This blog is a report on Mike and Matthew Mulkey’s second phase of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (GDMBR-2). It is not edited (FYI).
You can check out our trip photos [HERE].
The GDMBR is the route created and mapped by the Adventure Cycling Association. It follows the Continental Divide from Canada to Mexico — about 2,700+ miles from Banff, Alberta down to Antelope Wells, New Mexico.
Our first phase (documented HERE) took us from Banff to Whitefish, Montana. In this second phase, we rode from Whitefish to Butte, Montana — covering 368 miles and 28,200 feet of climbing over two weeks on the trail.
This should help explain why my blog (surfingforbalance.com/blog) has been quiet for the past couple of months.
Pay it Forward
A strong theme on this trip was the many “trail angels” we met along the way. Here’s just one example of the incredible kindness we encountered on the GDMBR.
We kept hearing about “the Llama Ranch” from fellow riders. John Keller and Barbara Nye have been hosting GDMBR cyclists since the 1990s. Over the years, they’ve built a facility on their property that provides just about everything a weary rider could want — especially if you’re traveling alone. It is truly a slice of heaven for anyone taking on this trail.
When we arrived, we were told to head to the house, where we found cold drinks and sandwiches on the balcony, free solar-powered Wi-Fi, and an impressive selection of refreshments — including beer, wine, Coke, Sprite, and even chocolate milk. AYKM?!
Then came the tour. A shower house with a bathtub. Our own private cabin with a welcome sign on the door (“Welcome Mike and son”). Inside: more food provisions, two bottles of wine, cups, plates, silverware, cookware, pancake mix, salted caramel cappuccino mix, oatmeal, peanut butter, maple syrup, and even a butane stove. What!?
The cabin had four bunk beds, each with sheets, blankets, and pillows, all made up and waiting for us.
You can’t imagine how much this means after camping for days on the GDMBR.
But the best part wasn’t the food, or the cabin, or even the shower. It was the community.
There were at least a dozen bikers there (they can host up to 30 in a single night), all gathered and sharing stories. Everything John and Barbara provide is free, with one request: “Pay it forward.” Their generosity has made the ranch a legendary stop and a place of real rest along the Divide.
Last year alone, they hosted 800 riders. Think about the impact that has. It warmed my heart.
Here’s a great blog about the ranch (with pictures):
👉 The Great Divide – Five Acres of Kindness
The Daily “GDMBR-2” Journal: July 29 – August 12
July 29 — Mountain View (packing)
The last two days were a complete blur of painstaking details and getting ready for the trip. When we boxed the bikes (around 4 PM the day before leaving), I hit another panic button when my bike would not fit into the box (!!). That became a new emotional low for me, as I was thinking this trip was not going to happen. Marla was praying for us, as it seemed to be a similar pattern to our last GDMBR—too many last-minute details to cover with my brand-new bike, tires, and rack setup. And a special thank you to Campfire Cycles for the support they provided!
As I was running around in the car to find a larger bike box (a futile attempt to fix it at 6 pm on a Monday), Matthew stepped in and got it all to fit (albeit forcefully) in spite of a box that seemed way too small for 29-inch wheels. Praise God!!
I’m still not sure how that thing fit…
July 30 — Flight to Kalispell (FCA) and on to Big Fork Campground (2 miles / 0 ft.)
We both spent the night working on computer details that we had never had time to address. Matt was working on the Garmin, and I was working on the Spot. Around 10:30 PM, we finally agreed to go to bed, thinking we had most of the details worked out on those two devices (the Spot = yes; the Garmin = no).
The morning went smoothly, and Marla drove us to Oakland airport with both Bike boxes in the Highlander and me sitting in a makeshift cockpit seat in the back. Allegiant Airlines is a comical act of giving you a great price for the ticket and then charging for every item you need to get to your destination, except for your clothes! We decided to have Marla buy two suitcases at Goodwill, which enabled us to pack six Panniers that would have cost $75 each. That decision paid off! And I must mention the miracle of both bikes coming in under 50 lbs (their limit!), mine balancing out at 49.5 lbs! AYKM.
And of course, don’t get me started on Allegiant’s refund policy…
I put my audiobook, Salito, in my ears the minute we got on the plane and somehow slept the entire length of the trip. I was exhausted. The $22 chorizo burrito in the airport probably helped out!
My fear of the bicycle assembly was overcome as Matt and I were finalizing the details on our bikes. We had to completely take apart my bike to get it into the smaller bike box. Phew! I could not believe we were ready to start this trip. Thank you God!!!
Our trip started in Whitefish when our good friends John and Holly Arledge showed up at the airport as we were reassembling our bikes out of the box. That was a very nice gesture to have friends arrive to kick off our trip, and it did encourage us to know we had a backup plan in case of mechanical difficulties, such as pumping up our tires with our pocket-sized bikepacking pumps. And yes, John did bring his pump! What we didn’t realize is that John and Holly were aware that the highway we would need to ride out from the airport on was in the process of being repaved, so they graciously took us in the truck to get around our first (of many!) GDMBR obstacles.
John and Holly took us to Snappy’s for supplies (propane + bear spray) and then on to a yummy $8 burger in Bigfork — with time to catch them up on the details of what we were planning, as well as checking in on what they had been up to.
