Leaving Missoula was difficult, not for any other reason than I had got too comfortable there. 1000 miles in, and my legs had started to feel it, but also, I felt insatiably hungry all the time and needed a rest to eat, drink and sleep. Having taken an extra rest day to do all of the above, I started the ride down into the Bitterroot Mountains to begin the 350 mile ride to Yellowstone National Park. A flat and fairly boring morning riding along a bike path that followed the main road, turned into an awesome gravel section for the last 30 miles, with panoramic views of the snow capped Bitterroot in the background. I met my warm showers host, Curtis, in Hamilton, MT. in order to ride the remaining 15 miles back to his house together. We stopped off at possibly the coolest bike shop I’ve ever seen, in the middle of nowhere, where I was offered a job and a beer, I politely declined the former before accepting the latter – cool guys, if only I had a longer visa!
Completely spent by the time we rode into Darby, MT., we bought a huge amount of fried chicken and ate it while talking about touring and the 400+ guests that Curtis has hosted in the 4 years he has been active on Warm Showers; awesome. I placed a pin on the world map in his basement.
Left late the following morning due to coffee drinking and chatting, as well as meeting several touring cyclists and catching up on their rides, finding out more about what to expect over the next couple of days, and fixing peoples bikes. The first 30 miles included a long 3500 feet climb up to 7200 feet, which is awesome but I am definitely getting tired of the long and slow climbs of this area and cannot wait until the more interesting alpine switch backs of Colorado. The top of this pass though, the Lost Trail Pass, also marked the first point in the ride where I cross the continental divide! Any water to fall on the western slope will eventually flow into the Pacific, any water on the eastern slope will flow into the Gulf of Mexico. Not much of a descent though as I am sleeping at 6000 feet in a Veterans Memorial Park. I am currently in a flat area of prairie known as the ‘big hole’, and looking around you can completely understand the name, a flat area surrounded by mountains far in the distance.
