Today we rode from a dispersed campsite, Montana, US to Big Larch Campground at Seeley Lake, Montana, US. Very sunny weather again with little to no clouds. Road conditions included much gravel roads, some jeep tracks, some paved roads, and some single track. Highlights of the day include getting out of a long forest road and see the mountain scenery again, and a single track downhill near the edge of the mountain.

Riding statistics: on Tuesday, August 9, 2022, day 9 on the route, it took 09:58h (07:39h moving time), between 08:02 and 18:01, to cover 108 km (67 miles), including 1483 m (4866 ft) elevation gain, with an average speed of 14 km/h (9 mph), while reaching a maximum speed of 46 km/h (29 mph). During this ride the average temperature was 30 °C (86 °F) with a minimum of 11 °C (52 °F) and a maximum of 48 °C (118 °F).

Totals: So far, it took 2 days, 12 hours, 7 minutes, and 14 seconds of cycling time to cover 856 km (532 miles), including 10063 m (33017 ft) elevation gain, with an average speed of 14.4 km/h (9.0 mph).

For this morning we had decided to not set an alarm clock. We would see when we got awake. It turned out we both were awake early, around 6:30am. We expected to have a cold night, but the temperature turned out to be great. We got up and started packing, ate something, and made sure we were ready to leave.

Since we slept directly next to the road, we were immediately back on track when we left our camping spot. The scenery was beautiful. Again, dense forests, but also some open meadows. That combined with a nice temperature and the sun made it a perfect morning. Just before camp yesterday we had quite a steep uphill. Today we could start the day with a downhill. All morning we have been riding this gravel road and eventually we started to see more of humans, such as fences, eventually electricity poles, and then even houses. When leaving the gravel road, we finally saw traffic again. For almost 24h we hardly have seen any people.

After about 2km (1.5 miles) on this paved road we took a turnoff onto another gravel road. This gravel road would bring us to an unnamed pass with an elevation of 1800m (6.000 ft). We started climbing just after 2pm. The hottest moment of the day. It took us little over two hours including several breaks, and some water filtering included. Just before the top, the road changed into a single-track. We had 2km (1.5 miles) of additional uphill on the singletrack. After that, the single-track became a downhill. A nice downhill, but we had to be very careful. 1) It was at an edge of the mountain, a mistake and we could slide down for a long way, and 2) we had to yell a lot for warning the bears since there was also dense vegetation. Besides that, the downhill was lots of fun.

Eventually we were back on a gravel road for a faster downhill. It took not very long before the gravel road turned again into a single-track. Here we had to be very careful, for cut down trees, with still sharp and broken tree branches close to the track, (deep) ditches for water streams, etc.

After several kilometers of more (nice) gravel road we could take a turnoff to Seeley Lake, which was slightly off course, but it has some services available. We got ourselves a hiker/biker campsite at the Big Larch Campground and pitched our tents. There were two other hiker/biker sites, both taken. At one site there was an elderly Dutch couple, and on the other site there was a US couple.

After setting up our tents, we walked to the lake to enjoy the views, and get a bit cleaned up. Back at the campsite we decided to wash our clothes at a spigot and hang them for drying. Next, we went out to the ‘town center’, for groceries and something to eat.

For groceries we had to cycle all the way to the other end of town (about 3km / 2 miles). On our way back we met Roger again. He arrived in the early afternoon and was now on his way for some groceries as well. After a short chat, we continued our ride back and decided to stop for a pizza and drinks. We took a medium one and decided to share it. We sat outside, had nice conversations, and enjoyed the sunset. It was already getting dark when we cycled back to the campground. Back at the campground we went into our tents to enjoy a well-deserved rest.

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