Whitefish into the wild

We left the Bougie confines of Whitefish, with its SUV traffic jams, for places south into the US Forest Service land to the south. We actually were pretty lucky, as this area had been under fire warnings up until the week before.

We started the day at a local Cafe, so that I could try to get some work done. On this trip I need to do some work, so I needed to connect. We also stopped at a local bike shop to get a new copy of the Divide map that Jerry had lost the night before. So that took a while, so we didn’t start out very early. That’s okay, since we didn’t know where we would end up. The first half of the day was really through the southern areas of Whitefish, meaning a lot of new houses and “ranches” all along the way. Lots of new stuff everywhere, as it seems like the world is coming to Montana. At lunch, we stopped along a ranch and put up our camp chairs along a fence and got out our sandwiches. We were sitting there and Jerry’s bike fell over. We looked back and a horse had nosed his bike over, in order to get some attention. Which of course we gave her and her two foals. The remainder of the day would go into the forest, to places unknown up on the mountain. I was actually thinking of going down the major highway in order to make it to where we knew there were camping spots and convenience stores. I had convinced Jerry of this shortcut and he was all for it, until we talked to a lady who was selling coffee from a small store in front of her house near Ferndale MT. She said that 83 would not be a lot of fun, so Jerry was convinced. We rode about 4 miles south of Ferndale when the gravel road we were on suddenly went up. The Garmin GPS told us we were going to have to climb 2,000 feet in 6 miles. And it began to sprinkle. And then rain. And then pour. We went higher and higher, and got wetter and wetter. We were in the Us Forest Service land, so we could camp really anywhere. So I started looking. Jerry was convinced to get to the top, so up we went.

By the time we got to the top the temperature had dropped quite a bit, and our wetness was a problem. Once we stopped riding up the mountain, we stopped the natural heat that activity gave us. So we set up the tent by the side of the road, in a little cut back, by throwing down the floor, putting the fly over the floor, hammering the stakes in with a rock, and then putting up the tent under the fly. As wet as it was, this worked pretty well. So, once again, the second time in 3 days, we sat out the rest of the rainstorm in a tent at the end of the day. In this case we were already soaked. Once we got our wet clothes off, and dry stuff on, the shivering stopped and we felt much better.

After about an hour of eventually slowing rain, it finally stopped so we could get out and set up the camp. Since this is definitely bear country, we took our food down the lane, set up a stove, boiled water and ate our freeze-dried food to go with our leftover sandwiches. By the time we got the air mattresses and sleeping bags set up, we were ready to retire. At about 8PM. We actually got a good night’s sleep and, during a potty break in the middle of the night, saw an incredible field of stars above us, untouched by light pollution and, thankfully, more clouds.

Thursday morning we set out down the mountain, meaning we went down the 6 miles we rode up yesterday, so that head start was very helpful. We continued on, on gravel roads, and then on smaller gravel roads, and then eventually on single-track, as we went forward.

As we got to the end of our day, we were wondering where we were going to get food. This is a problem on a route that doesn’t necessarily go by civilized areas. We didn’t pack enough food for 4 days, so we were a little stumped as to how to do this. Part of the route did go onto route 83 again, and we Googled a restaurant a couple of miles in the wrong direction. So off we went to Hungry Bear’s, where we found dinner and talked the owner into making us a few sandwiches for the road for tomorrow. We then headed off to Holland Lake campground, and found the last campsite in the place, thankfully, and then ran into Robert, a hiker from Colorado, also looking for the last campsite. We invited him to camp on our site, and he is now across from us, telling us his stories. Soon we are back into the tent, now dry, for hopefully another good night’s sleep, and for an early start towards Ovando, our goal for tomorrow. At least that’s the plan. We’ll see if this works out.