68.2 miles, 6:03, 11.2 mph
A good day of riding, more to come later.
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Day 38--Going to the Sun, an awesome day, Avalanche Creek to St Mary
35.6 miles, 4:57, 7.1 mph, 3500+ feet of climbing
An awesome day, details and pics to come.
An awesome day, details and pics to come.
Day 37---into Glacier, boat ride and hike, West Glacier to Avalanche Creek
20.4 miles, 2:01, 10.2 mph
To be written
To be written
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Day 35---up to Glacier National Park, Bigfork to West Glacier
46.7 miles, 4:39, 10.0 mph
After yesterday's mild heat exhaustion, and today's forecast for temperatures in the low 90s, even at elevation, I was determined to make an early start. Ben needed a new tire, and new tubes, and the bike shop in Bigfork wouldn't open until 10, and we weren't sure if they would have what he needed, so he decided to go 15 miles out of the way to Kalispell. Kalispell has many bike shops, so he'd be able to find what he needed. So we decided to travel separately today, and I headed off well before 7, while it was lovely and cool. We also booked a room in West Glacier for a second night, as the weather forecast was for some pretty heavy, dangerous thunderstorms, and we didn't want to get caught camping in the park in that kind of bad weather.
I took some photos of Bigfork, then headed up the big hill out of town, which was just fine in the morning cool. The views were great, and the riding easy for the first few miles, although there was an annoying northeasterly headwind from time to time, as I rounded corners of the Mission Range.
I stopped around 10 for a hot dog, and a retired medevac helicopter pilot was very curious about my trip. Turns out he was from North Dakota, and after the military drafted him during Vietnam, he moved to Kalispell. We chatted about how the area had changed, and his perception that a lot of nut cases had moved into the area in recent years. It was also cool to learn how they used to fly almost everyone who was really sick out to Spokane, but that now with the growth of western Montana, there's less need for medical evacuations.
I bid him farewell, even though he clearly would have wanted to chat all morning, and headed up Montana 206, the most harrowing ten miles of the trip so far. Narrow, full of idiot Montana drivers who don't slow down when encountering something in front of them---despite all the signs about the high Montana road death rate (highest in the country, by a decent margin) and the constant parade of white crosses on the side of the road, Montana drivers persist in driving too fast, and seem a bit out of control most of the time. The road rolled and twisted, and frankly, I was scared for the first time on my trip.
Happily it was only 50 minutes or so of cycling before I got to US 2!!!! My highway companion for over 1000 miles, until the eastern Upper Peninsula, with a few detours off and on. I felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment of having reached an important milestone on my trip, and it helped me to shake off the tired feeling from yesterday's heat problems.
I turned east up US 2, to head along the canyon of the Flathead River. I passed a lot of tacky tourist shops and displays before the road suddenly narrowed into the first part of the canyon. Another super frightening stretch of road, but with more tourists than Montanans, people actually slowed down before passing me. There was also very little truck traffic, so it felt a lot safer. After a few miles, the canyon widened out, and so did the road, and my sense of well-being!
The road began to climb, and the sun was hot. The fuel temperature was already over 100, and it wasn't noon, and I was starting to flag. I watered up, ate some more, and just slogged along, and slogged along, until finally, the mountains of Glacier National Park came into view. I was almost there, and the last half mile was a bit of a coast into the Vista Motel, which true to promise, had a full view of the central range of Glacier.
They were still cleaning rooms, and our little cabin wasn't ready yet, so I checked my email, and ended up chatting with the owner. Turns out she had hung out a lot in Montana in the 70s, then moved to the Bay Area, where she had lived for more than 20 years before retiring. Montana had maintained its pull and she decided to buy a rather rundown motel, and renovate it. It sounded like the pull of Montana had waned for her, and she also felt that western Montana had a lot more right wing people than before. Her husband still lives and works in the Bay Area, and she spends part of the year in West Glacier. The motel isn't weatherized so the season is only about 4 months long. She's done a great job of fixing it up, and it was nice to sleep on real cotton sheets!