Praise God for such great friends to launch us on our way !
After a massively juicy burger and fries and large Diet Coke, they shoved us off — thinking we were riding ~20 miles to Swan Lake campground for the night (it was ~6pm). Little did they know we would end up in the Big Fork campground that night, less than a mile from the burger joint, due to a combination of factors, which included our need for a rest and organizing before we headed out into the wilderness. I think Holly realized that when she had to chase after us to give us our supply bag from Snappy’s that we left in the car. Lol.
Flathead Lake sunset, our 1st night in camp
August 1 — Big Fork 🡺Swan Lake (44 miles); 2,000 ft.
I woke up with a massive pain in my side – around where my kidneys are. What!? … My air mattress was flat, so I figured I’d bruised myself on a rock positioned on the ground near my back. It really hurt, and I could not help but think I was passing a Kidney stone, as I have recent memories of our bike shop contact in Butte going through that. Ugh.
I decided I could ride with it okay – so we left our campground around noon, thinking we had about 26 miles to Swan Lake campground, which we had planned to ride the night before, after dinner with John and Holley. Boy, are we ever glad we didn’t try that! I’m sure we would have realized our mistake and turned back to Bigfork. God was really protecting us there. It was a long slog — around 40 miles in total, but a steady 2000-foot climb that was relentless in the heat. It made me realize I was not used to riding my bike with 80 pounds of weight on it. As good as my new Salsa Cuttthroat was, and I really did love it, I was far from prepared for this in terms of my physical fitness.
Matthew was amazing, leading the way and encouraging me throughout. I think he could tell my spirits were dipping, and it didn’t help when I realized, as I reached for some Advil to help the pain I had in my side, that I’ve left my entire toiletries bag back at Big Fork campground. Double Ugh (and maybe a few others!).
We took a couple of good stops and slowly made our way through it, meeting two “Dave’s” on the way who were very interesting to talk to — both doing the entire ride from Canada to Mexico — by themselves. It is amazing how many solo riders we have run into, and each of them has a unique story about how they got there. It was fascinating to hear how many miles they were riding per day. We even met one young kid from Israel (huh?), who had flown into Edmonton, bought a bike and assembled it there, and rode it to Jasper (having trouble with the Indians along the way), and then was going all the way to Mexico by himself. Amazing!!
We had to ride about 4 or 5 miles off the trail to get to Swan Lake Campground, which seemed to me to go on forever(!), as I was tired. But when we got there, it was worth it as we celebrated with an incredibly refreshing swim in the crystal clear, beautiful lake. Thank you God!
Our Camp host, Richard, set us up with a nice campground on a knoll right next to his RV. He was another California transplant from Bakersfield who had retired in Columbia Falls and spent his summers as a Camp host on Swan Lake. Not a bad lifestyle – he loved it.
We were hungry after a very hard day’s ride, about five hours of riding, and doubled up on our mountain home dinners along with a couple of bars, beef, sticks, and no dessert. Ha! I fell asleep early while it was still not dark yet, when I was startled awake with my Audible book playing in my ear, with Matthew shining a light at me, saying, “It’s a huge thunder and lightning storm, and we need to get everything into the bags and into the tents.” And boy was it! It thundered and lightning struck hard and rained even harder for I don’t know how long before I finally fell back to sleep. THANK GOD our camp was on a hill – Richard knew what he was doing.
Holland Lake campsite – right on the shore’s edge
August 2 — Swan Lake to Holland Lake (38 miles); 2,100 ft.
I’m writing this as I watch Matthew cold plunge at 6:30 AM into Holland Lake after a rainstorm last night that kept us in our tents from about 8:30 PM on. He’s swimming up a storm!
What …!?
Yesterday, we made a strategic decision to ride 40 miles on Highway 83 and make up the day we had lost by going straight into Holland Lake and skipping the Cedar Creek campground. Nobody seemed to know a thing about Cedar Creek, which really concerned us.
It turned out to be a great decision as we knew we had a big storm coming in behind us and didn’t want to get caught at Cedar Creek with potentially no services that we would need to weather the storm. We had been told by some fellow campers that it was going to be a very big rain — it was reportedly dropping 1 to 2 inches per hour in Butte.
The day was a bit treacherous on the highway with large trucks with trailers going by at 80 mph. Most of them were very careful to move over for us, but there were a couple that refused to move over, almost blowing us off the highway. We had a well-needed refueling stop at a wonderful market (“just a mile down the road”) where we were able to get some supplies that we were missing and a fresh sandwich, and I was able to replenish some of my toiletry kit items that I had lost. The highlight for me was an ice-cold Diet Coke with a turkey sandwich from the deli. There is a funny story that I won’t retell here, but it is related to being told the market was just a mile or so down the road. Let’s just call it “the Montana mile”, because it was the longest mile of my life, and it kept happening!
And when we were ready to give up the idea that it even existed, we stopped an old local guy who told us “it’s just a mile or so down the road “.
When we laughed, he told us, “No, I’m not kidding, I’ve measured it and it really is only a mile! ”
Oh MY – hysterical laughter from both of us.
Holland Lake was about 4 miles off the highway, and we started seeing raindrops as soon as we turned onto the gravel road — it felt good to get back onto the dirt without automobiles and trucks.
