Butte the Butt to the End

We last updated this blog when we arrived in Butte, Montana. Entering this fine city consisted of riding for 8 miles along a strip-mall-lined four lane highway, with the terraces of Butte's Berkeley Pit lining the hillside ahead of us. Butte was nicknamed "the Richest Hill in the World" by the late 1800s for its copper resources: during the early 20th century, Butte was the leading producer of copper in the world. However, as you might imagine, the town has been destroyed by the mining. Pumps lowered groundwater levels for a century, allowing miners to dig a pit mine over 1200 feet deep. This pit grew and grew until miners started digging under the city itself. Now that the mine is no longer running, the pit is filling with noxious water, and is projected to overflow by 2020 and destroy the town for good.

What a beautiful pit! I did not take this picture.

So we didn't have a positive opinion about Butte from the beginning. What really sealed the deal, however, is getting food poisoning after eating in Bob and Sally's Cafe, or "B.S. Cafe." Thankfully, we were soon rescued by Nate, Cate's friend from Idaho, who happened to have a couple days off. We realized we were way ahead of schedule for our flight out of Helena, so we were happy to go on a side trip to Glacier in Nate's truck.

On the drive from Butte to Glacier, we found some dinosaurs. Awesome.

After arriving to the east entrance of Glacier National Park, we were told that every single campground in the park within 30 miles was full, so we had to turn around and find a private campground. As we wondered about, discouraged, we passed a cafe offering pies. Now, Cate and I recalled we had a friend from Alaska working at a pie place near Glacier, so after some debate we pulled into the parking lot and wandered into the place, asking the host "Does a Lauren Johnson work here?"

"Yes!" he said, "Follow me!" So we ran around to the back of the building, and burst into a common room, where he announced, "Lauren! Your friends are here to see you!" What a happy surprise to meet Lauren so serendipitously, and so far from Alaska! We camped behind the cafe that night, and had pie in the morning.

Cate, Lauren, and I in front of Park Cafe, near Glacier National Park.

We spent the morning on a hike to Iceberg Lake, and the afternoon driving through the park on the Going to the Sun Road.

Driving along Lake Sherburne to the Iceberg Lake trailhead.

Iceberg Lake has icebergs and the tiniest glacier I've ever seen.

Some Germans were also enjoying beer by the shore of the lake.

Driving over Going to the Sun was spectacular and terrifying. Construction along the road caused bumper to bumper traffic for much of the 2 hour drive, and we witnessed drivers actually filming out their windows rather than looking at the narrow road in front of them.

Spectacular mountains.

Lots of snow at the top of the pass!

Weeping wall along the Going to the Sun road.

We camped that night on the other side of the park, and went on a hike along Bowman's Lake the next day.

Bowman's Lake.

At the top of our hike.

On the way down again.

Then we stopped for a night in Missoula, Montana before going back to Butte the Butt the next day. Cate and I did not linger long--we stopped only long enough to buy some food. On our way out of town, we passed this sign.

Butte is an environmental disaster.

We first had to follow the interstate out of Butte; after six miles, we were able to get on a frontage road. The frontage road soon turned to a cattle track, which was lots of fun, but still followed the highway. We had to camp that night immediately under the highway, because the cattle track was lined for miles in each direction by a barbed wire fence. The fence made even going to the bathroom difficult before Cate opened a convenient passage through the barbed wire. It was such a nice spot, we convinced three cyclists arriving from the other direction to spend the night there with us.

Tom, Richard, and Leah were from Washington.

The campsite wasn't all the bad though: there were lots of tiny but delicious wild strawberries.

The next day, we got very lost trying to find Lava Mountain. Along with Fleecer Ridge (see our last post), we had been hearing about the difficult Lava Mountain for the previous three weeks from other cyclists we had met. The directions on our maps are written from the other direction, which is occasionally very difficult to follow. When southbound cyclists are on a trail leading to a well-used road, it's very clear which well-used road is meant. From the road, however, there are many small, narrow tracks leading up the hillside. So after much exploration, we ended up in this grassy field.

This was not the way to Lava Mountain.

