Today is John Witzel's 56th birthday! He woke up to a clear sunrise on a gorgeous lake - happy B-day. After a quick breakfast we started up the big climb, which as it turned out was not as hard we thought but the descent on fairly rough single track trails was a lot harder. On the way up we saw very dramatic mountains and peaks in the distance still almost fully covered in snow. On the way down the single track was rough, some wash-out and logs fallen across the trail requiring dismount and portage around those areas. When we hit the dense foliage areas I started whistling as loud as I could since I was in the lead. Mike was talking loudly to himself to create noise too. We didn't want to run up on a bear without them hearing us.
We ate hamburgers in Seeley Lake, 2 miles off the trail but well worth it. After 244 miles and 6 days of riding (with 1/2 day of being lost), we finally get to the next page of the map. A long, constant medium climb takes us to Ovanda, a throw back to the Old West, a cute town with a B&B, cafe-coffee shop, museum, gas station and a fishing shop. Since we don't have a lot fuel left until we hit Helena in 2 days we are trying to eat out as much as possible.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Wednesday, August 4th
Outside of Condon, MT we left our motel to get back on the trail for an easy day of riding. The objective was to eat lunch at the Holland Lake Lodge, which we did. We also wanted to be fresh for a hard climb up Mount Richmond. I wanted to catch up on the blog, so I wrote the last one at Holland Lodge and then rode 4 miles back to the highway to get enough cell coverage to send the file. Seems like the parts of Montana we are traveling really aren't focused on entering the digital age with widely available Internet access or cell phone coverage. Mike and John waited (a little impatiently I might add) for me to get back. While waiting in a camping area they saw their first grizzly dart across a road, as a kid was swimming in the stream not far away. I got back and we started our climb up to Clearwater Lake, an absolutely beautiful high mountain lake that looked untouched by man (except for our campsite). After setting up our tents, and Mike and John going for a swim, two old-timers showed up having no luck fishing the lake, we had heard their dog barking when got there. They proceeded to scare the hell out of us talking about grizzlies turning over logs, etc. Needless to say we all went to bed with our pepper spray ready for a visit. It occurred to me during the night that is not likely to happen. Mike snores so loud, for so long that either the bears like it or don't and given no visits they are like me, they don't really care for the snoring. Seems like it is a good deterrent to unwanted bear interaction. One other thing kept me awake, at first it sounded like a wolf or coyote howling, but after a while I figured it was the haunting calls of a loon on Clearwater Lake.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Tuesday, August 3rd
Today started late, around 10am, with a good almost 6 mile climb. It was all dirt road and not excessively steep but still a good pull around 1800 feet of vertical ascent. As we crested the summit we saw another woman picking huckleberries in the middle of a forest. We are seeing people out in the middle of nowhere going to their secret spots to pick huckleberries. Shortly after the huckleberry pickers we saw our first bear crossing the road about a 100 yards in front of us. It saw us and scrambled into the woods, alas it was only a black bear not a grizzly. The descent was long and unfettered. Several hours later we made a very short wrong turn and as we were going back to get the right road (unmarked of course) a logging truck comes barreling around the corner, had to scamper off the dirt road quickly to miss him. Next was another shorter climb only 1,000 feet to get closer to our final destination, a lodge next to a highway. We got in at just before 8pm and the only food for the night was a small grocery store a mile away. Mike and I dropped our trailers and rode like crazy to get there before they closed (we called ahead asking them to stay open a few minutes longer). As we were racing there Mike had a deer run right in front of his bike and he had to slam on the brakes or he would have hit it. We got the groceries for dinner and beer and headed back and it almost happened again! Only this time a deer ran within inches of the car 50 feet in front of us. The deer in this area of Montana are crazy! Another nice night of regular food, beer and a bed - man are we getting spoiled.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
First and foremost I want to thank all of the folks that have been so generous and pledged a contribution to Healing American Heroes. It really is inspiring to get off the trail after 3 days of riding and see more are sponsoring, thanks. Rosie Babin and the volunteers are getting to help more and more of the wounded by your thoughtfulness and caring.
A special thanks to our friend Tom Lafleur who came up from San Diego to drop us off and take John Witzel's car back to San Diego. Hope we don't run into any of the mountain lions like the one Tom saw while fishing a river after dropping us off eating a deer a hundred feet away!
Prior to crossing the border we said a prayer for God to watch over us and to keep our families safe and to thank those that have sacrificed for us. We start all our rides with a prayer, sure seems to be working to know that He is there with us.
Our Saturday launch began pouring rain and lightening within 10 minutes of crossing the Canadian border back into the U.S. We rode for 62 miles going through some really beautiful Montana farmland, lots of horses and cattle in very green meadows. We started our first climb over Whitefish Pass at noon and crested it about 3pm right when it reached 96 degrees! The downhill ride was beautiful through pine forests and a vista of huge mountains surrounding our descent. You really have to watch your speed going down gravel roads with a 40+lbs one-wheeled trailer behind you, hitting 20 mph and the thing starts to sway back and forth. We ended the day around 6pm after finding a beautiful campsite along the North Fork Flathead River with an absolutely breathtaking view of the mountains in Glacier National Park. By the way if you stand on a dirt road looking at a map in Montana you get someone to stop and offer you assistance, the people here really are very friendly and want to help, which is how we found our campsite.
