GDR2- DAY 11 Togwotee Pass to Strawberry Creek

GDR2- DAY 11 Togwotee Pass to Strawberry Creek
Friday Aug 17th, 2018

Start 9658
High pt  9750
Lo pt.     4700
End Elv. 
Climbing ~3000'?

Miles 51.0
Total time 8:30
Ride time 6:45

Today I start the last 70+ mile section remaining to finish the US portion of The Great Divide Mountain Bike Route.
I had made it to Togwotee Pass in Wyoming 2 years ago on a smoke filled day with route being closed about 15 miles further on due to the Lava Mountain fire. Today I start at the top of Togwotee and of course get  the obligatory top of the pass photo. But just couple of hundred yards further is another Togwotee Pass sign, with a little higher elevation, so I get a selfie  there.
This pass feeds 3 great river systems; The Green/Colorado, the Snake/Columbia, and Wind River/Platte/Missouri.
I turn off the highway a quarter mile down the pass at a crowd of folks watching a grizzly foraging between the highway and my back road. Cool to see. It's downhill on rutted road so I take it easy, and also am scanning the opening below for wildlife; no more grizzlies,  but do scout a deer.
The road winds around to the Brooks Lake basin, and the fantastic Pinnacles mountains. They are my company for 4 or 5 miles, getting see their many aspects. I will see them at a distance at many points during my climb up to Union Pass
Exit the forest and zip down Hwy 287 to the turn off and begin a 4 mile climb, the first of several on the way to Union Pass. I spy a sign that no biker want to see, fresh road work and grading. This often makes the surface very soft and pedaling harder.
Once summiting, the roller coaster road goes in and out of drainages, some pretty, others less so.
Anothe 4 mile climb to the high point, at 9700 feet, yet Union Pass and my final Continental Divide crossing is still miles away and lower at 9200 feet.
The downhill miles go quickly in vast and open country.
I rustle up a golden eagle who does not care for my passing as it wings to a higher perch.
I pass through Union pass, an uneventful place, and find a place to camp a few miles later.

Along the way, I meet Jasper from LA. He started at Calgary, and was riding a Salsa Fargo. While he had been on the route for some weeks, this was day 3 on the Salsa, as he basically broke the frame in his older trek full suspension bike, in the hopping burg of Lima Montana (never heard of it, I'm not surprised!). Trek was no help despite the claim of lifetime warranty. He got rescued by a friendly relative and scored the Salsa rig in Victor Idaho, which is a funky outdoorsy town (with 2 breweries) on the ID side of Teton Pass. Puts my rack bolt issues into perspective

GDR2-DAY 10 Lincoln to Stemple Pass and back

GDR2-DAY 10 Lincoln to Stemple Pass and back
Monday Aug 13th, 2018

Start 4560
High pt  6440
Lo pt.     4560
End Elv.  4560
Climbing ~2000'?

Miles 31.4
Total time 4:40
Ride time 3:29

Expecting this day, my last segment of the route in MT, to be a straight forward day. So after a hearty breakfast of pancakes topped with huckleberries, I headed off thru Lincoln to Stemple Pass road. Pedaled through forested "suburban" Lincoln out into some river flats ranching lands. Regain the forest along a pretty stream gurgling and singing to me as I pedal along the upward rolling road. The well maintained gravel roads make the pedaling easy, as many of the early miles are on road treated with a dirt  binder to keep the dust down (and makes for a nice firm riding surface). School bus signs dot the way for quite a spell, near modest homes and cabins.
An hour in I am 8 miles toward my expected 15 ish miles. The second hour nets me another 5.25 miles, and presents me with an ominous sign. The route is closed due to the 467 fire!!! While the fire is small, the forest ranger said they moved the fire danger from very high to extreme. Indeed, I later learn that fires are breaking out regularly over wide areas of MT. This has been my fear over the  past 2 hazy and smokey weeks, that I might get shutout by a fire again, like Union Pass in WY 2 years ago. So the route is closed; the route leaves Stemple Pass Road and regains the divide near the Marsh Creek headwaters a couple of miles along the divide from Stemple Pass. This is very near the small 467 fire. This is where I was planning to connect the dots of my two GDR trips.  Alas, it is not to be.

However, the road to Stemple Pass (and the continental divide) is open so I keep pedaling on.  This is a mentioned option that is not quite as challenging as the direct direct route up the forest service road. Three miles of cranking brings me to summit, and it turns out I have connected the dots as this was the start point two years ago!!

Mission Accomplished!! as I have ridden all of the Montana segments from the border with Canada into Idaho.

Just the 70+ mile if  Union Pass  segment in Wyoming remain to finish the whole route from Canada to Mexico.

While at the pass I chat with a woman commuting to Lincoln (from Bozeman), where she has spent most of the last 6 months working on a film about Ted Kascinski, the Unabomber (film is "Ted K", due in a couple of years). He lived just off a Stemple Pass Road  just a few miles outside Lincoln, and she had learned quite a bit from the locals. She gives some hints to the location of his old cabin, and color about his character and local interactions.

