Days 20-23: This place is a ghost town
Day 20
We climbed out of the Wise River Valley and descended into the Grasshopper Creek valley, which was completely different and hardly had any trees. We stopped to resupply at the small Ma Barnes' Country Market off by itself a little way off the byway.
We mailed some postcards in the town of Polaris, MT, whose only two establishments appeared to be a post office and a school.
We camped at a state park at the town of Bannack, Montana, whose main distinguishing feature is that it is a ghost town.
We met several other bicycle tourists who were staying there: a California man, a double father-son duo from Pennsylvania (all four traveling together - this was the sons' college graduation present), and another solo rider from Montreal. All were traveling our same route.
Day 21
We left the state park and crossed Bannack Bench, a relatively low ridge that took us out of the Grasshopper Valley. We had read that the main route that day (which involved a pretty long, sometimes steep climb) had a detour due to several bridge replacements on the Forest Service roads. We took the detour which was pretty flat and easy (and cut off maybe 10 miles). We passed a herd of bison on a ranch (first bison of the trip) and joked that they belonged to Ted Turner.
The detour also took us through the town of Dell, MT where we stopped at the mercantile for supplies. Outside the mercantile we talked for a while with a local who worked on a nearby ranch (for 49 years I think he said). He told us it was one of the few family owned ranches remaining in the area, as there was a trend of billionaires buying up ranches in that part of Montana. When he heard we were from Atlanta, he said that Ted was one of those billionaires, and that we had passed some of his bison ranch land earlier that day. Fancy that!
One of the few other establishments in Dell was a restaurant which looked very interesting but which unfortunately closed just before we got there.
That night we camped at a motel in Lima, MT (pronounced like the bean) that charged $5 for tent camping and also had cheap laundry (we washed our sleeping bag for the first time! Yay!). Lima also has a gas station, a restaurant, and a school among several other small establishments. Everybody in Lima seems to like showing off their Lima Bear spirit (the school's mascot).
What we could not have guessed was that this would be the party motel for all non-car long-distance travelers. There were motorcycle tourists, bicycle tourists, and a whole bunch of Continental Divide Trail hikers.
We talked with a bunch of the CDT hikers, and it was really interesting hearing about them, their trips, and how for many of them this is their second or their half-year-long hike (probably around age 30 or so for a lot of them).
We also got a few sprinkles of rain that afternoon, which was the first rain we had felt in weeks.
Day 22
We had breakfast at the restaurant with a Dutch man named Mike who was going the opposite direction as us on our route. Then we left and rode into the Centennial Valley where we would be for the rest of the day.
We found a teeny tiny bit of shade to eat lunch under, but soon after that some storms rolled in. This was our first real rain in weeks (since day 3 when we crossed into British Columbia).
We ended up getting hit by some hard rain and sleet then riding out of it. We rode for a while with in storm on our left and another on our right, and we watched them as they moved slowly across the valley and then crossed the mountains without hitting us again. Our pace must have been just right to stay perfectly between them.
The ride through the valley was beautiful.
After about 58 miles (our longest day yet) we arrived at the Upper Red Rock Lake campground in the Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge where there were also the same father-son double-duo with whom we had camped the last three nights, as well as two guys from the U.K. riding the divide together. One interesting thing about the Red Rock Lakes is their trumpeter swan population, which is one of the largest in the country. We heard them honking on the lake when we woke up in the morning, but they were too far away to see as anything besides white dots without binoculars.
Other important things that happened on this day included seeing a juvenile moose galloping awkwardly across a cattle ranch to a bog, and also me seeing a badger for the first time in real life (it looked just like the one in the Wind in the Willows illustrations).
Day 23
We left our campsite by Upper Red Rock Lake and headed toward a not-too-steep great divide crossing into Idaho. Just before we crossed, we passed the Hellroaring Creek, which is the utmost source of the Missouri River (the fourth longest in the world) at 3,768 miles from the Atlantic Ocean.
We crossed the divide riding due east, but we crossed into the Pacific side and into Idaho from Montana, which was kind of surprising since we were riding east.
From there we rode down for several miles to Island Park, ID where we arrived at the Man Cave where we had arranged to stay the night then store our bikes while we went into Yellowstone for several days. The Man Cave belongs to an awesome guy named Travis whom we met through the bicycle touring hospitality network called WarmShowers.
While we were there, we took full advantage of having a kitchen and cooking supplies and we made lots of scones to take hiking with us over the next few days (and some to leave with or generous host Travis).
We spent the next several days getting to and hiking in Yellowstone National Park. We just got out of the park today (more details on our time there later) and are now in the process of returning to the Man Cave, retrieving our bikes, and continuing our ride southward.
