Day 33---Riding with a buddy, and the heat returns, Missoula to Ronan

57.7 miles, 5:17, 10.9 mph

It was Sunday morning in Missoula, and the first half marathon runners were returning the hotel as we got ready.  Ben had a lot of bicycle adjustments to make, so we didn't really get started til after 8:30.  But it was a really nice cool morning for a change, and some runners from Havre took our picture before we headed out.

We left town via old US 10, West Broadway in Missoula, and Woodward Avenue in my home town of Detroit.  After crossing US 12 on Friday, which goes by Ann Arbor, the familiar highway numbers of my youth made me feel like I was really in the far north now.

As we rode along I was thinking about all the right wing billboards I'd been seeing, and we passed many more storefront Christian churches, mostly in tilt up warehouse complexes.  There weren't quite as many as there were in the Bitterroot Valley, but a surprising number given Missoula's liberal reputation.  Just near the airport we came upon the Vigilante Storage lockers, which gave me some pause!

As we reached the end of the long developed strip, near Frenchtown, I realized that the noxious odor from the pulp mill that had dominated Missoula the other times I had visited, was no longer there. A quick look and it turns out that it was closed in 2009, after many years of the locals fighting the pollution.  Of course the closure eliminated hundreds of well paid union jobs, and in the middle of the recession, I'm sure that many were still unemployed (or headed to North Dakota).

The first climb out of the Clark Fork valley took us into cool, damp forest and it wasn't too strenuous, although I was back on the loathsome US 93, with it's debris laden shoulder and cars and trucks whizzing by at 75 mph.  Since it was Sunday, it was a lot of local folks headed to Flathead Lake for the day, along with their boats on trailers.  I did see this very cool railroad bridge, right out of a Hollywood western on the way though.

Just after the first summit, we entered the Flathead Indian Reservation.

After seeing the Flathead Reservation, I was surprised it was so lovely, given that the Indians usually got the short end.  Well as it turns out.....in 1910, after the US Government decided the Indians weren't 'using' the land properly, they gave them all allotments, and then opened the rest to homesteaders....once again dishonoring a treaty.

We stopped to have lunch at the cute Bison Café, which had a No Hate sticker on the window.  Definitely a nice vibe, a little hippy, a little Indian, and Ben had delicious huckleberry pancakes....

Unfortunately after lunch the heat was turned up with a vengeance, just as we were to do the steepest climb of the day into the Flathead Lake basin.  I don't do well in the heat climbing, but with a couple of stops and lots of water, made it to the top, where the view of the Mission Range was stunning.

I want to figure out if you can climb the amazing crack in the middle of the cirque.

 

Mission Mountains

 

We hopped off the US 93 hellway, and took old US 93 into the lovely little town of St. Ignatius, which was founded by the same Jesuit missionaries that started the mission in the Bitterroot.  The grounds and church were lovely (and still owned by the church, so no donation from me this time).  They had a really great collection of old photographs of the local Indians and missionaries from the 19th and early 20th century, and it was really interesting to see how the traditional dress continued for so many years.

After a bit longer on old US 93, it was back onto the freeway which narrowed as it went through the wildlife refuge.  Virtually no shoulder and lots of traffic whizzing past.  Happily it was Sunday so there weren't many trucks.

A beautiful scene reflected in one of the ponds on the wildlife refuge

After a few more miles we ended up in Ronan, which has very little to recommend it as a town.  It was already 90 degrees though, and after 57 miles we called it a day.

We walked about a mile to the Mexican restaurant, and when I saw that both of the employees were blond, blue eyed young high school types, I thought that perhaps we should have gone to the McDonalds after all....and it was the very worst Mexican food I'd ever eaten.  The Dairy Queen was out of chocolate, so we ended up topping the evening off with vanilla cones dipped in chocolate, again a bit of a disappointment.

I went to bed really looking forward to the Mennonite restaurant for breakfast!

