Late start getting out of Grangeville, after doing much-need laundry
Great weather for biking – 70s and partly cloudy
Had a crazy descent that was so fast/steep I had to stop several times to let my rims cool off for fear of heating my tubes and getting a blowout at 35 mph. I checked, and adventure cycling changed the route to use this road, which is why I don’t remember it being this nuts
Met a brother/sister bike tourist duo who were slogging/pushing up the other side. They offered me some pizza they had on the back of their bike
Started meeting other tourists left and right
Started following the Clearwater/Lochsa River, which I remember as being nice, but holy moly what a beautiful ride! Thick forest, wide crystal-clear river, gentle grade, and low traffic
Met a guy at my campsite (there were three of us cyclists there) who was doing the Western Divide trail – a mountain bike route over mostly gravel roads/trails from the Mexican to Canadian border. He told me a tale of a hill so steep he couldn’t even just walk his bike up it or else it would roll back down. Instead he had to inchworm his way up using his brakes. Oof! We stayed up late swapping tales
The next day was another gorgeous, easy ride up the Lochsa River.
Since I was almost a day ahead of schedule, decided to end early at a short trail to a hot spring
Found an amazing campsite right next to the creek on the hot spring trail
The hot springs were amazing – one of the largest pools I’ve seen (and several smaller pools). Met some pretty cool folks there
On Monday, I started the day with another soak in the spring, then lazily made my way on a pretty easy ride up the river to a lodge where I got lunch
Then I had to make a tough, but short, climb over Lolo pass. There was very little traffic though, so it was pretty nice
Bombed down the other side -which took me into Montana – and found a pretty nice national forest campground
On Tuesday, I slept in until 9, then I had an easy ride down towards Lolo, but it got increasingly trafficy/sketchy as I approached town. Then I hopped onto a great bike path that took me all the way into downtown Missoula
Got some lunch, then made the pilgrimage to the adventure cycling headquarters. I searched through their shoeboxes for photos of when I had been there previously. Those folks are always super friendly
Made a run to REI to sweep out my Nemo tent for a Big Agnes one… There were a few things I didn’t like about the Nemo Dagger
I was then rescued from my solitude by the arrival of Alice and Anton! We got pizza, beer, ice cream, and more beer before calling it a night at our motel