Sunday we were out of camp by 8am, seems it takes us about 2 hours to eat, refresh our water, breakdown our tents and repack our trailers. We were off and ran into three folks on bikes, a husband wife from Australia and a godson from the U.K. They had started in Arizona and were biking well past Banff. We are just going to the NM-Mexico border, these second timers on the Great Divide Ride sure have us beat! Great conversation with them comparing stories, but it also caused us to lose focus and we missed our turn up to the second big climb to cross the Divide at Red Meadows Lake. That cost us 30+ extra miles and an extra climb too boot. We have learned a hard lesson, pay attention at every intersection to where you are going! We ended up going 50 miles but only doing 17 trail miles and spending the night camping at Upper Whitefish campgrounds instead of a hotel in the town of Whitefish. But even with all that frustration we still enjoyed the spectacular views of Red Meadow Lake and the surrounding mountains.
Monday, August 1st we a got out of camp at 8am and headed downhill to Whitefish, a great, but initially cold ride to a beautiful town on Whitefish Lake. We got some repairs done at Glacier Cyclery (nice folks and very helpful) and then headed off to BigFork on a mostly flat ride, well at least no big climbs. Here again, we went through beautiful farmland, very green pastures. We called ahead from the road to be sure had a place to stay and were in luck, a bed, a beer and a burger. Had a great nights sleep and now we are ready to make steep climb on Day 4 of the ride. It will probably be a couple of days before we can catch up again. Still working on getting pictures into the posts from my iPad.
A special thanks to our friend Tom Lafleur who came up from San Diego to drop us off and take John Witzel's car back to San Diego. Hope we don't run into any of the mountain lions like the one Tom saw while fishing a river after dropping us off eating a deer a hundred feet away!
Prior to crossing the border we said a prayer for God to watch over us and to keep our families safe and to thank those that have sacrificed for us. We start all our rides with a prayer, sure seems to be working to know that He is there with us.
Our Saturday launch began pouring rain and lightening within 10 minutes of crossing the Canadian border back into the U.S. We rode for 62 miles going through some really beautiful Montana farmland, lots of horses and cattle in very green meadows. We started our first climb over Whitefish Pass at noon and crested it about 3pm right when it reached 96 degrees! The downhill ride was beautiful through pine forests and a vista of huge mountains surrounding our descent. You really have to watch your speed going down gravel roads with a 40+lbs one-wheeled trailer behind you, hitting 20 mph and the thing starts to sway back and forth. We ended the day around 6pm after finding a beautiful campsite along the North Fork Flathead River with an absolutely breathtaking view of the mountains in Glacier National Park. By the way if you stand on a dirt road looking at a map in Montana you get someone to stop and offer you assistance, the people here really are very friendly and want to help, which is how we found our campsite.
Sunday we were out of camp by 8am, seems it takes us about 2 hours to eat, refresh our water, breakdown our tents and repack our trailers. We were off and ran into three folks on bikes, a husband wife from Australia and a godson from the U.K. They had started in Arizona and were biking well past Banff. We are just going to the NM-Mexico border, these second timers on the Great Divide Ride sure have us beat! Great conversation with them comparing stories, but it also caused us to lose focus and we missed our turn up to the second big climb to cross the Divide at Red Meadows Lake. That cost us 30+ extra miles and an extra climb too boot. We have learned a hard lesson, pay attention at every intersection to where you are going! We ended up going 50 miles but only doing 17 trail miles and spending the night camping at Upper Whitefish campgrounds instead of a hotel in the town of Whitefish. But even with all that frustration we still enjoyed the spectacular views of Red Meadow Lake and the surrounding mountains.
Monday, August 1st we a got out of camp at 8am and headed downhill to Whitefish, a great, but initially cold ride to a beautiful town on Whitefish Lake. We got some repairs done at Glacier Cyclery (nice folks and very helpful) and then headed off to BigFork on a mostly flat ride, well at least no big climbs. Here again, we went through beautiful farmland, very green pastures. We called ahead from the road to be sure had a place to stay and were in luck, a bed, a beer and a burger. Had a great nights sleep and now we are ready to make steep climb on Day 4 of the ride. It will probably be a couple of days before we can catch up again. Still working on getting pictures into the posts from my iPad.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Hit the goal, thanks everyone
I just want to say thanks to all that have pledged and helped us achieve/exceed our goal in fundraising. I am excited about getting started on the ride but more so about helping our wounded. Rosie Babin and all the volunteers at Healing American Heroes appreciate the generosity that you have have shown. Today is the scramble day to everything packed and go to Colorado to begin the move west and then to Roosville for our start in a week. I also want to thank my wife, Colleen, for her tremendous support and enthusiasm for our ride and the fundraising. Colleen lined up an article in the Eden Prairie News this week http://edenprairienews.com/taxonomy/term/55/9
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