While I was still in my cycling clothes, I cycled to the park headquarters to get some information, and was assured that all the front country campsites had bear lockers. This was a relief, as the website was quite unclear about bear lockers, and we would be bringing a couple days of food with us into the park. I rambled around the visitor center to learn more about the park, and then headed back to the motel for a well deserved swim!
There was a lovely Canadian family at the pool, and we chatted for a bit. They were from Red Deer, which is between Calgary and Edmonton (so WAY up there) and both had grown up on a farm. The husband worked as a heavy equipment mechanic, mostly oil field related, and the wife was a teacher's aide. I was struck by how well read and aware of the world they were, so unlike their American working class counterparts. To be honest they reminded me of New Zealanders----why is the American working class so stubbornly ignorant compared to its counterparts in other immigrant cultures?
Turns out the husband had recently been down to Tehachapi with his boss, to look into buying some used windmills. Apparently, the province of Alberta, in order to shine up its Texas-sized reputation for environmental destruction, is subsidizing the installation of wind farms! They'll sure have to put up a lot of them to make up for the Tar Sands..... Anyway, he was quite knowledgeable about the industry, and as I headed back to my cabin, he asked me if I knew who he should approach for financing! (I had mentioned that I had worked on some windmill deals back in the 80s, the summer I worked at Coudert and he figured I might know someone). I told him I didn't know anyone in Canada, and that generally the manufacturers help arrange the financing. But since they were looking at used windmills, I told him to approach one of the big Canadian banks in his town, and find out who did alternative energy finance. Let's hope we struck a blow for the environment in Alberta.
By now it was 5 PM and still no Ben. I was starting to get a bit worried since he had texted me that he'd left Kalispell hours ago. Around 530 I got a text picture of the Hungry Horse Dam, and it turns out that Ben had done a 5 mile climb in the heat to get to the dam. Crazy man! Anyway, he arrived not too much later, and we headed off for a nice dinner, and the knowledge that we could sleep in tomorrow morning!
After yesterday's mild heat exhaustion, and today's forecast for temperatures in the low 90s, even at elevation, I was determined to make an early start. Ben needed a new tire, and new tubes, and the bike shop in Bigfork wouldn't open until 10, and we weren't sure if they would have what he needed, so he decided to go 15 miles out of the way to Kalispell. Kalispell has many bike shops, so he'd be able to find what he needed. So we decided to travel separately today, and I headed off well before 7, while it was lovely and cool. We also booked a room in West Glacier for a second night, as the weather forecast was for some pretty heavy, dangerous thunderstorms, and we didn't want to get caught camping in the park in that kind of bad weather.
I took some photos of Bigfork, then headed up the big hill out of town, which was just fine in the morning cool. The views were great, and the riding easy for the first few miles, although there was an annoying northeasterly headwind from time to time, as I rounded corners of the Mission Range.
I stopped around 10 for a hot dog, and a retired medevac helicopter pilot was very curious about my trip. Turns out he was from North Dakota, and after the military drafted him during Vietnam, he moved to Kalispell. We chatted about how the area had changed, and his perception that a lot of nut cases had moved into the area in recent years. It was also cool to learn how they used to fly almost everyone who was really sick out to Spokane, but that now with the growth of western Montana, there's less need for medical evacuations.
I bid him farewell, even though he clearly would have wanted to chat all morning, and headed up Montana 206, the most harrowing ten miles of the trip so far. Narrow, full of idiot Montana drivers who don't slow down when encountering something in front of them---despite all the signs about the high Montana road death rate (highest in the country, by a decent margin) and the constant parade of white crosses on the side of the road, Montana drivers persist in driving too fast, and seem a bit out of control most of the time. The road rolled and twisted, and frankly, I was scared for the first time on my trip.
