Tuesday and Wednesday August 10th and 11th
Left Butte around 10am, Rob Leipheimer was at the Outdoorsman store an hour early to send us off. Our aim was to reach Wise River by 8pm about 55 miles away, but over some rough terrain. We headed over to cross the Continental Divide for the 5th time. Logging in MT has picked up as now the Forest Service has realized after huge sections have been completely destroyed by the Pine Beetle, that maybe the forest should be harvested instead of just letting it go dead and become a massive fire hazard. After lunch we headed down through open meadows and sage towards Interstate 15. On the ridge before getting to I-15, we saw a breathtaking view of the Deer Lodge Valley. Right after crossing under I-15 Mike realized he had dropped his jacket on the ride down. He unhitched his BOB and headed back to get it. In the meantime, a cowboy was down the road on a horse in the road with a lasso so I went down to see what was up. A lame cow was sitting in the deep grass by a frontage road that went stray when they were driving them to a pasture. He lassoed it and got it to the trailer, where it sat down again stubbornly and wouldn't go in. I tired to help them with one rope while they pulled it's tail and ears and pushed it around to get it to stand up. I even joined in too. Had to leave before the lame cow got in, they got it in eventually passing us a little later on the road.

Time was fleeting and we needed to push forward to crest Fleecer and make it down before dark. We had a long steady climb of about 6-7 miles just to get there. About 2 miles from where the steep climb begins a motorcycle group stopped to tell us they couldn't do it the lightening, rain and degree of decline on the other side was too much and that we should wait or turn around. We kept going a little ways further when huge lightening bolts started coming down and rain was starting so we quickly set up camp and jumped in our tents letting the storm pass. If Mike hadn't dropped his coat we would have been on that ridge during the lightening storm . . . being watched over again. That night we heard on several different times coyotes howling like they were at a football game.

Wednesday we had our usual 2 hour ritual to eat, break camp and load up. Still can't figure out why it takes us so long. Just as we started out to get to the steep climb of Fleecer we heard a long loud bugle from an elk and heard it again later. Mike hit a rut and had fall number 4 off his bike. We got to the steep Fleecer climb and made it a little over half way up on the bikes. We pushed them through mud the rest of the way up. Just starting the descent and Mike gets a flat. We fix that, ride a little further then have to dismount for the very steep descent about half a mile of wrestling the slope, the bike and the trailer down. Made it ok, then with Mike in the lead had to stop at a creek crossing, fall number 5 for Mike, just barely missed a huge cow pie. Crossing the creek and about 200 yards had to stop and check the maps, fall number 6. The guy is going down all the time now, so have him clean out his shoes so he can more readily unclip when we stop, seems to help.

Nice descent to Wise River to lunch in a cafe, where we found out there was a huge hail storm the evening before, right when we would have been coming down the mountain. Being watched over again. Ran into some military guys in uniform, seems a helicopter had crashed a few days earlier landing on a dirt runway, no one was injured. The chopper was responding to a help call from a hiker that got stranded in a big storm. We passed the wreckage heading to Polaris. Passed a house with some big dogs racing after us barking like all hell had broken loose. I turned on the jets and so did John, but he hit Mike's back wheel to the trailer and hit the pavement hard. Got scraped up but funny thing the dogs stopped dead in their tracks, guess they have never been successful in taking down a biker before. On with the 20 mile climb but on a nice two lane paved road. On the way down we stopped a couple of times to read points of interest, on the second one it happened again, fall number 7 for Mike. Maybe he needs to get checked for vertigo? We are now done with the first map of our ride, 531 miles through some of the most beautiful country I have ever seen. Almost done with the state of Montana only about 150 miles or 3 days and we will be on to Wyoming.

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