, I came upon some houses in a meadow and in the woods on the other side of the North Fork.  They appeared to be ‘off the grid’ with no lines going to them, so I was curious.  Then I saw a big solar panel installation, and was really curious.  After about a mile of climbing I came to the office for Moose Creek Estates, and thought I should stop in and see what was up. http://www.kokopelli-e.com/

 

I met John there, who is the manager who lives in the house at the entrance to the development.  He is a native of Salmon, and used to own the lumber yard.  He sold it and retired a bit early, and the Texan who put the development together has hired him to run things.  John lives in a really cool off the grid house, that uses a propane generator, an inverter and batteries to run the house.  He has satellite internet, and a special antenna to pick up a cell phone signal (Verizon, ATT doesn’t work at all in these parts).  It was an interesting tour, and I learned a lot about the area.   It turns out that the canyon of the North Fork is one of the wettest mountain environments in Idaho, and the wettest in central Idaho, getting over 36 inches of precipitation a year.  In the winter there is usually 5-7 feet of snow on the ground at 6000 feet, but just over the border in Montana, there would be only a foot or so.  All in all, a pretty cool place to cycle through.

I headed back out for the last 5 miles, which turned out to be a pretty steady 4-5% grade, and I stayed in my middle chain ring the whole way, which was quite a surprise.  At Lost Trail Pass, there is a lovely looking ski resort, that might bear checking out, given the amount of snow the area gets.

You can see Montana from here, really :)

 

Finally in Montana!  And boy is the change obvious when you cross the Montana border.  The road widens, the speed limit goes up, and there are environmental  interpretation signs on the side of the road (the most interesting of which was about the recovery of bighorn sheep). 

 

I couldn't help but wonder if the most invasive species of all was included

After really nice non technical 7 mile descent, you enter the Bitterroot Valley, which was devastated in 2000 by fire.  It looks surprisingly recent, and as I rolled along, I thought it had been in the last couple of years.

Sadly the restaurant at the cabins in Sula was closed, so I had to pedal on, and just after leaving Sula, a bear bounded across the highway.  Very cool, but I got to thinking that camping wouldn’t be such a good idea unless the campground had bear boxes, and it didn’t.  After hearing Nancy K’s story of a bear trying to break into her car a few nights ago near Stanley, I decided camping was not an option, and was resigned to the 18+ miles into Darby.  A thunderstorm was brewing, and the headwind was quite strong going down canyon and it was going to be one of those awful evenings…

Then what should appear but the Rocky Knob Lodge!  An old timey motel and restaurant.  I had seen a listing for it on Google, but couldn’t find any other information and thought it might be closed.  Turns out they are open Thursday to Sunday, and rented rooms!  $40 bucks a night, and I was in.  A quick shower, then to the busy dining room, where I had great home smoked ribs for dinner.  I was finally getting to have my mountain lodge/cabin experience!  No phone service, no internet, no TV, so this won’t get posted until tomorrow.

 

 

 

After dinner some folks who had just left, came back in and asked if anyone had binoculars.  They had seen a bear scramble up the hill across the road and wanted a closer look.  The few remaining in the dining room, including me, went out to take a look, and sure enough there was the bear just hanging out on the hillside, foraging for something.  Two bears in one night…..and then a double rainbow over the lodge.   A magic Montana evening for sure!

 

After the bear viewing, we all congregated at the bar, and of the 7 people left, only one was born in Montana.  Everyone was my age or older, and of the ones my age, a few had come to Montana in their 20s.  The rest were retirees who moved here or spent the summers here.  Everyone was curious about my trip, and the retired electrician from the Bronx had served in the Air Force in Newfoundland, and was eager to share with me his experiences there.  Interestingly, his ‘amor’ was a woman from Bogota that he met on the internet three years ago!

The one Montanan was from Flathead Lake, but had worked in Billings at the big coal-fired power plant for 39 years.  He said they’ll be closing the plant next year (the huge increase in natural gas supplies has rendered many coal plants uneconomic) and that they have laid off a huge number of coal miners in Montana and Wyoming.   A good thing for the environment, but the coal boom in the Powder River basin is over.  Apparently they are still shipping some coal to Seattle for export to Asia (Powder River basin coal is low sulfur, which is what drove the boom there starting in the 70s) but domestic demand has plummeted.

North Dakota came up again in conversation here, as the chef’s daughter and her boyfriend had recently moved there, and apparently times are quite tough here in the Bitterroot Valley as well, with many local people moving to eastern Montana and North Dakota.