Happily it was only 50 minutes or so of cycling before I got to US 2!!!! My highway companion for over 1000 miles, until the eastern Upper Peninsula, with a few detours off and on. I felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment of having reached an important milestone on my trip, and it helped me to shake off the tired feeling from yesterday's heat problems.
I turned east up US 2, to head along the canyon of the Flathead River. I passed a lot of tacky tourist shops and displays before the road suddenly narrowed into the first part of the canyon. Another super frightening stretch of road, but with more tourists than Montanans, people actually slowed down before passing me. There was also very little truck traffic, so it felt a lot safer. After a few miles, the canyon widened out, and so did the road, and my sense of well-being!
The road began to climb, and the sun was hot. The fuel temperature was already over 100, and it wasn't noon, and I was starting to flag. I watered up, ate some more, and just slogged along, and slogged along, until finally, the mountains of Glacier National Park came into view. I was almost there, and the last half mile was a bit of a coast into the Vista Motel, which true to promise, had a full view of the central range of Glacier.
They were still cleaning rooms, and our little cabin wasn't ready yet, so I checked my email, and ended up chatting with the owner. Turns out she had hung out a lot in Montana in the 70s, then moved to the Bay Area, where she had lived for more than 20 years before retiring. Montana had maintained its pull and she decided to buy a rather rundown motel, and renovate it. It sounded like the pull of Montana had waned for her, and she also felt that western Montana had a lot more right wing people than before. Her husband still lives and works in the Bay Area, and she spends part of the year in West Glacier. The motel isn't weatherized so the season is only about 4 months long. She's done a great job of fixing it up, and it was nice to sleep on real cotton sheets!
While I was still in my cycling clothes, I cycled to the park headquarters to get some information, and was assured that all the front country campsites had bear lockers. This was a relief, as the website was quite unclear about bear lockers, and we would be bringing a couple days of food with us into the park. I rambled around the visitor center to learn more about the park, and then headed back to the motel for a well deserved swim!
There was a lovely Canadian family at the pool, and we chatted for a bit. They were from Red Deer, which is between Calgary and Edmonton (so WAY up there) and both had grown up on a farm. The husband worked as a heavy equipment mechanic, mostly oil field related, and the wife was a teacher's aide. I was struck by how well read and aware of the world they were, so unlike their American working class counterparts. To be honest they reminded me of New Zealanders----why is the American working class so stubbornly ignorant compared to its counterparts in other immigrant cultures?
Turns out the husband had recently been down to Tehachapi with his boss, to look into buying some used windmills. Apparently, the province of Alberta, in order to shine up its Texas-sized reputation for environmental destruction, is subsidizing the installation of wind farms! They'll sure have to put up a lot of them to make up for the Tar Sands..... Anyway, he was quite knowledgeable about the industry, and as I headed back to my cabin, he asked me if I knew who he should approach for financing! (I had mentioned that I had worked on some windmill deals back in the 80s, the summer I worked at Coudert and he figured I might know someone). I told him I didn't know anyone in Canada, and that generally the manufacturers help arrange the financing. But since they were looking at used windmills, I told him to approach one of the big Canadian banks in his town, and find out who did alternative energy finance. Let's hope we struck a blow for the environment in Alberta.
By now it was 5 PM and still no Ben. I was starting to get a bit worried since he had texted me that he'd left Kalispell hours ago. Around 530 I got a text picture of the Hungry Horse Dam, and it turns out that Ben had done a 5 mile climb in the heat to get to the dam. Crazy man! Anyway, he arrived not too much later, and we headed off for a nice dinner, and the knowledge that we could sleep in tomorrow morning!
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Day 34---the lovely Flathead valley and more heat---Ronan to Bigfork
48.8 miles, 4:37, 10.5 mph
Quote of the day: On the back of a pick up truck, parked at a display of ammo and munitions: "Caution: this vehicle disperses Prius repellent."