Holland Lake is a spectacular setting up against the mountains, and we got a beautiful lakeside camping spot, which we really enjoyed the next morning as the sun slowly rose and the birds and other animals began their morning song fest.
The thunder, lightning, and rain started again soon after dinner, and we were running into our tents. As the camp host told us, “it was good sleeping weather.”
And it was!!
I got up about an hour later during a lull, made a double hot chocolate, and sat at Lakeside and watched the lake colors change spectacularly as the sky darkened. It was like watching a musical symphony in full harmony. This is really a beautiful place. We’re hearing all kinds of animal sounds, including birds, that give it its charm.
We have what will be our likely hardest day of the tour tomorrow…
Holland Lake – the lodge (in those trees) has been closed for a few years.
August 3 — Holland Lake to Seely Lake (44 miles); 3,000 ft.
This was definitely one of the more memorable days of the Great Divide tour, reminding us of the Canadian Rockies, where we had massive mountains on both sides of a large valley we climbed all day long. We knew we had a long day ahead with our biggest climb of the trip, so we launched early, after a hearty breakfast of oatmeal, chorizo, and eggs, compliments of Mountain House. The day started off well, and we had our first 1000 feet of the 3000-foot climb out of the way in time for a good morning break on the trail. The directions in the adventure cycling book were spot on all the way through today, and Matthew was finally also able to get the Garmin GPS coordinates aligned, so we were able to navigate a very difficult Off-road course without any errors in navigation, much of it single track, which was quite challenging. The pictures tell it all; it was an incredible alpine basin surrounded by mountains on all sides, with views back to Holland Lake on one side and over into Seely Lake on the other side. A very hard day with some serious single track, but I can honestly say even that was fun amid the incredible wildflowers and Alpine scenery all around us. The forecast had been for rain, but we held it off until our final stretch on a very smooth gravel road, literally gliding into Seely Lake.
We started to get wet and a little bit muddy. Matthew’s bike developed a problem in the bottom bracket, which is causing us concern, but we’re glad to get to Seely Lake. After a very long day, we decided to take a day off and rest so we can attend to his bike. We rode the 2 1/2 miles into town for a hamburger and ice cream to celebrate. And of course, Matthew added on a couple of tacos at the end. It was a very good day, and despite the problems with Matthew’s bicycle, we both feel that we accomplished something big. I can honestly say that I’m not sure I could’ve done it without Matthew leading the entire way. He’s been very encouraging and considerate of the slower pace that I am carrying behind. Praise God for this time with him!
Looking back on Holland Lake on top of another crossing of the Continental Divide
August 4— Seely Lake to Seely Lake (5 miles)
Day of rest… ☺
This was a day we desperately needed, and we got great weather to relax and enjoy the lake and beautiful scenery around us. Went into town and found a very cozy bookstore/coffee shop (Seely Station) that served just the right purpose for us to lounge around and catch up on our messages from home with a power outlet and Wi-Fi access for our phones. It could not have been better, and the people there were so very friendly and extra helpful with the questions we had about services in the area. We were at home there.
Ran into Dave again from Boulder, Colorado, and he was able to get Matthew a hose where he was camping, which allowed us to figure out what was going on with Matthew’s bottom bracket, and it appears that we have it fixed. Praise God! I’m gonna give that one to Marla, whom we just spoke to, and asked her to pray for the problem he was having, as it was making a serious grinding sound. We were fearing it might blow up on the trail where we would get stuck.
Venturing back to the campground from town, Matthew noticed a church on the road (Faith Chapel) showing a Sunday service at 10:30 AM — so in we went!
It was a wonderful setting, just as you would expect in a small town in Montana, with lots of worship songs and a very good sermon about the need for unity in the church, which really fit a lot of what Pastor Renee has been saying at Twin Lakes Church. Many of the people came up and talked to us after, and they were all quite warm and friendly and encouraging for a ride. What a wonderful taste of the local culture in Seely Lake!!
We ventured back to camp and made an afternoon of it, relaxing at Lakeside and enjoying a beautiful sunny day, going in and out of the water, which was a wonderful, refreshing oasis after those dusty days on the trail. I don’t think we could’ve had it any better. Fixed an outstanding lunch of tortillas, smoked ham, Havarti cheese, and gobs of mustard with apples, bananas, and potato salad to wash it down. We both did some reading, and I continue to enjoy my Helix chair, which I brought along, which allowed me to sit at Lakeside with my toes in the water while listening to my book Salito. Lots of action on the lake with wakeboarders/surfers and flotation devices (not one water skier), which was fun to watch as we basked in the warm sun. Lots of GDMBR people in the campsite, so I had a nice visit with all of them. It is amazing to hear about the different stories and different approaches to the trail. I think the GPS maps from Adventure Cycling have really opened the doors for so many people to make this ride, and again, many of them are doing it alone! Just last night, I talked to one girl from Washington, D.C., who was probably close to my age and doing the whole thing alone in reverse. Next to them were three young professionals who were younger and doing half of it from Pennsylvania. They work for the World Bank and get eight weeks of vacation to match their European counterparts.