Day 32---no rest in Missoula

I did about 9 miles on the bicycle today running around town doing errands.  First stop was the laundromat, which was on the other side of the river from downtown, near the University of Montana. (Another issue with the hotel was that the washing machine was broken, and they hadn't gotten around to replacing it). On the way there I cycled through downtown Missoula, which is nicely turned out, with many lovely old buildings, lots of restaurants and shops.  As I crossed the river it was super busy with the marathoners wandering around town and I could see the Farmers Market stalls along the riverfront promenade.  It had a great vibe, and the day was sunny and cool (normal cool I might add!). I stopped at Bernice's Bakery on the way there, which is a bit reminiscent of Nabolom in Berkeley, with nice big gooey pastries.

Sparkle Laundry is a cool spot, with a soda fountain, wifi and the New York Review of Books. It's run on Saturdays by a recently retired philosophy major who moved to Missoula in the 70s. I enjoyed talking to him, and I was reminded of my first time through Missoula in 1978, when I'd hitched there to visit a friend I'd made in Jackson Hole that summer.  Missoula was nowhere then, with a pulp mill that belched noxious fumes, and temperature inversions that made you choke.  But it was full of dropouts and hippies and pot smokers, and it was nice to see that spirit still alive, if a bit long in the tooth!

While I was waiting for the laundry, I called around to find a new rear tire, that would be heftier than the Panaracer Paselas that I've been using.  They are really too lightweight for heat and chip seal, and I'd worn a new rear tire out just coming from Alturas. It was hard to find 26 x 1.50 touring tires in Missoula, but a great local bike shop had some really bomber Bontragers with Kevlar tread.  When I got to the Open Road shop, and saw the tire, I knew it was the one!  They were super helpful, and within 20 minutes I had a new tire on the rear, a spare to take with me, and cleaned up drive train and derailleur adjustment.  If you're ever in Missoula, check them out!

By the time I was finished with my errands, I'd missed the weekly Farmers Market, but I did get to stop in at Adventure Cycling and chat with the two staff who work there on Saturdays.  One was the long time cartographer, so we talked maps and roads, which was fun.  I think Adventure Cycling does a great job for the sport, but for me, I'd rather plan my own adventure, rather than follow a preplanned one.  But you know me, why not take the road less traveled!  We also talked about the awful southern approach into Missoula, and apparently there's some political gridlock involved.

Then it was off to the hotel where the manager had finally returned my call, and found a room that had at least some wifi service (but still too slow to upload pics or documents).  After waiting for an hour or so, and being cheated of a much needed nap, I was off to REI for a couple of items, and a stop at Costco (across the street) for a big supply of Clif Bars for me and Ben. As I continued to pedal around town, it seemed like there was an awful lot of road rage in such a small city, with lots of people screeching around corners in a hurry.  I have to say I was starting to get concerned about riding around town....

A quick stop at Safeway, then back to the hotel to pay bills, write emails, and get ready for Ben's arrival.  No time for a rest at all....

Ben's plane was on time and when he got to the hotel we went and had bison burgers for dinner, then back to the hotel where he worked on getting his bike ready for our first day of riding tomorrow.  I think I fell asleep in about 2 minutes.  All in all, too busy a day!

Day 31---From bears to freeway in a day, Conner to Missoula

92.2 miles, 7:32, 12.2 mph

Quote of the day, "I took my kids to Disneyland in 2006, and you know, there were 10 of them for 2 of us."

The day dawned clear, with a few high clouds, high up in the Bitterroot Valley.  It was lovely and cool, and after yesterday's climb, I was well rested, having been the only person staying at Rocky Knob.  I had some granola and fruit, and planned to get a real breakfast in Darby, about 15 miles down the valley.

The fire zone from 2000

It was a lovely cool ride through Conner and I finally exited the year 2000 fire zone into a wide agricultural valley, with many log and trophy homes (and some log trophy homes!).  The landscape is much gentler here in Montana than in Idaho, and the houses seem more architecturally consonant with the landscape; so although there are just as many houses, they don't look so out of place.  I also passed at least 5 establishments that make log homes, and I can only guess that they ship them premade around the country, because this little valley surely can't support that many builders.

