It was another lovely day on the Great Divide. These really are some of the best miles. If only the divide had more like them…
The highlight of the day is the closed road below Richmond Peak. It’s double track that rides like singletrack, or has deteriorated into singletrack. Apparently it’s called the Swan Divide trail now. It’s fun to see how the trail/road has changed in the last 10 years. In 2004 it had christmas trees growing in it. It seems a little more subdued now, but definitely a fantastic raw feel to it.
And the views! Oh the views. They are huge, and awe-inspiring. The peaks of the Swan Range and into the Wilderness (Bob or Scapegoat, I am not sure).
We put Eszter’s ipad into ghetto blaster mode, putting it outside her pack, for the climb up. It was both for motivation and for bear detterence. It worked nicely for both. We crushed the 2000 ft climb and quickly found ourselves bombing down and singing whatever funny songs came into our head, as loud as we could belt them.
The rest of the day’s riding was on perfectly pleasant forest roads. If only dirt touring was always this good. We saw maybe half a dozen cars, with the exception of Holland Lake Road. Nice surfaces, lots of shade, cool temps. Just dreamy riding.
I had 82 miles to our intended destination — Condon, MT for a roof. It was 27 degrees in Ovando overnight. Similar temps are expected tonight. With that, and that it’s bear country, we opted to find a roof.
Figuring out where the hungry bear and the BnB are. IPhone to the rescue!
What did I say earlier about you can’t trust anything you read online, even if you wrote it? My mileage chart for Ovando to Condon had 82 miles when touring in 2004. I don’t know where the extra miles came from, but it was nice to clock it just shy of 70 today. We ended up at charming bed and breakfast for the night. Ez is enchanted with the place. The giant boulders all around are pretty cool.
A perfectly reasonable day.
Backtracking to the morning in Ovando, I wanted to mention we met Kathy from the Blackfoot Angler. She’s a TD superfan, and wanted to get our photo for her unofficial divide photo archive. She’s been behind opening up the town to traveling cyclists. Very, very cool.
Luckily we only had to stumble a few yards over to the Stray Bullet Cafe in the 27* morning air. The jail was a little bit warmer, and the rope beds were super comfy. Breakfast was tasty, and conversation around town, with the 3 divide riders from South Africa, and with Kathy was just great.
All and all a perfectly enjoyable day of cyclotouring. Tomorrow, some new singletrack! If the views are half has good as Richmond Peak, it should be quite the day.
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