So, we turned around, got back on the road, and went down a little farther to another track, where we faintly spied the bike tracks Tom, Richard, and Leah left the previous day.

Still looking for markers.

Finally we got to the Lava Mountain trailhead. We dismounted and took a picture, of course, and then struggled to push our bikes up this extremely steep and rocky slope.

Surprisingly, our feet didn't get burned.

Still uncertain where to go.

There were only two sections where we had to push our bikes, and then we got to ride downhill for three miles on extremely rocky, rolly, muddy terrain, which was tons of fun.

We camped that night at Park Lake, an extremely beautiful--and popular--recreation site only 20 miles away from Helena.

Helena was a magical city. We biked all downhill into the center of downtown, without having to pass through the miles of sprawl we found in Butte. Immediately, we passed a library, a brewery, an ice cream shop, and a bike shop, which pretty much sums up what we do in any town. We couch-surfed in Helena--while we were in Butte, Cate contacted a person through the couch-surfing website who offered to put us up for two nights. We ended up staying with 4 people about our age, plus various friends and coworkers, all working for Americorps. We ended up lawn-surfing because the couch was already taken, and they had a very nice backyard.

Jordan and Mike in their backyard, where we set up our tent.

We had two days before our flight. We went to the bike shop one day, and met this couple from Scotland. They were the first northbound riders we met! They started in South America, and had been riding for a year.

Riding some single track right above the city.

Other people we met during our two day stay in Helena.

It was very nice having the opportunity to meet lots of people. Certain people we met volunteered to help us a LOT, by giving us rides with our huge bike boxes to the UPS store, and a ride to the airport at 4:45 am. Thanks!

So, Cate and I ended our bike trip in Helena, and flew home to New Jersey. While it was sad to end our trip, we are extremely grateful we got the chance to have such an amazing adventure, and the opportunity to meet so many people along the way. Thanks to everyone who helped us, offered us a place to stay, unknowingly gave us a place to stay, made us fires and gave us marshmallows, or were even just slightly friendly. You all made all the difference!

Under the Great Big Skies of Montana

Wow it has been a long time since we posted! The morning we were planning to leave Driggs, we realized we weren't going to have a real grocery store for 12 days! So instead of writing a blog post about all the animals we've met and posting pictures of ourselves scantily clad, as we normally do, we had to go grocery shopping. Thankfully the Driggs grocery store had a wonderful selection of freeze dried meals and Indian food, so we bought dinner for 12 days and sent ourselves two care packages of yummy meals and snacks.

As we've moved north out of Idaho and into our last state, Montana, a couple of sights have become much more common. For one thing, there are the panic-inducing mosquitos. This has led to some slightly miserable camping as we actually hit each other in the face more often than we talk. Mostly we forgive a good face slap as long as the mosquito winds up dead, but occasionally reflex gets in the way and Cate hits me back. Mosquitos make us into grumpy children again.

Another interesting thing we've noticed is Montana's very big sky. "Wow what a big sky!" we thought when we crossed the Idaho-Montana border. It always seems to be raining somewhere, especially in the afternoon. Thankfully we've missed most of the storms. For example, on this fine afternoon we stopped to enjoy ourselves when we realized a massive storm was crossing our path in front of us.

A pickup truck pulled up as we sipped our Coors light and munched on snacks. An octogenarian rolled down the window, and said, "It's a hard life, but someone's gotta do it!" You are right, sir, we are just doing our best.

How did we get such nice beer, you ask? The night before, as we camped in what we thought was the middle of nowhere, a caravan of two pickup trucks and an ATV started bumping down the washed out road next to our campsite. Sadly the last truck got stuck in the mud, and the man in the first truck saw we were starting a fire and immediately offered us some lighter fluid. Of course, we said no thank you, but the guy pulled firewood out of his truck. "I don't need this anymore! Please take them!" he said, gesturing with a log in each hand. Of course, he had to carry it over and put it in our fire ring, and then it was only natural for him to douse it in gasoline. Presto we had a roaring fire! Before the caravan left, he insisted we take two of the most gigantic marshmellows I have ever seen! As an afterthought, his son handed us two Coors lights as well.

Gifts from the passing ATVers.

