Saying Goodbye to the Suffer Fest

 Saying goodbye to the suffer-fest

I am heading out of Butte, going to the Bozeman airport, and heading home this morning. I’m ending my time on the Great Divide Trail, perhaps for a while, perhaps more likely, forever. 

Bozeman Airport as I leave Montana

What lead me to decide to end this trip for me?  Lots of reasons, most of which venture around one main thing: my heart was not in this ride, and this is a ride you must dedicate your heart, your lungs, your comfort, and humility to complete it. I wasn’t really doing so, so in turn this ride wasn’t really any fun for me. 

I think I agreed to this trip a few years ago, when my world was completed different. We were delayed by Jerry’s health, and then Patty’s. I’ve spent almost the last two years taking care of her, only to lose her about 90 days ago. In that time I’ve pushed off work, home and family obligations. Right now was not a good time to push them off again in order for me to do something like this. During every ride these past few weeks my mind has been completely elsewhere, everywhere but in the moment. With a trip like this there are going to be setbacks and disappointments, and because my heart wasn’t in it I did not take those setbacks well. From the first week I’ve felt like I should be elsewhere, not here. So now I’m going elsewhere, not here. 

The ride was not going anything like we had planned. It was obvious from the first few days that our timeline was woefully short. We planned on about seven weeks to ride these 2,800 miles, based on making about 60 miles per day and not including any days off the bike. The reality was we had days that we were lucky to make 40 miles. Climbing the heights we needed to, on gravel (or worse) roads is not just a lot of work, but it is time eating work, and we were running out of time. It was obvious we were going to have to extend the trip even longer, and I think that just about broke my spirit. I was already feeling like I needed to be elsewhere and now I’d be here even longer. I think that just did it for me. 

The last few days of riding illustrated my frustration. We made our way from the Llama farm into Helena was going to be an easy, short day. But it ended up taking so long that we finally arrived in Helena in the late afternoon. It wasn’t a technical ride, but it just takes time to push up and down these broken roads. That gave us a total of 36 miles for the day. 

The next day we planned to travel through Basin, Montana, to Butte. We had a really good morning, climbing steadily, rolling down occasionally. It was turning out to be a great day. Then we hit a particular section that was just, I guess you could say, cruel. We were at the top of a set of mountains and I assumed we would be rolling downhill into Basin. Instead we were negotiating down into what could generously called rock piles, not roads, as it was almost impossible to get down. We agreed that it was a good thing we were going down, not up. Then the road turned and we had to go back up in the same way. Or, more precisely, we had to push our fully laden bikes up rock piles called a road for about another six miles. I saw on my map that there was an unnamed shortcut for this entire section,(Lava Mountain), but it was not fully called out on my electronic map. Jerry’s .gpx data did not show it at all, but it turned out to be a shorter, but equally challenging alternative that we should/would have taken given the choice. The Tour Divide race used the shortcut. As I was pushing my bike upward, Sisyphus-like, approaching what I was hoping to be the end of this section I met a guy coming down on his bike with a trailer and his goggled dog. Paul and Mona were riding together. I practically begged him not to take Mona and his bike-train down this section, but he did anyway. I heard later from others that Paul was stuck somewhere in the middle of the section. I sure hope they got out safely. 

One of the better roads on our trip near Lava Mountain

So we finished this section and finally got out of this area, riding down some rocky but not impassable roads towards Basin. I was on my brakes so much my thumbs were sore. However, it was already 4 PM by the time we got to the only open place we could find, the Silver Saddle bar and cafe. Unfortunately it was Monday and the cafe was closed, so we got drinks and what seems to be a frozen pizza and gobbled it down.  This was going to be our lunch stop so we had had nothing to eat on the trail. We were going to bunk down in the Basin Community Center where they would let you sleep indoors, but began to discuss this. There was an I-15 alternative that would take us along the highway and then finally onto the highway and land us in Butte in about 21 miles. 21 miles of mostly roads, meaning likely an hour or two. After thinking about staying in Basin we agreed to spend the few remaining daylight hours hauling it to Butte. So off we went, with few instructions and a sketchy map directing our way. We rode up an “unmaintained cattle access road” for about five miles, then spent another four miles going down the wrong side of the highway. We figured this out, eventually, and then reversed course and went back to the highway overpass to the other side. We had contemplated just going onto I-15 for the entire trip, but decided that the frontage road offered more safety and we would be paralleling the highway anyway. So off we went , upward, for another five miles until we came to a tunnel we were supposed to go through. But it was closed with a huge gate we couldn’t get around or through. The tunnel was about 100 yards long, and we could easily see the other side. But no way we could get there, despite trying to jiggle the locks loose. So, back we went, again, towards the highway entrance. By the time we got there it was too late to travel by interstate, likely in the dark, so we began the trip back to Basin, defeated in our attempt to move on. Ironically, on the way back I spied something on the road, which turned out to be Jerry’s electronics bag. So if we had made it he wouldn’t have any of this stuff, which would have really sucked. So, back to the Silver Saddle, where I got myself a cold beer, and Jerry admitted that we were going to have to extend the time for this trip. Which is when I revealed the hesitations I was having; I didn’t want to leave him here unsupported, but he was confident in his abilities to make it on his own. I decided I was ready to end this particular venture and get back to the many things I am dealing with at home and in my life. 

See the light at the end of the tunnel? Yeah, so did we. But we couldn't get there

So we rode our last day together, into

Butte, and I stopped at Derailed, a really great local bike shop, where they boxed up my bike and I caught a ride to a hotel near the airport after booking a flight.

Dinosaurs in front of Derailed, with their reluctant dog

I’ve done a lot of riding, and I expect that I’ll do plenty more. Three years ago I pedaled from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean. I’ve done mountain bike rides through Moab, the Mah Dah Hey in North Dakota, through Canyonlands in Utah, and I’ve always enjoyed these trips. I don’t have anything to prove to anyone, and I think with the fresh lessons of the past two years I care less about proving anything anyway. I CAN do this trip. It’s just that I am choosing not to. All of the trips I’ve taken by bicycle have been fun, including the Trans-America trail. My last long ride was from Richmond VA down to Caswell Beach, NC along the Outer Banks, in October of ‘21, which I truly, truly enjoyed. Ironically this was the last trip that Patty and I did together (I met her there - she didn’t ride, of course). That was about the last piece of my last life before the cancer started its inevitable victory lap. I cherish that time, I wish that I could have more of it, but that’s not meant to be. I’ve witnessed a lot of suffering over the past two years, and I think I’ve decided it wasn’t necessary to take 2+ months to suffer more. 

So I’m heading home to face the difficulties of putting my life back together, in some way that I can. I don’t know what it’s going to look like. I know it’s a lot lonelier life but I hope it’s good. It’s great to have three wonderful daughters to remind me of the best parts of the remains of my family life.  In the meantime I wish Jerry the best on the rest of his trip. I know this meant an awful lot to him to complete it. I can’t believe the work ethic he has to persevere through all of the health (and age) issues he has to do this. Good for him. For me, I’m putting the suffer-fest behind me for now.