Today we rode from Columbia Falls, Montana, US to a dispersed camping spot 10km after Cedar Creek Campground, Montana, US. Very sunny weather with no clouds at all. Road conditions include paved roads, and different types of gravel road. Highlights of the day include a dog.
Riding statistics: on Monday August 8, 2022, the 8th day on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route route, it took 10:57h (07:58h moving time), between 07:32 and 18:30, to cover 114 km (71 miles), including 1527 m (5010 ft) elevation gain, with an average speed of 14 km/h (9 mph). During today's ride the average temperature was 29 °C (88 °F) with a minimum of 12 °C (54 °F) and a maximum of 42 °C (114 °F).
Totals: So far, it took 2 days, 3 hours, 13 minutes and 50 seconds of cycling time to cover 730 km (453 miles), including 8374 m (27475 ft) elevation gain, with an average speed of 14.5 km/h (9 mph).
Leaving Columbia Falls
This morning our alarms were again set for 6am, so that we could leave around 7am. This is because we expected a bit longer day today. Yesterday evening we met Taylor and Dee again on the RV park where we had our campsite, they were next to us. I’ve been meeting them since my arrival in Banff. They left one day earlier. After sharing our plans they decided to ride to the same destination, the Cedar Creek Campground. A primitive campground in a more remote area. Before we actually left, we would have wanted to buy something to-go from the subway, but the one in Columbia Falls unfortunately only opens at 9am today. Fortunately we have enough food and decided to move on. We made very good progress this morning and before noon we had our first longer break.
Moving onto gravel
Once we ended our break and continued we moved from paved roads onto gravel. And within 2km we started a very long uphill for a pass without a name. We had to climb from 3.000 ft to 5.000 ft. It took us about an hour, quicker than expected. About 1/4th of the climb we saw a dog on the road in front of us. In the next 15 minutes we saw it again a couple of times. We expected to see somebody but we saw no-one. The dog was warm, thirsty, and limped with his right front leg. He also had marks around his neck. Was he abandoned? We gave him some water which he really enjoyed. Unfortunately he follow us all the way up to the top of the pass, even further away from civilization. We stopped there because we could soon enjoy a downhill. We had no service a felt bad about leaving the dog. At that moment a pickup neared us, only the second that morning on this road. We waved at them. A father and daughter came out of the car and we explained the situation. Eventually they promised to at least take the dog back down and provide care / search for an owner. After a big climb, sometimes comes a big reward. That was also true in this case, we had a long and beautiful downhill. The ride on this gravel road has been remote as well We hardly have seen any people.
Cedar Creek Campground
After quite some more uphills we reached Cedar Creek campground around 4:30pm. It was very small, and unfortunately already taken. Normally people are really nice and share sites. In this case it was a single old lady, probably waiting for others, grumpy as hell. She did all she could to make us understand that his place was for her, and her only. We stopped for filtering water and every step we took, she checked upon us. As if we would steal anything or do harm. Unbelievable. We did not even wanted to be there, so we decided to move on and see where we can pitch our tent. Unfortunately this also meant we would probably miss out on Taylor and Dee.
Our dispersed campsite
Before continuing we decided to first eat and drink something and take a short break. Then we would see how much further we wanted to ride. It turned out that after about 10 additional kilometers we had enough and we found a spot where the road crossed a river. We pitched our tents just after the bridge, and hung our food/toiletteries/garbage before the bridge to make sure there was some distance between us and the food. We went to bed quite early (and a bit nervous) and see when we would be awake.
Gallery
Mooie verhalen Eef. Met toffe foto’s. Goed bezig man.