After last night's dreadful Mexican a la Montana dinner, we were looking forward to this morning's Mennonite breakfast extravaganza. I substituted a cinnamon roll for the toast with my eggs and toast breakfast, and the roll itself was enough for a whole breakfast! The roll arrived warmed up, slathered in butter and full of nuts. Ben helped eat through it, but we still left about a third of it.
Back to the Starlite Motel, and packing up, and some more bike adjustments for Ben. We headed out on old US 93, through some lovely irrigated wheat and alfalfa fields, with the Mission Mountains always on our right. This glaciated landscape is very deceptive, because the scale is so large, and often it looks like you're descending when you're really going flat or up a bit, because the gentleness of the next climb tricks your eye.
More of the old road took us through little Pablo, which is the home of the Flathead headquarters. We stopped at the museum, but it wasn't open yet, and I was a little disappointed not to learn more about the Salish, who had been deported from the Bitterroot Valley. Thus far, I had been very impressed with how prosperous the reservation looked, and how many new tribal and non-tribal businesses there were. Despite the allotment process and Anglo inholdings, this reservation seemed to be able to thrive. It was quite a contrast to what I remembered from 1978.
At Pablo, a bike lane appeared, and it followed an old railroad grade, all the way to Polson, which is the first town on the shores of lovely Flathead Lake, which turns out to be the largest lake west of the Mississippi.
The town itself is not much more than a strip of tourist business along the lake front and a small downtown that has seen better days. However, I spotted a sign for Flathead Lake Cheese, and we went to find out what that was about.
We were greeted by the first solar powered cheesery! It's run by the owners, Joe and Wendi, and we got tastes of their cheese (mostly in the Gouda style) and a grand tour. Joe is from Wisconsin, and Wendi from Arizona (but a North Dakota native) and they decided to set their business up here on Flathead Lake. Apparently, there used to be many dairies in the area, and in Ronan there was an old cheesery that had closed. Hopefully Joe and Wendi are the harbinger of the rebirth of the Flathead Lake cheese industry. It's certainly a lovely spot, and marketing should be easy!
We climbed back out of Polson along the railroad grade, and headed for the east shore of Flathead Lake. We'd been hearing that the road was narrow and carried a fair bit of traffic as it rolled along the shore. Yes, it was narrow, and despite the signs that said trucks not recommended, there was a steady stream of fuel tanker trucks taking a 'short cut' along the lake. I vowed not to ever go to a Town Pump gas station/convenience store after being passed by 15+ of their trucks headed north!
It was just the beginning of cherry picking season, for which Flathead Lake is known. The lake doesn't freeze over the in the winter, so the east shore enjoys a mild climate, similar to that of the Traverse City area in Michigan. Mild means super cloudy in the winter though, and at this latitude, I could only imagine how gray and grim the winters were.
The first cherry stand was selling cherries from Washington, so we passed. Just a bit further along, we saw a homier stand, with a mother and daughter selling cherries they had picked that morning. Tunrs out they were from Amarillo Texas, and spent the summers at Flathead Lake. The husband is a school teacher, so they starting escaping the hot southern plains, and ended up buying an old orchard. However, with the big western heat wave this year, she said it had been hotter up in Montana this year than back home in Amarillo!
I learned a little about the industry around the lake. Most the cherries are picked by Mexican migrant workers, but for some reason they hadn't shown up yet this year. (Not surprising given all the racist comments I'd heard here in western Montana.) So she and her daughter had picked cherries in the morning to get the stand going, and she said she was lucky to pick 20 pounds in an hour. The experienced pickers will pick 60-80 30 pound boxes in a day! At $5.50 a box, that's a big payday for the pickers. I can pick about 4 pounds of cherries off my tree in an hour, so clearly I need some training.