A gift of beer was especially welcome because we brought a six pack of Moose Drool Brown Ale with us from Lima, MT, but as it was chilling in the stream, one of them escaped! I literally spent an hour looking for my lost beer, but it was nowhere to be found. I can only hope a moose found it and was offended.

Can you spot a lost can of beer? No? Me neither.

The third and final notable thing about Montana is the absurd number of cyclists!! It is a very popular time to start riding from the north, and so we see a couple cyclists going the other direction, every day! We thought that our BOBs plus hardtail mountain bikes was the most common setup, but here you will see a wealth of others.

These guys, Charlie and Dave, weren't actually riding the divide, but Charlie just did a section in Colorado, plus he and his brother started the Grand Teton Brewing Company, which was very nice to us in Victor, ID! Dave has a cool recumbent bike.

We camped one night with Lucas and Brandon in Bannack State Park. They are from Lincoln, Nebraska, and were very nice to let us share their campsite. They both have rigid frame 29ers, panniers. and drop handlebars.

Ian and Turtle are from Tuscon, AZ, and Turtle works with jaguars. They had the same setup as us--front shocks, BOB trailers, but they are vegan. No ice cream!! How do they do it?

The next two cyclists were British! Top of the morning to you too!

Phil's had a BOB, but decided it was too big, so he welded together a new trailer/rack of his own design. It's possible he welded together his bike as well.

Stuart had panniers and a big, floppy, safari hat in place of a helmet.

We met more people than we took pictures of, including five cyclists with no stuff at all. They were followed by an RV. Literally, a huge RV followed them down the road at about 10 miles an hour. We've also seen a couple motorbikes riding the trail, and we've heard of many more people.

It would be hard to describe every day of our trip since Driggs, so I will just show the photos:

Leaving the Tetons!

Squirrel Dance Hall: I enjoyed imagining what goes on in here.

Crazy afternoon storms.

Biking along Warm River on an old railroad bed.

Old railroad tunnel--we weren't allowed to bike through.

Leaving Island Park, ID, we went on this crazy road. Yes, this was the right way.

Beautiful views of Sawtelle Mountain from our "bike path."--the closed road.

Getting very wet feet near the Centennial Range on the very edge of Idaho.

Continental Divide sign AND state sign! How exciting to be in our last state!

Biking along Lima Reservoir on our way to Lima, MT and our first care package.

We ate breakfast at this Calf A in Dell, MT.

Biking up a very windy, rocky canyon to Medicine Lodge-Sheep Creek Divide, where we met our fire and gigantic marshmellow enthusiasts.

Storms on the horizon, as usual. Thankfully they never came our way!

In the abandoned ghost town of Bannack--now a not-so-well-preserved stated park.

"Antique Merry Go Round: Use At Own Risk." Cate you are so daring!!!

Old county courthouse, and converted hotel. We were allowed into "any buildings that aren't locked!" We took this as a challenge, though most buildings had very tilted floors that made us feel dizzy.

Old Free Mason lodge and schoolhouse.

From Bannack State Park, we headed to Elkhorn Hot Springs, where we encountered warm swimming pools filled with algae and VERY unfriendly staff.

All the bicyclists coming the other way warned us about Fleecer Ridge and its ridiculous downhill. Unfortunately, for us this meant an impossible uphill.

Starting up Fleecer Ridge. We're still smiling as we head up this two track!

Very quickly the trail turned into this river and we fell and hurt ourselves. We're off to a good start.

A couple miles of hard climbing and we get to this. Now, the picture doesn't do it justice. This is a trail heading straight up a mountain! Most people coming the other way walk their bikes down. So we had to walk our bikes up. But, it proved impossible to push our bikes with our trailers, so we took two long, hard trips. In about a mile we gained over 1000 feet.

Cate starting up the trail with her BOB bag on her back.

Pushing bike and empty trailer up the mountain. Note how small the trail is at the bottom!

Several hours later, at the top! Fleecer Mountain is in the background. Note how the trail has disappeared and we are now riding in grass.

Fleecer ridge took the better part of a day, and then it was one day into Butte, MT, where we are now!