And then there were the two girls from the UK doing the whole thing who had ridden from Swan Lake to our campsite tonight, which was about three days of riding for us! …I think someone could write a good book about all the stories these people have and the reasons they have for taking on this mighty adventure.
We had a very quiet dinner of beef stroganoff mixed with a can of spicy chili, and Matt even had a large can of New England clam chowder on top of it all. Then went back down to Lakeside to watch a beautiful sunset over the lake as the water skiers glided by on a glassy lake.
I was in bed early, probably 9:15 or so, and slept really well, although having some wild dreams and nightmares, which I think is a result of the sleep apnea (no CPAP machine). And the ache in my side is almost gone.
Onward!
Golden Sunset on Seely Lake
August 5— Seely Lake to Big Nelson campground – Coopers Lake (47 miles/ 5,600 Ft)
It was hard to leave Seely Lake…!
Our adventure cycling folks labeled this “a long day”.
Lol. Huge understatement!!
This day about killed me. It all seemed to go well, up to the lunch stop at Ovando, which was the site where the women riding the divide had been killed by the bear in her tent a couple of years back. It is a charming town that can be missed if you blink, as it’s really just a restaurant, a grocery store/coffee shop, a bar, and a jail. We had a wonderful lunch at the restaurant, treating ourselves to sandwiches and, of course, Mike’s Diet Coke. Had an enlightening conversation with locals from the town who relived the story about the woman and the mistakes she made with the bear attack that killed her.
As we noticed thunderstorms approaching, our maps said it was only 15 miles from Ovando to our campground… No big deal, right?
Wrong! For me, Ovando is where the day started. Those 15 miles seemed like they turned into 15 hours of concentrated cycling, with the day quickly coming to a close and a thunderstorm chasing us from behind. All I can say is when we got there (it was up a hill of course), I was whipped and was starting to feel my back tighten up. Yet, with the raindrops falling, we barely had time to cook dinner, hang the bear bag (which people told us there had been bear sightings in the area!), and then scamper into our tent to avoid the rain.
This was one of those “free” campgrounds that we are learning to avoid at all costs. It was a rough night! Our UK girls were in the camp next to us, and we all agreed there were some strange goings on that night in the dark, stormy night…
August 6— Coopers Lake to Lincoln (24 miles/ 1,700 ft)
Matthew was taking another cold dip first thing in the morning. CRAZY.
I am freezing with my down puffy on and my beanie cap, along with my warm-up pants.
We decided to rename Cooper’s Lake to “Spooky” Lake, based on last night’s activities that kept Matthew and I up a lot of the night. We got hit by a rainstorm, just as we were finishing dinner, so we had to dive into our tents before we were completely prepared to go to bed. We were camped right next to the two UK gals, who were having to do the same.
What transpired last night is hard to understand because none of us came out of our tents to see what was going on. But there was a group partying it up at one of the community day use sites next to us and I assume, based on what Matthew and I and the UK gals all put together, that there was some kind of child abuse going on with a child and an adult man… I’ll leave it at that, and suffice say, we skedaddled out of there early the next morning and got on our way to Lincoln ASAP.
It was going to be a relatively easy day if we believed our adventure cycling friends, — it was about 24 miles overall but there was a pretty serious climbing right out of Cooper’s lake that had us both feeling the lack of sleep last night… we thought it was over when we got to the top, around 1700 feet of climbing, when the whole thing turned into a rugged rock garden on the way down. We really had to pick our way through and keep our speed down. It reminded me that there are no gimmies on the Great Divide Trail — no matter what the map is trying to tell you, that trail is hard work. There is no way around it. I have total respect for anyone who’s ridden even just a week of it.
Matthew and I were glad to arrive in Lincoln by 1 PM and set up a beautiful campsite at the RV park right on the edge of a slow-moving creek. It gave us a chance to shower, catch up on grocery shopping, and actually eat at a real restaurant downtown. That was absolutely marvelous. We both had salads as we were really yearning for fresh fruit and vegetables, of course, along with French fries and onion rings!! Hahaha
We had an outstanding afternoon, getting our devices recharged, doing our laundry, and organizing things for the next leg of the journey. We were camped right on a beautiful creek where deer came walking right by in front of us, walking upstream on what looked to be their daily walk.
August 6 — Lincoln to Rick and Barbara’s Llama Ranch — warm showers (23 miles/ 2100 ft) — GDMBR CABIN HOSTS
Woke up early to a very cold morning, our first! Matthew took advantage of one more hot shower at the RV park before we packed up and rode into town for a delightful breakfast at Lambkins, the same place we had dinner last night. And of course, we had the same waitress, and the same bargain prices for a full breakfast — coffee for a dollar, pancakes for five dollars, and an omelette for $10, with no tax! and if we need gasoline, it’s $3.24 per gallon!
Our waitress was a classic, probably in her 70s, knew everyone in the place — “same old same old Harold?”, and hardly spoke to us other than to take our order before rushing off. But she was very polite!
The only anecdote I should add was that it was the worst cup of coffee I’ve ever had in my life. Seriously!
I had to retrieve a bag of Via from our bikes to salvage it. Lol.
We pushed off to our Warm Showers destination with the usual optimism that we had a fairly easy day ahead and thought we might get in by one or 2 PM. And of course it started out that way and looked very good as the gravel road was quite smooth, and the scenery marvelous all around us. But then it hit!
