Ovando to the Llama Farm
The block party last night in front of the stray bullet cafe
One of the places to stay in Ovando
The breakfast was great and they made us a couple of sandwiches for the road, so it worked out great. Today’s goal was to make it to the Llama Farm (more on that later), a trip of almost 70 miles across two passes. Since we haven’t been able to do much more than 50/day through all the gravel and climbing, this might be a stretch. So the first thing we did on the way out of Ovando was to skip the first section of 7-8 miles by taking Montana 200 highway to cut this off. Our waitress at the Stray Bullet said this was going to be a terrible “washboarded road.” That was enough to convince us to make that change.
Breakfast at the Stray Bullet
We headed up another set of mountains toward Huckleberry Pass, which turned out to be pretty benign. The road had real climbing, but was so eventual that we had crested it within the hour. After that we set off downhill for the rest of the morning, a rather pleasant way to do the ride. Before we knew it we had passed the morning riding 36 miles into Lincoln, MT where we found a grocery store to purchase a big bottle of chocolate milk, some bananas and stuff. We headed off looking for somewhere shady to eat, and found the Lincoln Library, where the librarian was (I think) thrilled to have someone come by. We (that is, Jerry, myself, and Marika from Bozeman) sat and ate our lunches, filled our water bottles, used the bathrooms, and dumped our trash. Thank you Lincoln Library.
After lunch we knew that we had another pass to get over, this one taking us up to about 7,000 feet, from about 4,500. As we rode out of town we stayed on flat roads for a while. About 9 miles in, the road turned upward, but slowly. The Garmin said we had started a 10 mile climb of about 2,400 feet. But the road remained pretty easy. We got to about 6 miles left and the climb was still about 2,000 feet. As we got to about 2 miles from the end, and turned on “poorman’s road” we figured out where all the climbing was.. The road, and at this time calling it a road was generous, was a collection of rocks up to the pass. We had a quick but painful beginning, followed by another strangely flat section, until about the last mile. Then it turned straight upward. It became harder and harder to keep any speed, and the large rocks made it hard to get any grip. I was riding and stopping; riding and stopping. Near the top I realized that instead of riding to exhaustion every 100 feet, then having to wait for my breath to come back and my heart rate to come down, if I just walked I would make slow but steady progress without all the stops. So I walked the bike almost the rest of the way, except for the last section to the top.
Heading over the continental divide, our second pass for the day
I waited for Jerry to walk his bike up (honestly I don’’t know how he does this with his
A-fib), and we started to roll back down the pass. And we flew, at speeds much faster than we should have, given all of the rocks on the other side of the pass. We covered the 8 miles or so on the other side in what seemed like terror-filled minutes. Ironically, I made it down through this whole mess, but I was practically stopped, looked back for Jerry, and dumped my bike. Stupid.
The valley overlooking the Llama ranch
We again went down the road, through a beautiful valley, and I stopped to take a photo of a nice farm at the end of the valley, only to realize that this was our destination for the night. The famous Llama Ranch. For those riding the Divide, this is a must-stop. In essence, a couple who happen to have Llamas (or Alpacas, we’re not sure). They apparently used to bicycle years ago, and saw all the riders going by their place, and wanted to talk to them, so they set up a place for them to stay. They have a teepee, a log cabin, and about 4 other shacks, each outfitted with a collection of stuff that could help. Since we called ahead they gave us the “cabine” which has cans of food, a stove, a loft with an ancient bed, a plank that goes to another loft with another small bed, and photos of folks who had stayed here in the past. Each different place had a collection of something in it. I even borrowed a pair of flip-flops (mine flipped off the bike yesterday and flopped in the road) with a trucker babe logo (think of mud flaps on an 18-wheeler) that were left on the porch.
The valley overlooking the Llama ranch
There were a lot of cyclists at the ranch; some that we’ve met up the road, and a few others including a couple from New Zealand, and a couple of guys from Helena who rode up for the night. It was really nice talking to everyone, until some high winds and threats of rain drove us indoors, where our cabin is nice and warm. Marika is currently boiling water for hot chocolate, another food staple left for our enjoyment. One of the cyclists we met earlier, Harry from Cincinnati, is actually spending another night here to help out on the farm.
The sleeping options at the farm
In the morning we plan to use some of the vat of pancake mix they have here also. Now I’m typing up the day’s activities, and soon will be headed up to the loft across the plank from the other loft.
And of course, the llamas
Overall we did about 60 miles and climbed about 5,000 feet total today, which seems to be the standard.
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