Day 106 — Misunderstood

“If I seem superhuman…… I have been misunderstood.” — Dream Theater.

The CDT is long, and hard, and full of hike-a-bike.  But it is not a superhuman feat.  We’re just regular riders, and we get tired.  We run out of patience with unrideable trail and difficult conditions.  We get frustrated, we crater.  We want to stop and quit.

I think some people seem to think we are invincible.  Those that suggested we include the entirety of Alpine #7, are in that boat.  Five different people suggested it to us, with varying levels of certainty.  None gave us very good beta.  Beta like: there’s a grueling 3000 ft climb just to get to the trailhead.  Then you will spend the majority of the next 3 miles pushing your bikes another 1500 ft uphill.  The trail is open to motos and eroded.  There’s no water for the entire climb, and for the first 11 miles of trail (~6 hours of riding).

Not that I’m blaming anyone, or complaining.  Not at all.  I appreciate and love the ideas and suggestions, truly.  It’s entirely our own fault for not doing better research and just hoping it was going to be good, bikepackable trail.

The views were spectacular.  This much is true.  Was it any harder than any of the CDT? No. Could we have done it?  Sure.  Were we in the mood to?  Nope.  We spent our BS credits a long time ago.  Eszter smashed the road climb, but was melting down pretty early on in the hike-a-bike.  And who can really blame her?  This has been a hard trip full of hike-a-bike, and this isn’t even the CDT.  Non-CDT riding should be at least close to reasonable. 
I’m sure we would love Alpine #7 if riding unloaded, or with less than 3000 miles in our legs, or if we were shuttled the 3000′ to the trailhead–preferably all of the above. I bet it’s a great, great adventure ride.

Eroded trail

We were just looking for something much, much more straightforward.  And fun.

I’m glad we tried, and gave it a go.  We ended up turning around less than 4 miles into the trail.  We tried descending a side trail that would have taken us to our intended destination for the day (town of Swan Lake).  20 feet down, we hit the first two downed trees.  Very overgrown tread.  More down trees.  No one uses this trail.  We gave up and dragged our bikes a quarter mile back up to Inspiration Pass.

From there, we were up a creek without a certain paddling instrument.  3+ miles of bad trail to backtrack on, then blowing 3000 ft of elevation on a lame road.  Or, continue on another 8 miles to possible water.  That looked like 3 hours of mostly difficult hiking.  We were nearly out of water.  I had maybe half a bottle of Gatorade left.

We kept going on the trail.

After the 4th unrideable pitch, I cried Uncle.  This is stupid.  Backtracking sucks, but this is just not worth it at all.

Back at the trailhead, there were mountain bikers!  They kindly gave us some water, and much needed encouragement.  We told them they’d have a great (shuttled) ride tomorrow — unloaded and fresh.  There’d be hike-a-bike, but even as dejected and frustrated with the trail as we were, we could see the good in it.

Dropping down the road was boring and tedious.  Waste of a climb, but at least we tried.

A $30 cabin waited us 12 miles further in Swan Lake, but it was dark, and those 12 miles would have been miserable.  We have plenty of food, so we called it a night at a campground next to Soup Creek. 

Win some, you lose some.  Overall our non-CDT singletrack excursions have been losses, but the wins were big wins.  I guess we should have known not to gamble this late in the game. And even if you have several people telling you a trail is awesome, it’s still gambling.

Roads tomorrow, then we’ll plan our route through Glacier.