I rolled into Darby around 930 and went to Deb's Restaurant, a classic little breakfast and lunch place.  Had a great breakfast, and enjoyed eavesdropping on all the conversations around me (I'm becoming quite expert at listening without reacting, and people say the darnedest things).  The upper Bitterroot Valley is white working class flight from southern California territory, and many of the people I've talked to have had something to say about 'them,' which I'm pretty sure means Latinos (I'd be afraid to ask actually, it would be like not being white enough or something like that). 

I heard similar conversations and comments in the bar and restaurant last night, and also at the Sacajewea Center in Salmon.  Interesting, and now that the economy is bad, they're all headed for North Dakota.....

I finished my breakfast, catching up on a few emails on my phone, and then continued down the valley to Hamilton.  Hamilton looks like Hemet in the Montana mountains.....highway lined with strip malls and tacky suburban development.  Could be anywhere, and it's a shame really.  However, the lady at AAA told me that the bicycle path starts there, and goes all the way to Lolo, 40 miles down the valley, and I was grateful to get off the loathsome multi lane US 93, which has a wide shoulder full of debris and rumble strips next to the white line.

US 93 is covered with billboards, many of them for guns and ammo, unfortunately on a bike you don't get to just look at the scenery

The bike path had good pavement and was pretty clean, but it basically runs along side a freeway for 40 miles, with nothing but traffic noise.  So far I was very unimpressed with the 'famous' Bitterroot.  While it's pretty, it's also urbanized in a really cheap and ugly way (think Inland Empire), and wasn't really enjoyable cycling.

What you get to see is quite beautiful, when you don't have to look at the road

When I got to the little town of Stevensville, the first town in Montana, I detoured off the highway, and found a lovely little village with the St. Ignatius Mission right on the edge of the hayfields. The Jesuits arrived here in the early 1840s at the request of the local tribes, who had traveled all the way to Saint Louis to make their request.  The mission was occupied on and off until the 20th century, and the museum and log cabin-style chapel were delightful.  The volunteer docents were great, with a lot of clearly accurate knowledge, and happily the mission is not run by the Catholic Church, but a local nonprofit. 

My docent joked that she was even a Protestant!  There were many interesting photographs from the 19th century, and a good history of how the mission and local Indians interacted until they were deported in 1905.  The current museum works very closely with the Salish tribe, and there is an annual pilgrimage from their current home, the Flathead Reservation, to the mission every year.  Father Ravalli, a Jesuit from Italy who ran the mission for many years, was well respected by the local Indians, and has both a county and a town named after him in Montana.  It was interesting to learn how important the Jesuits had been to the local tribes.

The mission chapel

 

Father Ravalli's cabin

The locals in Stevensville warned me off the narrow road that runs on the other side of the valley from US 93, so it was back to the bike path, where I got caught in a thunderstorm.  While sitting under the eaves of a warehouse building, I watched a woman in a giant pick up truck miss her turn at 40 mph, and take out both the stop sign and the directional sign at the intersection nearby.  She then drove out of the ditch, back onto the road, and sped off like nothing had happened. 

This was to be the first of numerous scary driver incidents I would witness today.

At Lolo, the bike path ends, and you are forced onto a narrow four lane freeway through the Bitterroot Canyon where it cuts through the terminal moraine.  It was one of the most harrowing entrances to a city I've ever experienced.  The speed limit is 70 mph, despite the tight curves, narrow shoulders and non existent median.  The roadside is littered with the white crosses that Montana maintains to remind people of road deaths.  For the vaunted bicycle city of Missoula, it is a shocking way to enter the city, and one that they sorely need to address, given the volume of cycle tourists.  After traversing this almost ten mile stretch, I now understood why the cycle tourists I'd met coming up the valley were so pleased with the cycleway, despite is poor aesthetics.

Once into Missoula, the "Bike Route" which follows the old US 93, appeared, disappeared and reappeared, with seemingly no rhyme or reason.  Another thunderstorm found me under the canopy of  a Jiffy Lube until the rain stopped.  Heading into the downtown the bike path was basically in the gutter, which was filled with water from the storm. 