We both depart on our seperate journeys, and I start my return trip down the pass. It is downhill for several miles, and I let the bike run, speeding up on steeper sections, only to slow down to an oozing pace at times on the flatter sections. I am like the water in the stream I parallel, letting gravity and nature dictate to me, rather than the other way around. Where it is flatter, willows dominate and I can safely gaze aside, hoping to spot a moose or other wildlife, to no avail. Eventually, I need to pedal to complete my day and Montana portion of my adventure, pedaling back past the cabins and homes, through the ranch land flats, and finally Lincoln .
We celebrate my milestone, and more importantly, Glendas birthday with a night out on the town in Lincoln (pop. ~1700)

While in Lincoln, Glenda and I went to a sculpture garden in a grove of pine trees, with a theme of wood. Timber and logging are a big part of the heritage and current economy, and the garden is an ode to wood, both from a logging and a  natural perspective. A good number catch my eye, and the artist has succeeded in making me think at multiple levels. A nice unexpected adder for our visit to Lincoln

GDR2- DAY 9 Harry Morgan Ovando to Lincoln

GDR2- DAY 9 Ovando to Lincoln
Sunday Aug 12th, 2018

Start 4100
High pt  6015
Lo pt.     4100
End Elv.  4560
Climbing ~00'?

Miles 36.2
Total time ~6:30
Ride time 4:29

Sunday morning on the North Fork Blackfoot brought a variety of rafters heading out fishing, paddle boards, families, friends. Chatted with most groups, looks like fun.

Ride starts with a good 10+ miles of gravel in the Blackfoot valley flats, lot of hay fields and some cattle.  Then the 6 mile climb up huckleberry pass begins. It is good road mostly. I run into Gary and Denise picking huckleberries and stop to join then and visit (and to get a breather from the climb).Their huck luck has changed and they are harvesting a great patch, though they do say the berries are smaller the last year. I gather enough for a small surprise gift for Glendas birthday on the morrow. I say good bye and continue up the last 2 miles in a long switch back to the top of the pass. Take a break, eat and head down. Notice some trucks are pulled off to side and so do I.
 I crawl up a rough hole in the trees foot path and find many more hucks! Sample more this time and add to the cache for Glenda. More down down down heading towards Lincoln. I have been hoping all day Glenda got my text from the emergency beacon and is headed to Lincoln today, instead of the original plan of Ovando on Sunday. Lo and behold, there is Glenda across the road in Lincoln. She has a spot in the nicely wooded city owned Hopper Park.

GDR2- DAY 8 - Holland Lake to Ovando

GDR2- DAY 8 - Holland Lake to Ovando
Saturday, Aug 11th, 2018

Start 4090
High pt  6495'
Lo pt.     ?
End Elv.  4100'
Climbing ~4000'?

Miles 64.5?
Total time ~ 11:00
Ride time 7:32

It is going to be a warm day, but I have an urge to ride more, need to finish. While enjoyable hanging in the Swan Valley area, it is a bit smokey, and other segments and routes await the finishing of Montana segments.
I start early for me, 7:15, which 1.5 to 2 hours earlier than normal. The big climb is about 20 miles in today and want to do that before noon and the worst of the heat.
As I do the modest climb up to Clearwater Lake, I hear the warbling of a bird calling out; the cadence is that of a woodpecker, but clearly this is a song, emanating from the throat of what sounds to be a larger bird. It trills regularly as I cycle past slowly uphill til I am out of range. Not far later, its brethren takes up the chant to lure me forward.
A bit of gentle downhill for a spell has me meeting a suspect dog. A little further gazing I spot an RV parked among the high grasses and shrubs in a verdant glen next to a stream. A woman is walking out of the brush on the far side of the road, I call out hoping she will call her dog. As she briefly looks up and calls her dog, she  non chalantly continues picking her barefoot steps across the road and up to the rv. Further gazing reveals that she is embracing nature this morning as on the day of her birth, in her own skin and nothing else.
Clearly a nature lover, or perhaps returning from a tryst with sasquatch?? Who can say and I don't slow down to ask.
Back to the start of the big climb, I turn on to a closed road which turns in to singletrack for a couple of hundred yards. I hear an unexpected noise from behind me on the bike; could it be a misattached pannier?. Stopping and investigating shows that the other factory mounting bolt has sheared off. I nurse the bike the last little way until I pop out on a good road (how did they find this little single track connection anyways???)
I quickly use my last spare bolt and repair. It occurs to me perhaps I could balance the load better. One side is heavier with the food and cooking kit. Was trying to localize the food smells,  but I move more innocuous items over for more equal weight. Also move some tent parts to handle bar bag

Back to the climb - up up up. Turn onto a closed road that is single track to the saddle that is the top today. The road bed is whittled down to some real single track with attention getting consequences. The rugged Swans assert themselves on the hazy eastern horizon, getting every more intimately close and higher.
Along the way a meet a group of teenagers and dad's that rode out to the saddle, then hiked and summitted the high point on the Swan ridge. Cool to see and wonder if that lays on my path in some future.
The saddle does present one with a beautiful mountian valley, if somewhat smokey from the Brownstone fire a ridge away in the Bob. I have a lingering lunch, taking it all in before I cast off for a long downhill run through the Morrell valley, which hosted a large fire last year. Some areas are regenerating with greenery and flowers; others, a blacken grey moonscape, still awaiting time and nature's healing powers.
Exiting the valley brings me to a modest climb to today's destination. I am planning on camping at Cottonwood Lakes, but on arrival at 2 pm it is hot, and the bike camping looks uninspiring. My next days destination is only 20 miles away near Ovando, and mostly downhill, I decide to gain a day and start pedaling again. It is actually cooler pedaling downhill than being stopped.
Finally enter cattle country in the Blackfoot River plain, pass through the colorful little burg of Ovando and camp on the banks of the north fork of the Blackfoot of "The river runs through it" fame. My camp neighbors are Gary and Denise, who promptly offer me a beer and chat. They were skunked searching for hucks up in the Swan Valley, and will try huckleberry pass (on route) tomorrow.