The hardest climb of the trip to date for sure, maybe in my life!
I could never have done it without Matthew. He led me the entire way and always stopped when he could see I was falling behind. We reached a point where even he was having to walk, as the rocks were loose with erosion ditches that appeared like valleys between paths, and the steepness was beyond anything we had ridden. It was a push for both of us to get to the top. Matthew even had to retrace 1 mile of it because he left a water bottle at a prior stop up above. Ugh. I sat on a tree stump resting while he went back.
Once we began going down the other side, we couldn’t let go at all, as the loose rock and gorges in the road made it very difficult to navigate with all the weight on our bikes, causing you to hang onto your brakes with your life, going as slow as you could without falling over! I hear we have more of that ahead, but at this point, I don’t even wanna think about it.
Again, I will reiterate the difficulty of sections of this ride. I think Matthew and I both feel this section through Montana has been a lot more difficult than our prior section through Canada and northern Montana. Most of the riders we meet have agreed. The good news in it all is that we are realizing that and scaling back our target mileage each day, using up some of our rest time to just make it more enjoyable for both of us.
But all this seemed to fade quickly when we pulled up at Barbara and John’s GDMBRR ranch along Canyon Creek, just about 23 miles from Lincoln. It’s what I would call a Warm Showers on steroids!
They offer all their services for free, but the story goes much beyond that.
As I’m writing this in our cabin, I’m noticing they even included a camera with Polaroid film, and there’s a bulletin board in our cabin to take a picture of the two of us and label it with the date we were here and our names, and pin it on the wall inside our cabin.
AYKM
I just can’t say enough about this place, including the llamas that are wandering the property and the bike repair facilities.
We will sleep well tonight!!
August 7— Llama Ranch to Helena (capital of Montana!) —40 miles/ 3300 ft.
Spent the morning chatting with John and Barbara while feeding the llamas their morning breakfast. I should mention that the real name for the llamas is alpacas, and there is a story about how that happened, but I can’t remember it. Barbara has been running the ranch since the early 90s and is the person behind the whole idea of what they are doing in serving the GDMBR riders. She said they hosted 800 bikers last year and can have as many as 30 in one night. It is really amazing how it brought everyone together, as we all sat out last night in a circle of chairs telling stories about our own experiences on the Great Divide. Everyone had a unique story, and of course, they were from all over the world — Italy, the Netherlands, the UK, Texas, Washington DC, and California! ☺
It had rained hard last night, so we felt extra lucky to have had our own little cottage to sleep in. We pushed off into a cloudy and cold morning and immediately began our ascent of the West flank of Lava Mountain, which will be another crossing of the continental divide, which we do twice on today’s ride. We are both remarking that we have hardly seen any wild animals on this trip, mostly just deer. Today we run across tons of cows, but still not one sighting of a bear.
It began raining as we began climbing, although never too hard until we reached near the top, and it really started coming down. Matthew and I put on everything we had in our bags to try to stay warm. I began to really regret not packing my rain gloves, as I realized I hadn’t used them last time. As it began thundering, we started to look for cover, and yet we were out in the open with Nothing to protect us. It was cold!
And, after some praying while riding (God — please bring us some warmth!), as we near the summit, a ray of sunshine began to fall down on us, and the next thing I knew, the sun was out, and we were over the top, and my hands were warm. Praise God! It was a tough climb, being so cold and wet. We also got our first flat tire on Matthew’s bike as we were climbing up the hill. It looked like a pinched tube from the rocks.
All the bikers from the llama ranch seemed to come by and pay us their respect to as we were patching the tire, including an amazing young gal (with a wild name – Matthew remembered it — Ha) who was soloing it on a bike that had more baggage than we had yet to see. She had some harrowing stories about climbing over one of the passes by literally carrying her bags up first and then going back to get her bike. We are told that some of these trails coming up are definitely not rideable with packs on. But she persevered and soon was moving on amidst the storm and chaos around us.
This was another tough slog for me, and I give all the credit to Matthew to keep me moving, as he was always out in the front picking the path and encouraging me with the statistics of how far we had to go and what color the climb was on our Garmin (green/yellow/red). Did I say there is nothing easy about this trail !? …
It was a wonderful downhill of almost 15 miles where the road was actually in reasonable shape, and when we hit Highway 12, we had an incredible tailwind to sweep us into Helena without hardly pedaling — and the final 7 miles, on paved asphalt along Highway 83 with a huge shoulder. It was marvelous!
Helena is a very likable city and we immediately settled into our bikers’ campsite – Mountain Bike City (MTC). It was well set up (albeit a bit pricy for $23/each) with a shed for our bikes and a covered cooking area, a built-in bike shop with tools, and hot showers to warm us from the day’s chill.
We immediately set up camp, as we really hadn’t had much to eat today since it had been too cold to stop for lunch. We rode into town and had a nice dinner at a Cuban restaurant on Highway 83, where we had the place to ourselves and even had Wi-Fi to connect with our phones.