It was not a happy entry into Missoula to be sure, and that was exacerbated by the non-working wireless at the hotel. I did a little tour around town to see if I could find another room, but since the Missoula Marathon was on Sunday morning, the only places with rooms were the drug and prostitution motels, so after another ten miles of riding around, I settled in for the night, found a nice restaurant with good wifi and then went back and crashed.

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.

Day 29---following the Salmon River, the heat returns

64.3 miles, 5:01, 12.8 mph

I was up at 5:45, concerned about today's forecast in the 90s, and had a great breakfast at the Creekside B&B.  The owners, like about half the people I've talked to in the last two days, are expat Southern Californians, and Jim has redone a wonderful old house in a comfy place to stay at a reasonable price.  He's a good cook too, with a nice omelette, home made bread and home made blackberry preserves for breakfast.

The Creekside B&B

Was ready to pack up the bike just before 7, when I discovered that my bike tire was mushy.  Another flat, this time the culprit was a small thorn.  I'm wondering how it got in there, since I had changed the back tire on Monday, going over Galena, but maybe I missed something in the tire in the heat and my tiredness.

30 minutes later, I was packed and rolled down most of the three miles I'd climbed in the 95 degree heat yesterday. It was cool, but not cold, and I left my jacket on for about the first half hour of riding down the Salmon Valley.

The river continued through a mostly desert landscape, going past some nice ranches, and a lot, and I do mean a lot for this part of the world, trophy homes and ranches.  The finally petered out about 15 miles from town, and the river canyon became quite wild.  No herons today though I was on the lookout for birds.

 



 

It was a great cool morning, and the canyon was often in shade, so the first 30 miles went by pretty quickly, and at 10 I stopped for a snack in a cool spot. Shortly after that I passed a log cabin that Jim has restored for the owner.  It was pretty neat, and in a nice grove of trees, with a creek flowing past.

 

 

After a few miles more, the canyon got progressively more developed, and I was surprised to see so many houses.  The riverside hay fields had been chopped up into ranchettes, some quite splendid looking (and clearly inhabited by those from SoCal) and others simply mobile homes with some dirt and horses around them.  They all shared a love of ATVs, which seem to be the local status symbol, and there are large areas of the mountains around here where they are allowed to tear up the terrain.  Somehow the erosion that they cause isn't seen as a problem for the salmon restoration, hmmmm.

 

A little later and it started to get into the upper 80s, but the canyon was much greener, with more trees, so it didn't feel as hot as yesterday.

 

 

Just after this lovely spot, here's the Orange County dream home of the day:

 

 

I don't think you can see the American flag on the right at this resolution

 

How a town of 3000 can have 20 miles of sprawl up the canyon is a surprise to me.  Having ruined southern California, they've clearly brought all their bad environmental practices and conservative politics with them (despite a cool vibe around Salmon, the area is 75% Romney country, 10% more than the Idaho average).

 

I passed through the 45th parallel, headed for a pole for the second time this year, this time the North Pole.  Beth and I crossed 45 south in March on our way south in New Zealand.

I believe I'll cross it at least two more times, once going south and once going north.

 

 

I doubt the owner has read the Emma Lazarus poem

 

About 15 miles out of town, the early afternoon up canyon wind started, and it was hot again, and as I came out of the canyon, into the beautiful Lemhi Valley, home to Sacajawea, it was already in the 90s. 

 

Happily a little campground and river put in appeared, with lots of trees.  A nice rest about 8 miles from town. However the water was funky, so not very refreshing.  There's a lot of funky water in these parts, so when you find good water, it's a good idea to fill up.

 

I rolled into town around noon, and went to the visitor center.  I passed a couple of loaded bikes at one of the cafes and it was nice to know that there were other long distance cyclists in town. I wondered where they had come from, as I hadn't seen them on the road today.

