Being Divided

After the rain delay it felt great to be moving again. The day out of Whitefish was almost all sealed, allowing for our first 60 mile divide day. Early on we caught the two B's, who had overtaken us during our extended rest. Whilst we waited out the rain it sounded like they had a few miserable days.

My chain broke, and whilst fixing it a couple of dogs came to say hi. 2 miles later one was still following. Eventually we lost them. The day ended with a big climb followed by a fun descent.

A 2nd day of 60miles was much tougher. Gravel does that. Some great cycle trails made it much more interesting. One oncoming car passing within 1m reinforced my love of quiet roads. 

We'd been aiming for a lake to camp. It seemed like many others had the same idea. One group in particular was noteable as it sounded like one guy was talking to himself, as he was the only one audible, from 50m away.

After an early puncture we had a small warmup hill before a big climb. The top part of the hill was singletrack. The climb was fun, the descent even better. 

After a lot of descending we reached Seally Lake, where a large amount of ice cream was consumed. A short ride out of town and we had some peace and quiet for the night. 

An easy, very pleasant ride in morning brought us to Ovando, where we enjoyed brunch. Rolling hills and very dry terrain with mountains all around made for nice scenery. 

The rolling hills ended at the base of Huckleberry Pass where a long, but not difficult climb brought us to yet another lake, this time mostly deserted. That is except for a very brave deer. 

My bike is far from what's recommended: no suspension and skinnier tyres. Even so it has been handling the ride fine. Setting up a bike for this I would definitely go for wider tyres. Today was the first time I wished for suspension as well.

The early part of the ride was nice and pleasant. Then the steep, rocky stuff began. A series of ramps had me near my limit, and when the grade became sustained I somehow managed to maintain enough momentum to continue up over some large rocks. 

Reaching the top was a relief, but we didn't have anytime to relax. An extremely rocky descent made for a very unpleasant ride, patchy shadow made it even tougher. We took breaks just to give our hands a rest. 

At the bottom of the hill was Barbara's cabin, with the resident Llamas. Barbara has been hosting Divide cyclists for years. If I were to do this again I would consider taking a rest day and just chilling. Wifi definitely helps.

Also staying the night were Joy and Sammie. Later in the evening we met Barbara, reinforcing my desire to be back sometime. 

Once you enter this valley they make it hard to leave. The first obstacle was pancakes in the morning. After that was a tough climb, not as bad as the previous day though. 

Later in the day we had a much easier climb, due to easy gradient and a nice tailwind. It seems like the pass sign is popular for people other than cyclists. 

During the descent my pannier fell off, well it detached and dangled by a secondary strap anyway. I managed to come to a halt with only a few scuff marks on the pannier as evidence. 

After the few rough descents the coast into Helena on the hwy was very relaxing. 

What wasn't so relaxing was my credit card being denied at the supermarket. A quick look at my account showed a large amount of charges not by me. Somewhere along my travels my card had been skimmed. Thankfully I've been under budget so I have enough money to see me back to LA. More importantly I had a second card linked to the account so no downtime waiting for a replacement.

With all this going on, and a very nice warmshowers place to stay it was easy to take a rest day.  

Leaving Helena was a long process. Eventually we managed it. Isobel had yet another puncture and whilst fixing it Paul, a Tasmanian cyclist on a fat bike rolled up. I later found out later he had a motor.

Isobel had been feeling really bad. After lunch she slept for a good hour and felt much better for it. Unfortunately the easy part of the day was done. 

Lava Mountain awaited us. The lower slopes were easy enough, and very scenic. The top however was described as a steep 4wd track. They failed to mention the bike swallowing ruts and rocky streambed. 

1.5 hours of pushing and we had covered only 2 miles. A tough descent followed. Finding water was our trigger for setting up camp, just before a storm rolled in. 

Zero degrees Celsius in the morning made for a sluggish start. While packing up Jerry and Al who we'd last seen in Whitefish rolled in. We would catch up to them surprisingly quickly, a bit less surprisingly when we found out one of them had non existent organic disk pads and no spares. A puncture allowed them to catch us again.

With our late start we decided on a shorter alternative route to Butte. Not the most interesting riding but very relaxing. Along the way we caught up to Jim, a motorcyclist doing the divide route. We'd been leapfrogging each other over the last week or so. 

A 'screaming' descent (boring) brought us into Butte where we once again caught Jim, before heading to a warmshowers place for the night. 

Running errands took some time, then I noticed another flat tyre. With that fixed we were off. 

We didn't even get out of town before we lost even more time chatting to a British father/daughter pair cycling northbound. We rolled on another hundred metres and stopped to chat with Jerry and Al again.

Thankfully we only had a short day planned, up to Highland Pass. Paul the fat biker caught up and headed down the hill to camp. 

With plenty of time to spare we hiked up the short distance to the summit beforeenjoying the sunset. 

Today was the last day of my 7 weeks travelling with Isobel. I don't plan my trips with other people as I would find it very tough to find someone with similar wants. Meeting Isobel has changed my trip dramatically, and any compromise I took was more than worth it.

The fork in the road was just at the bottom of the hill, so we were both in no hurry to get going in the morning. At the bottom we had a long goodbye, before Isobel headed back to Butte, and I continued on alone, for the first time in a long time. 

An entirely avoidable hill called Fleecer Ridge awaited me. This is one section that is often talked about. Not because the climb is difficult, although it is, but because of the descent.

The recommended way to get down is to zigzag down through the sage, as the track itself heads straight down the side of the ridge, with loose gravel making traction a huge issue. I didn't zigzag too much but it definitely took more effort going down than it took going up the other side. 

A nice campsite at the base was to be the start of my time traveling solo again.