When we got back to camp and showered, it began raining again, this time hard so we drove into our tent for the night. One thing to mention about this campground was that they had earplugs for free. I found out why as the trains were honking their horns all throughout the night (working the mines in the area). I’m not sure about Matthew, but it really didn’t bother me as I was so tired from the day’s work, but I did wake up each time they honked their horns.
Lol
August 8 — MTC 🡺Helena (park lake campground) — didn’t make it. Back to Helena MTC campground!
(16 miles/ 1,900 ft)
Matthew woke up early and took orders from our fellow MTC campers for fresh coffee from Starbucks 3 miles away in town — what a sweetie!! Those who had ordered coffee really appreciated it, including his dad. He’s paying it forward already. ☺
We then started our day at Sunflower Bakery in downtown Helena with a fresh-baked loaf of the cranberry walnut bread, fresh out of the oven, with two fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies and a cup of fresh coffee. The bakery is famous and now I know why, it was FANTASTIC and everyone had been talking about it. 10% discount to bikers. Matt had a curry chicken sandwich on Panini bread and fresh coffee, also. I think we might’ve spent two hours in there finding reasons to eat more and getting distracted with our phones and trying to plan our trip home from Butte — not looking forward to that.
I had a nice Discussion with our friend from the Netherlands, Wesley, who is riding from Banff all the way to Cabo San Lucas. I love this guy. He is staying in the Helena MTC campground one more night. He will soon find out, we are too!
We also had a very nice discussion with Becca and Elsebeth from the UK, and I really regretted that I didn’t get a picture of them! They adventured off on this trip, starting in Banff (to Mexico), without any real serious biking or backpacking experience. Crazy! We spent three days riding with them, although they left much earlier than we did and usually seemed to ride much further. They took on this thing without any experience, it was quite a story to hear about, and again, like most of the people we meet, they are going to Mexico.
Started the day with a brief tour of the taxidermy display that our MTC camp host told us about, including a live bald eagle in captivity for rehabilitation of a broken wing. They apparently had 4 bears last week. Sorry we missed that. This place was amazing, I think every animal in the state of Montana was fully on display in taxidermy.
Stopped for groceries:
Peanut butter, tortillas, bars, high-calorie snacks, fruit, and nut mix, apples, bananas, cheese, jerky, oatmeal, and a camp stove gas.
We took off for Park Lake Campground at a very slow pace around 2:30 PM (very late!). I’m not sure what we did in the morning, but we were having fun!
But we paid the price as it was slow going on a smooth, graded gravel road that immediately pitched up too steep for me. It was about an 8-mile climb over 1000 feet, and by the time we reached the top, I was whipped. Matthew again led the way and continued to encourage me up, reminding me that we had the prize of our Homemade walnut cranberry bread and Jack cheese to enjoy at the top, which we did!
The ride down the other side was quick, I would guess about 2 miles, and knowing we had to go up another 1,000′ plus climb, we took it pretty easy. Then all hell broke loose. Seriously.
Matt’s chain flew off his bike (as in broke in half), and we realized we didn’t have a replacement. Not a good place to be without a chain. And no chain removal tool…
I said a quick prayer (Lord – HELP!!) and we contemplated our options, which were not looking good by five o’clock in the evening with the sun getting ready to dip below the ridge – as we were deep in a valley. The closest option was to try and hike back to Helena (pushing our bikes), so we immediately turned around and began pushing the freight up the hill we had just zoomed down. ~1 mile an hour.
Then, before we could comprehend it, A black truck appeared out of nowhere with an armed man (pistol and rifle) driving, who didn’t exactly look like he wanted to help us. He seemed to have other things on his mind. We waved him down regardless (actually, Matthew stopped him) and asked him for a ride back to Helena, telling him we were stuck. The cop hesitated and then pulled the truck over. He had no badge or anything visible on his body, and nothing on the car made him look like a cop, but he told us he was a cop, asked to see our IDs, telling us he would have to run a check on our names, which we of course immediately turned over to him.
Ok.
After what seemed like an eternity of him sitting in the car and Matthew and me holding our bikes in the back, I decided to go up and ask him if there was any problem. He had still not offered us a ride, and it was getting late! It seemed, according to him, that from where he was parked below this giant hill, he couldn’t get reception to run the check on our driver’s license, and so he handed them back to us and said, Yes, he would give us a ride back to Helena. It was a strange situation, but we loaded the bikes onto the truck bed and got back into the cab with him, and as soon as he was off driving, he seemed to loosen up a bit.
On the way back, he told us he was a detective and had graduated from the Marine Corps at Camp Pendleton and worked on the East Coast as a cop before taking this assignment in Helena. His wife worked at one of the local bakeries in town (Allison). He dropped us off and waved goodbye, giving us just barely enough time to make it to a bike store in downtown Helena that could address the issue of Matthew’s chain. It was truly a miracle that we got there just a few minutes before they closed, and that they were able to fix his bike on the spot and get the new chain adjusted and ready to ride the next morning! I hate to say that would never happen back home…Yet, as we have come to expect in Montana, they stayed 30 minutes late to fix his bike, and the next thing we knew, we were riding back to MTC to spend another night with Wesley.
Crazy day!!
The bike store employee ended up telling me that there was a fugitive at large, who had killed four people in a bar in Anaconda about a week ago, and he had not been found yet. We were riding directly in that direction. Clearly, that is why this detective was driving in such a remote area of the mountains, and seemed uneasy when he first came across us.