 

The first, nice, motel on the river was full already, so plan B was to go back through town and check the other places.  When I rolled back through town, the cyclists were gone, and I was wondering where they had gone.  My motel is full tonight, so it's clearly high tourist season here.  There were a lot of rafters waiting for their trips to start, so town is pretty busy.  The Salmon River is one of the famous multi day river trips, so the town is full of nice, but not overdone, restaurants and shops.

 

I went out to the Sacajawea Interpretive Center, which wasn't here when I was here years ago. And there were the cyclists!  A couple from Portland, they were riding US 93 in the opposite direction.  They were planning to stay in town for the day to catch up on things, so we traded blogs and they went on their way.

 

Sacajawea has been one of my heroes since 2nd or 3rd grade, when I devoured the entire series of American biographies (a couple of hundred at least).  The little museum had great interpretation, and nice oral histories of the Shoshone who were deported from here to the lava desert in southern Idaho. The oral histories are quite moving.

 

On the trail down by the river, I met a family from San Diego (South Park!) whose daughter is an archeology grad student at Indiana University.  She's spending her summer here on digs, and it was interesting to hear what she was up to.  I never knew the Forest Service had summer archeology programs!

 

A traditional teepee

 

The center has workshops for the Shoshone to pass on many traditional practices to the younger members of the tribe, and the grounds are scattered with the results, which are pretty cool.

 

 

These were the summer shelters they used

 

 

I went by the city park on my way back into town, but the pool was super full of kids, so I watched a couple of guys slacklining in the park.  No surprise, they were river guides.

 

On my way to the supermarket I ran into the female half the Portland cyclists, who told me about a cool bike shop with wifi, pizza and beer.  I thought I'd check it out later around dinner time.

 

While I was in the supermarket, in my smelly cycling clothes, I had a few locals ask if I'd cycled there, and found out that a lot of people only live here in the summer, and go back to California or Arizona or Nevada in the winter.  Hence the liberal vibe in the summer.  The year round population is pretty conservative I heard from one woman who used to be a teacher in the local school. 

 

When I went to dinner the groovy café was full, so I went over the Hub, the bike shop/pizza/brew pub, and there was music outside and all kinds of cool people around.  I had some pizza, did some emails, and of course ran into the Portland cyclists again!  They were about to head out of town and camp along the river, at one of the many nice campgrounds along the way.  It was still super hot though, and I was grateful that I would be sleeping in a cool motel room, as I planned to get up and be away by 6 AM for tomorrow's big climb into Montana.

 

All in all a nice day, but I'm sure getting sick of temperatures 10-20 degrees above normal.

 

It's up early tomorrow for the long climb over Lost Trail Pass into MONTANA!



Day 28---the romance of the Wild West--a generational gap for sure---Smiley Creek to Chaliis

84 miles, 6:11, 13.6 mph, lots of descending, and 3 miles of climbing in the heat right at the end.

No pics until tomorrow. I have a lot of great pics, and am too tired to edit them.

I woke up this morning in the Stanley Basin, surrounded by the Sawtooths and other mountains, and it was the classic romantic western scene---the smell of sage and hay, cattle in the distance, and a clear cool morning.  I ate, and while packing up, one of the neighboring campers, a 65 year old gentleman from near Twin Falls, came over to inquire about my trip (note to non-Idahoans, Twin Falls means Mormon).  He was a really nice guy (in contrast to his brother, who had completely smoked me out of my tent with a prohibited fire the night before) and I wondered if he weren't coming over by way of apologizing for his brother's behavior.

He was showing his three young grandchildren (all under 9) from Florida around the mountains, and it was proving to be a bit of a challenge.  They refused to believe it would get cold in the tent (it was on the low 40s last night), and they woke him up in the middle of the night because they hadn't used their blankets.  He was a very patient and cool grandfather, just 65, and said that he'd always wanted to do a big bicycle trip.  He was full of questions as I packed and put everything together on the bike, and I could tell he wanted to keep talking even though I was pushing for an 8 AM departure, so that I could beat some heat today.

