Wait, did day four not end happy at Butts Cabin? Unfortunately not. The wildfire, of which we saw the smoke, would mess up our planned stay at Butts Cabin and force us to use an alternative road out of the Flathead area.

Riding statistics: on Thursday, August 4, 2022, day 4 on the route, it took 01:24h (01:14h moving time), between 18:10 and 19:35, to cover 18 km (11 miles), including 206 m (676 ft) elevation gain, with an average speed of 15 km/h (9 mph), while reaching a maximum speed of 44 km/h (27 mph). During this ride the average temperature was 21 °C (70 °F) with a minimum of 18 °C (64 °F) and a maximum of 34 °C (93 °F).
on Thursday, August 4, 2022, day 4 on the route, it took 08:33h (06:41h moving time), between 07:22 and 15:56, to cover 91 km (57 miles), including 979 m (3212 ft) elevation gain, with an average speed of 14 km/h (9 mph), while reaching a maximum speed of 39 km/h (24 mph). During this ride the average temperature was 22 °C (72 °F) with a minimum of 13 °C (55 °F) and a maximum of 30 °C (86 °F).

Totals: So far, it took 1 days, 1 hours, 3 minutes, and 32 seconds of cycling time to cover 336 km (209 miles), including 3926 m (12881 ft) elevation gain, with an average speed of 13.5 km/h (8.4 mph).

Today we will start the Flathead alternate. An official alternate of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route visiting a very remote area (with lots of bears). Since we did not exactly what we would be running into today, we decided to start early. We had set our alarms clocks for 6am. We got up, packed our tents and gear, and went to the entrance of the campground. During the night, we had stored our food and toiletries in a bear box. We had quite some food because the alternate had no resupply options. While storing the additional stuff on our bikes we also cleaned up in the bathrooms and ate some breakfast. While doing so we saw 3 bikepackers that looked like hard core bikers. While talking to them I found out they came from Belgium and 2 of them also intended to make it to the Mexican border. After this it was time to leave Sparwood.

On our way out of Sparwood we stopped at the local Subway to get some fresh food for later today. Getting out of town had to be done via a busy road (morning traffic), fortunately it had a wide shoulder. We had to follow this busy road for almost 12km before we had to take a turnoff onto another paved road which was very quiet. We were passed by a few cars only, most enjoying outdoors it seems because they had ATVs on their trailers. After about 20km we arrived at Corbin, a very small settlement without any services, close to mining activities. We decided to have a first break on a bridge at a parking lot, just before the unpaved road started. We ate some fruits and had something to drink. Meanwhile, several persons made their ATV ready for riding in the Flathead area. We had chats with a few of them. The nicest person was a very large man on an ATV joined by a couple on another one. They planned a day riding in the area

After our break, we continued the dirt road. The road surface was mostly dried up mud, with very deep tracks in the surface. We had to be careful, throughout the day. The dried-up mud surface changed into different types of gravel (loose, rocky, rocks, etc.). At some point the road merged with a small river. The road surface changed into a rocky riverbed (including streaming water). We could not cycle it, we had to walk for about 1km. For ATVs it was less of a problem, three passed us during this section. Eventually the road surface changed back to gravel, and we got back on our bikes. The road surface kept changing. The sections with bigger rocks scared us a bit for damaging our bikes. But after a while we realized that we should continue biking otherwise we would never make it to Mexico. Meanwhile raindrops started to fall, and after about 15 minutes we decided to put on our rain jackets. While getting them on, it stopped raining. Looking around, we realized we were in luck. It seemed to have rained a lot more all around us.

We had our next break at the Pollock campground. A nice spot in the woods with some picnic benches where we ate part of the Subway food. We also decided to filter some water because there was a big river with plenty of fresh water. We also met a couple of ATV drivers (2 elderly couples) that we saw earlier today during our break in Corbin. They were surprised that we already made such progress. This Pollock campground might had been a possible destination for today. However, since it was only 1:30 pm we decided to continue to Butts Cabin. A famous cabin for Divide riders that take the alternate. It is also very popular by hunters in fall, and for people that snowmobile in winter. After getting water and eating the food we continued our way.

During the remainder of our ride to Butts Cabin we saw large clouds of smoke from wildfires. Somewhere in the south appeared to be a forest fire. About 10 km before our Butts Cabin, we met a couple in a pickup truck. They just came from the cabin. There was nobody else and they told us that we had about 10 km to go. All went well and we enjoyed the ride. Just before 3:30 pm we arrived at Butts Cabin. A very nice primitive cabin. It was built somewhere at the end of the eighties begin nineties. It included a stove which can be used to burn wood and heat the cabin. It had room to sleep multiple persons. Visitors had written all kinds of messages on the door, walls, and ceiling. There was a picknick tablet outside and inside. It seemed a very nice location for spending the night in bear territory. After eating something and hanging around, we heard two ATVs. It were people (the very big guy and friends) we met earlier today at the parking lot in Corbin. We had nice conversations, and we also discussed the wildfire. Based on the information they had and the map we had we should be OK for tomorrow. While talking with the persons on the ATVs, a pickup arrived. It was a guy working in the area for the. He was told to evacuate and move out of the area and instruct all people along the way to do so as well. Ideally (advice, not mandatory) we should move back to Corbin (the place where we had our first break of the day). That would mean we had to go all the way back to Sparwood, where we started this morning. There was no immediate threat, however if the wind direction of force changes all could be different. We showed him our maps and told him our plans. Then his advice was to go back 18 km (12 miles) to Harvey Campground, which we had passed earlier this afternoon. There we could spend the night, and tomorrow use a detour to get back on the original route. For us that sounded as a good alternative instead of going back all the way to Sparwood and loose 2 days.

After packing our gear and loading our bikes again, we started our bike ride back to Harvey Campground. This added some more miles to already a long day (but which we enjoyed a lot). When we arrived at the Harvey Campground there were already three guys with an RV. They were there for work. They worked for the government (measuring and checking things in the area). They had tried to come to the campground via the same road as we had traveled earlier today using their two large 4×4 pickups and a small RV. For the cars it was more-or-less OK, for the caravan not so much. They had to turn around (no idea how they did that on that road) and used the road we will take tomorrow. Fortunately, we were not alone in this campground when sleeping in our tents in bear territory. Not only had we switched from a cozy cabin to our tents, now we also had to hang our food. Honestly, we did great. It did not look for a moment that we were starters. Proud on ourselves!

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