Well, it all worked out, and Matthew and I celebrated with a couple of cold drinks from the Circle K in town, racing back to our campground to make dinner and get our tent set up before it turned dark.
Oh my!!
Two more trail angels saving our trip…
Wesley and his bike at MTC
August 9— Helena MTC campground to Basin (town community center) — (41 miles/ 3000 ft)
Started our day with another fresh loaf of bread from Sunflower Bakery, and then carried that over to Starbucks, where we both got a tall black coffee to wash it down. Hung out there for a while and met several of the Helena locals. I continue to be impressed by their interest in our ride. Everyone seems to know about GDMBR and always asks pertinent questions about how it’s going and where we are headed.
We were able to pull ourselves from Starbucks around 10:30 AM, waving goodbye to another local community in Helena. With the number of GDMBR riders coming through, it must be a boon to their economy.
We decided to take the Boulder alternate bypass route, which was suggested on the maps, because we had fallen a day behind with the broken chain, and we didn’t want to climb that hill again (Mike). It started out nicely — on pavement, but quickly turned on us, as we moved off to gravel, and then began ascending the south flank of Lava Mountain as if there were a gold mine on top. According to the map, this bypass went around “some of the hardest riding of the GMDR route”! Thank God for that.
Well, lava Mountain was no gimme, as we slugged it out on the gravel road, which paralleled the freeway in parts, but then continued way above it. At one point, I saw Matthew walking ahead of me and thought he had lost another chain…I would guess we were over 1000 feet above the freeway at the top. What the heck!? And no gold mine.
The worst part for Matthew, who was leading the way, was that we kept seeing signs that said the road ahead was closed. We had heard a horror story from some of the fellow GDMBR riders who followed a similar route… after a two-hour climb to the top of a mountain, they found out it was a mine and they had to turn around and go all the way back to where they had started.
Ugh. I would not have handled that well…
Matthew’s navigation skills came through in bright shining colors (again!) as we finally summited Lava Mountain and began a descent into the little, quaint town of Boulder, which had the nicest county court building and elementary school that I’ve ever seen!
We fueled up at a gas station near the freeway, where Matthew caught the front headline news that they caught the fugitive who had killed the 4 people in the bar outside a bar (armed) in Anaconda — where he committed the crime ..
And we were headed today in that direction.
Whew!!
🙏
We then began a beautiful 10-mile climb into Basin (riding against the river flow), which paralleled the Boulder River and was quite scenic with lots of old Stone Bridges that were made of huge block stones.
As we ride down Main Street in town, we hear live music and people all over with drink and food trucks. It turns out that Basin is having its annual summer festival today, which begins at 10 AM with a parade down Main Street and continues until almost midnight with live music, dancing, games, and a lot more. We immediately meet Judy, who is the GMDR Facebook person handling all communications for the trail. She takes a picture of us right away and tells us it’ll be posted on Facebook tomorrow.
It was a fun and festive atmosphere as we holed up in the local community center, which gave us a bed inside the community center hall along with access to the kitchen, bathrooms, provisions, and more. It’s hysterical, you go into the bar, give the bartender five dollars, and you have complete run of the place. They treat you like you own it!
Dad, however, opts for the tent outside in the community garden, along with a dozen or so kids playing hide and seek, which turned out to be a boon for them as my tent provided a nice Haven for them to hide behind. And I can vouch that the party lasted until midnight! …
We set up camp and cooked our dinner of Mountain House, Korean beef with our yummy tortillas and Matthew’s special hot licorice herbal tea. We are in the kitchen along with the family from Belgium, who had three young kids and a dad. They were pounding out 80 to 90-mile days!? And they were quite a panic to watch. By far, the youngest kids we have seen on the trail. Maybe high schoolers?
They started in Steamboat Springs, riding north to Eureka at the Canadian border. Their next stop was the llama farm, which was more than a full two-day ride for us!
Wesley from the Netherlands came in late and joined our party. He left Helena with us, but made a navigational error on the map that took him 7 miles out of his way. Made me really appreciate the navigation skills of Matthew, as we have yet to have one error like that, and they can really be costly from an emotional standpoint. I’m on my knees begging for mercy at the top of most of our climbs.
I keep telling Matthew I don’t have the mental energy to do all the navigation, so I’m very thankful for him and his ability to do that. I think Montana has more opportunity for errors than anywhere else on the Divide Trail, and I’ve heard more than one experience of people suffering from that.
To climb a mountain at the end of the day and then find out that you have to go back and ride it in the opposite direction can really take the wind out of your sails…
Local Basin Buckaroo’s
August 10 — Basin 🡺Lowland Campground — 18 miles from Butte
(21 miles / 1800 ft)
This was by far the quietest campground in the world! Perfect for our final night camping. We can’t believe the trip is almost over!
We were the only ones there in a beautiful pine forest setting with a giant meadow, looking out to the mountains beyond.
We had our pick of the campsites and quickly set up our tent. We had a relaxing afternoon before dinner, which we put on the stove: Mountain House, mac & cheese, along with beef stroganoff wrapped up in flour tortillas, with Matt’s special herbal tea for dessert — perfect! And amazingly, it was the final packages of our freeze-dried food. Perfect.