As I rode off, a little way down the road, a small herd of antelope appeared.  The nice thing about antelope is that they're curious, and like to check you out.  Clearly they were wondering what kind of creature spins along on two wheels, and it was fun to watch them as they loped along in my direction.  It reminded me of a time back in '78 when I was hitching from the Black Hills down to Colorado, and got stuck just outside Newcastle Wyoming at dusk.  Then a small herd of antelope came up to the fence and just peered at me for some minutes, while I sat on my backpack, hoping for some traffic.

It was a quick 25 miles ride down gentle grades to Stanley, and it was fun to watch the Salmon River go from a tiny brook to a big river, as it picked up the waters of its tributaries.  In Stanley I had an exceptionally good omelette and fried potatoes and then picked up some fruit and a sandwich, and decided to try for the 59 miles to Challis, and see how far I got. 

The view from Stanley

The valley and canyon of the Salmon is one of the most beautiful bike rides I've done.  It just flew by, and I kept thinking of those crazy Salmon who travel 900 miles upriver, and almost 7000 feet of elevation to spawn in these parts.  While the numbers are a tiny fraction of the past, they are increasing, due to the opening of a hatchery which only breeds the local salmon (apparently the sockeye that spawn in the lakes are a special genetic stock, and if your released some other salmon, they wouldn't swim back to the alpine lakes).  They travel 12-14 miles a day upriver, so it's a journey of at least 2-3 months.  They will reappear in these parts later in July and into August.

After the canyon narrows a lot near the old Sunbeam (the former site of the ONLY dam to ever stop the flow of the Salmon River), it opens up into the most amazing desert landscape.  It looks like western Nevada, except that the river is huge and full of water.  It started to get hot, but the cycling was easy, and the last ten miles down the canyon I had a strong headwind, which was like being in a convection oven.  The last 20 miles or so I drank four water bottles!  Then it was a 3 mile climb into Challis, a former mining and mining supply center.

The desert Salmon River

The morning was the quintessential movie of the Great American West.  That one we grew up on.  The mythological one that ignored the genocide of American Indians, the poor treatment of women and minorities, the spread of disease, the dishonoring of treaties.  I could hear the grand music from movie scores and I found myself back as a kid, the first time we went west and I wore a cowboy hat.

Howdy pardner---1968

 

Given the importance of the western mythology in my own life, I've been thinking a lot about why I never see 20 somethings in all these small western towns I've been passing through.  Took a quick look at some census data, and it turns out their numbers have been falling for the last 20 years.  It appears that Generations X and Y are just not interested in the Romance of the West.  Why not?  I have a couple of theories (which my American historian friends are welcome to ponder and comment on).

 

The generations after the baby boomers didn't grow up on steady diet of movie and TV westerns, so they don't have any connection to the mythology.  Hence, they don't dream of living the life of a cowboy or rancher.

 

The baby boomers were altogether too attached to the romantic west, along with their parents, because it was a reaction to the horrors and pressures of modernism.  For the greatest generation, the idea of being in a sanitized, romantic, western environment helped wash away the dual traumas of the depression and the war.  For the boomers, it was a way to 'go back to the land' and reject the suburbanization and decay of the cities that happened in our youth.  The younger generations are more interested in congregating in cities (even cities like Boise are full of 20 somethings) and being plugged into the exciting changes that are being wrought around the world, so the idea of living in some small western town just has no appeal in their world.

 

I don't think this bodes well for many of the communities that I've passed through, nor for some of the more destination resort places.  They seem destined to become retirement communities for boomers, and as the boomers die off, it's not clear from where the replacements come.  Some of the larger destination resorts like Aspen, Vail and Sun Valley will continue to draw plenty of tourists, but the labor force will become increasingly non white (and our immigrants have no romantic attachment to the western myth), and will magnify the social pressures that are already a problem in these affluent communities.  They clearly will continue to exist in place, but probably not experience much more growth.

 

But the smaller towns, like Challis, Stanley, Burns, Lakeview and Alturas, which also saw an influx of younger folks in the 70s and 80s, will have to find a way to reinvent themselves without relying on selling the myth.