We climbed out of the Wise River Valley and descended into the Grasshopper Creek valley, which was completely different and hardly had any trees. We stopped to resupply at the small Ma Barnes' Country Market off by itself a little way off the byway.
We mailed some postcards in the town of Polaris, MT, whose only two establishments appeared to be a post office and a school.
We camped at a state park at the town of Bannack, Montana, whose main distinguishing feature is that it is a ghost town.
We met several other bicycle tourists who were staying there: a California man, a double father-son duo from Pennsylvania (all four traveling together - this was the sons' college graduation present), and another solo rider from Montreal. All were traveling our same route.
Day 21
We left the state park and crossed Bannack Bench, a relatively low ridge that took us out of the Grasshopper Valley. We had read that the main route that day (which involved a pretty long, sometimes steep climb) had a detour due to several bridge replacements on the Forest Service roads. We took the detour which was pretty flat and easy (and cut off maybe 10 miles). We passed a herd of bison on a ranch (first bison of the trip) and joked that they belonged to Ted Turner.
The detour also took us through the town of Dell, MT where we stopped at the mercantile for supplies. Outside the mercantile we talked for a while with a local who worked on a nearby ranch (for 49 years I think he said). He told us it was one of the few family owned ranches remaining in the area, as there was a trend of billionaires buying up ranches in that part of Montana. When he heard we were from Atlanta, he said that Ted was one of those billionaires, and that we had passed some of his bison ranch land earlier that day. Fancy that!
One of the few other establishments in Dell was a restaurant which looked very interesting but which unfortunately closed just before we got there.
That night we camped at a motel in Lima, MT (pronounced like the bean) that charged $5 for tent camping and also had cheap laundry (we washed our sleeping bag for the first time! Yay!). Lima also has a gas station, a restaurant, and a school among several other small establishments. Everybody in Lima seems to like showing off their Lima Bear spirit (the school's mascot).
What we could not have guessed was that this would be the party motel for all non-car long-distance travelers. There were motorcycle tourists, bicycle tourists, and a whole bunch of Continental Divide Trail hikers.
We talked with a bunch of the CDT hikers, and it was really interesting hearing about them, their trips, and how for many of them this is their second or their half-year-long hike (probably around age 30 or so for a lot of them).
We also got a few sprinkles of rain that afternoon, which was the first rain we had felt in weeks.
Day 22
We had breakfast at the restaurant with a Dutch man named Mike who was going the opposite direction as us on our route. Then we left and rode into the Centennial Valley where we would be for the rest of the day.
We found a teeny tiny bit of shade to eat lunch under, but soon after that some storms rolled in. This was our first real rain in weeks (since day 3 when we crossed into British Columbia).
We ended up getting hit by some hard rain and sleet then riding out of it. We rode for a while with in storm on our left and another on our right, and we watched them as they moved slowly across the valley and then crossed the mountains without hitting us again. Our pace must have been just right to stay perfectly between them.
The ride through the valley was beautiful.
After about 58 miles (our longest day yet) we arrived at the Upper Red Rock Lake campground in the Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge where there were also the same father-son double-duo with whom we had camped the last three nights, as well as two guys from the U.K. riding the divide together. One interesting thing about the Red Rock Lakes is their trumpeter swan population, which is one of the largest in the country. We heard them honking on the lake when we woke up in the morning, but they were too far away to see as anything besides white dots without binoculars.
Other important things that happened on this day included seeing a juvenile moose galloping awkwardly across a cattle ranch to a bog, and also me seeing a badger for the first time in real life (it looked just like the one in the Wind in the Willows illustrations).
Day 23
We left our campsite by Upper Red Rock Lake and headed toward a not-too-steep great divide crossing into Idaho. Just before we crossed, we passed the Hellroaring Creek, which is the utmost source of the Missouri River (the fourth longest in the world) at 3,768 miles from the Atlantic Ocean.
We crossed the divide riding due east, but we crossed into the Pacific side and into Idaho from Montana, which was kind of surprising since we were riding east.
From there we rode down for several miles to Island Park, ID where we arrived at the Man Cave where we had arranged to stay the night then store our bikes while we went into Yellowstone for several days. The Man Cave belongs to an awesome guy named Travis whom we met through the bicycle touring hospitality network called WarmShowers.
While we were there, we took full advantage of having a kitchen and cooking supplies and we made lots of scones to take hiking with us over the next few days (and some to leave with or generous host Travis).
We spent the next several days getting to and hiking in Yellowstone National Park. We just got out of the park today (more details on our time there later) and are now in the process of returning to the Man Cave, retrieving our bikes, and continuing our ride southward.
We got to enjoy your post card at Community Group tonight. We're all praying for you and your awesome adventure.
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