We had our first fire of the trip, which really set the scene as we relaxed and took in the quietness of it all with the sun dipping below the ridgeline beyond us. It was a perfect way to end our trip and gave us plenty of time to contemplate our shared experience.
I had a very relaxed morning with another fire to help warm us up, and I fixed my double Starbucks Via Coffee with a peanut butter Clif bar, while listening to my book, Beyond the Scars, and again, contemplating all we had experienced over these past 2 weeks.
Can’t say enough about the total peace and quiet of this campground!! It was almost eerie last night.
Typical Montana mountain scenery coming toward Butte
August 11 — Lowland Campground to Butte — 23 miles; 1,700 ft + a lot of walking!
18 miles of “mostly” downhill into Butte (which is a hill in itself!) with a full day ahead of boxing the bikes and looking for luggage. The extra miles and elevation are from going up and down those hills in Butte while running errands to get ready for our flight.
The best way to sum this day is to just paste a couple of text messages I sent to Marla and Marisa when we arrived in Butte.
So here goes:
text #1:
Prayers answered galore!!
We got the luggage – and as I’m standing outside the thrift store, trying to figure out how to strap the suitcase onto my bike while Matthew is using the bathroom, and a lady comes by, Ruth, and says, Hey it looks like you need help getting those suitcases somewhere, why don’t I help you out.
So she gets the suitcases in her truck and takes them up to the bike store, which is a 20-minute ride away- without the suitcases on top of our bikes!
lol
And then, when I tell her, we’ll come by at 3 PM to pick them up, and I kid you not, she tells me:
“I’ll see you in Heaven. “
🙏
That message is verbatim.
I looked at her and said, “You’re right, I will see you in heaven! “with a big smile on my face.
👀
Text #3:
Bikes are boxed — THANK YOU Austin!!
Austin from Derailed Bikes is letting us leave them in his shop until we leave for the airport tomorrow.
And believe it or not, our friend from the thrift store (Ruth) has agreed to take us to the airport in her truck tomorrow!!
Praise God — it is all working out. Thank you for the prayers!
Checking into our Motel 6 to sort out the bags. Will try and call after dinner.
❤️❤️❤️❤️
I could not say enough about how helpful Austin from Derailed Bikes was to help us out! And everyone we talked to on the GDMBR had the same experience. He pretty much runs the derailed bike shop in town, has been incredibly gracious to us, saving us two bike boxes and packing materials, letting us use his store to build our bikes, and storing our bikes on the showroom floor while we wait to catch a ride to the airport the next day. All this for no charge at all. Until I bought a T-shirt from him, we hadn’t purchased one thing at the store. Matthew took him a 12-pack of beer to let him know how much we appreciated him. Another trail angel to the rescue!
And the story gets even better from there as our friend Ruth agreed to take us to the airport in her Chevy truck. Of course we’ll pay her,, but she offered to do it for free! We were having trouble finding a way to do that. Yet, one more trail angel. Butte appears to be full of them! ☺
Matthew and I have been overwhelmed by the kindness of these people in Butte, it really is remarkable. There’s not much to say about the town itself, other than that the large copper mine can be viewed from almost anywhere in town. From what we’re hearing from the locals, it was a boomtown during the mining days, but the economy is somewhat depressed now, with about a third of the population they used to have. But the people of Butte more than make up for it and I would recommend you to anyone wanting to sample through Montana hospitality.
The waitress at our restaurant, called Metals, was another example who almost gave us a tour of the city when she heard we were from California. We were especially intrigued by our Lady of the Rockies, which was dramatically lit up on the top of the mountain, looking over the city. She filled us in that “Our Lady of the Rockies” is a massive, 90-foot-tall statue of the Virgin Mary that overlooks Butte, Montana, from the top of the Continental Divide.
We both slept well in our motel six room as we contemplated the trip and our entry back into life at home.
Trip summary: God is good.
Our trail angel Ruth from Butte – dropping us and our bikes off at the airport
Lessons Learned:
#1 – Don’t camp at “free” campgrounds. This trip solidified feelings we had from our last trip when we did this. Those campgrounds attract “day use” people who tend to drink and party it up into the night. They are not the type of people you want to be setting up your backpacking tent next to.
#2 – Bring a chain removal tool and a piece of a master chain in the tool kit. Not having this almost ended our trip.
#3 — Unplanned rest days are a must on GDMBR! We came into the trip with 3 of them and used them all. What I mean is that you need days that you have the flexibility not to ride when your schedule says you ride.
#4 – Bring a chain removal tool and partial chain (next time!). We almost ended our trip on this one.
#5 – Don’t count on Garmin solving all of your navigation needs. We found the Garmin 1040 to be spotty at best. It was great when it worked, but kept requiring re-boots and power on/off’s to stay on track. On the flip side, the Adventure Cycling GPS maps were a must!
#6 – Pack the bikes “3” days before (so you have time to find another bike box/etc …). And look for an E-bike box – they apparently are much larger.
#7 — bring more cash ($80 each in 1’s and 5’s) for campground fees (cash only).
#8 — Matthew’s charging brick was invaluable – saved us many times!
#9 — The Trello board comes through again!
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