Shortly after buying some delicious cherries, we passed the ammo and munitions exhibit, which was run by a guy who looked very similar to the Unabomber. Needless to say, if he was that hostile to the Prius, we didn't want to find out what he thought of cyclists!
Around 1, we stopped at a nice state park picnic location, but it wasn't the place for jumping into the lake for a swim, as it was full of kids. I was surprised by how little public land there was around the lake, compared to Lake Tahoe, and how little public access there was. Even when the road was right on the shore, there were "No Trespassing" signs everywhere. After lunch it got really hot, and the fuel temperature was over 100. I thought I could nail the last 13 miles easily, but a series of short, steep climbs really took it out of me, and about 6 miles short of Bigfork, I really started feeling sick from the heat. In retrospect, I should have just ignored the signs and gone swimming.
We rolled into Bigfork around 4, and the hotel had great air conditioning and a pool. I didn't recover for a couple of hours, and had an upset stomach from the heat for quite some time. I'm really getting to hate the heat of the afternoons on this hot, hot days, and really feeling like the heat spoils so many days of my trip.
At dinner time, we wandered into the town of Bigfork, which turned out to be a really pleasant surprise. Lots of nice little restaurants, shops, and a good vibe. It was clearly an affluent enclave, and everyone was really nice. We ate outside on the deck at the historic Bigfork Inn, which had good food, great service and friendly staff. We met the owner, who was around my age, and had owned the place with her husband for 30+ years, and our waiter was a Montanan who had lived for many years in Maui, but returned with her husband a few years ago with their kids. Turns out they had bicycled up the Going to the Sun Road with her family a few days earlier! It was their first time, and she was full of enthusiasm for our riding. Later we met her husband, who makes beautiful handmade wooden canoes, www.morleycanoes.com. They look really awesome!
Sated from a great dinner, we headed back in the setting sun (sunset is maddeningly late here when you want an early start, 9:30 or later) for bed and an early start to beat the heat on the climb to West Glacier.
Quote of the day: On the back of a pick up truck, parked at a display of ammo and munitions: "Caution: this vehicle disperses Prius repellent."
After last night's dreadful Mexican a la Montana dinner, we were looking forward to this morning's Mennonite breakfast extravaganza. I substituted a cinnamon roll for the toast with my eggs and toast breakfast, and the roll itself was enough for a whole breakfast! The roll arrived warmed up, slathered in butter and full of nuts. Ben helped eat through it, but we still left about a third of it.
Back to the Starlite Motel, and packing up, and some more bike adjustments for Ben. We headed out on old US 93, through some lovely irrigated wheat and alfalfa fields, with the Mission Mountains always on our right. This glaciated landscape is very deceptive, because the scale is so large, and often it looks like you're descending when you're really going flat or up a bit, because the gentleness of the next climb tricks your eye.
More of the old road took us through little Pablo, which is the home of the Flathead headquarters. We stopped at the museum, but it wasn't open yet, and I was a little disappointed not to learn more about the Salish, who had been deported from the Bitterroot Valley. Thus far, I had been very impressed with how prosperous the reservation looked, and how many new tribal and non-tribal businesses there were. Despite the allotment process and Anglo inholdings, this reservation seemed to be able to thrive. It was quite a contrast to what I remembered from 1978.
At Pablo, a bike lane appeared, and it followed an old railroad grade, all the way to Polson, which is the first town on the shores of lovely Flathead Lake, which turns out to be the largest lake west of the Mississippi.
The town itself is not much more than a strip of tourist business along the lake front and a small downtown that has seen better days. However, I spotted a sign for Flathead Lake Cheese, and we went to find out what that was about.
We were greeted by the first solar powered cheesery! It's run by the owners, Joe and Wendi, and we got tastes of their cheese (mostly in the Gouda style) and a grand tour. Joe is from Wisconsin, and Wendi from Arizona (but a North Dakota native) and they decided to set their business up here on Flathead Lake. Apparently, there used to be many dairies in the area, and in Ronan there was an old cheesery that had closed. Hopefully Joe and Wendi are the harbinger of the rebirth of the Flathead Lake cheese industry. It's certainly a lovely spot, and marketing should be easy!
We climbed back out of Polson along the railroad grade, and headed for the east shore of Flathead Lake. We'd been hearing that the road was narrow and carried a fair bit of traffic as it rolled along the shore. Yes, it was narrow, and despite the signs that said trucks not recommended, there was a steady stream of fuel tanker trucks taking a 'short cut' along the lake. I vowed not to ever go to a Town Pump gas station/convenience store after being passed by 15+ of their trucks headed north!
It was just the beginning of cherry picking season, for which Flathead Lake is known. The lake doesn't freeze over the in the winter, so the east shore enjoys a mild climate, similar to that of the Traverse City area in Michigan. Mild means super cloudy in the winter though, and at this latitude, I could only imagine how gray and grim the winters were.
The first cherry stand was selling cherries from Washington, so we passed. Just a bit further along, we saw a homier stand, with a mother and daughter selling cherries they had picked that morning. Tunrs out they were from Amarillo Texas, and spent the summers at Flathead Lake. The husband is a school teacher, so they starting escaping the hot southern plains, and ended up buying an old orchard. However, with the big western heat wave this year, she said it had been hotter up in Montana this year than back home in Amarillo!
I learned a little about the industry around the lake. Most the cherries are picked by Mexican migrant workers, but for some reason they hadn't shown up yet this year. (Not surprising given all the racist comments I'd heard here in western Montana.) So she and her daughter had picked cherries in the morning to get the stand going, and she said she was lucky to pick 20 pounds in an hour. The experienced pickers will pick 60-80 30 pound boxes in a day! At $5.50 a box, that's a big payday for the pickers. I can pick about 4 pounds of cherries off my tree in an hour, so clearly I need some training.
Shortly after buying some delicious cherries, we passed the ammo and munitions exhibit, which was run by a guy who looked very similar to the Unabomber. Needless to say, if he was that hostile to the Prius, we didn't want to find out what he thought of cyclists!
Around 1, we stopped at a nice state park picnic location, but it wasn't the place for jumping into the lake for a swim, as it was full of kids. I was surprised by how little public land there was around the lake, compared to Lake Tahoe, and how little public access there was. Even when the road was right on the shore, there were "No Trespassing" signs everywhere. After lunch it got really hot, and the fuel temperature was over 100. I thought I could nail the last 13 miles easily, but a series of short, steep climbs really took it out of me, and about 6 miles short of Bigfork, I really started feeling sick from the heat. In retrospect, I should have just ignored the signs and gone swimming.
We rolled into Bigfork around 4, and the hotel had great air conditioning and a pool. I didn't recover for a couple of hours, and had an upset stomach from the heat for quite some time. I'm really getting to hate the heat of the afternoons on this hot, hot days, and really feeling like the heat spoils so many days of my trip.
At dinner time, we wandered into the town of Bigfork, which turned out to be a really pleasant surprise. Lots of nice little restaurants, shops, and a good vibe. It was clearly an affluent enclave, and everyone was really nice. We ate outside on the deck at the historic Bigfork Inn, which had good food, great service and friendly staff. We met the owner, who was around my age, and had owned the place with her husband for 30+ years, and our waiter was a Montanan who had lived for many years in Maui, but returned with her husband a few years ago with their kids. Turns out they had bicycled up the Going to the Sun Road with her family a few days earlier! It was their first time, and she was full of enthusiasm for our riding. Later we met her husband, who makes beautiful handmade wooden canoes, www.morleycanoes.com. They look really awesome!
Sated from a great dinner, we headed back in the setting sun (sunset is maddeningly late here when you want an early start, 9:30 or later) for bed and an early start to beat the heat on the climb to West Glacier.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
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.
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.
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!
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.
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!
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