Day 5 - Polebridge, MT to Bigfork MT

We seem to be living a charmed life out here in Montana... Once again, the weather has been picture perfect - a high of 82F, sunny all day, a light breeze- couldn't ask for better!
Not a lot of climbing today, but we covered a fair bit of ground heading south from Glacier Nat'l Park following the Flathead River valley.  More gorgeous scenery, a bit of wildlife, and our first real encounters with GDMBR "trail angels."
The day started with some spectacular Huckleberry Bear claws & coffee at the Polebridge Mercantile, which we rolled out with about 7:30.  The road south toward Columbia Falls follows the Flathead River, and gradually loses elevation along our entire route today. 
Things started on pretty good gravel, with some occasional washboard sections, but nothing too serious.
After that we road a mix of paved and pretty smooth gravel farm roads south to our destination at Bigfork on the shore of Flathead Lake. 
We didn't really see much of the lake, bit it's reputed to be the largest east of the great lakes;-)

What made the day for us was our encounters with locals.  First, as we were riding along a fairly innocuous rural road in the middle of nowhere in particular, an older gentleman on an ATV chased us down, flagged us over, and then proceeded to provide us with a bunch of freshly picked strawberries.  And not those tasteless monsters you find at the Wegmans -- little ones so sweet and juicy we could hardly stop eating them!  He even provided little ziplock bags so we could take some with us.  A few miles later on, after cresting the last short but steep climb of the day, I asked a homeowner out working on his yard if I might fill my water bottles from his garden hose - to which he respond by running into the house and brought back ice cold bottles of local spring water- that definitely hit the spot!  Finally, just a mile or dor further on, Mike noted a great sigh post alongside the road...
So while we were taking pictures, the owner comes running out of his house to give each of us a fresh pan chocolade! His wife is a pastry chef, and he was baking in the kitchen and saw us and couldn't resist helping us out!  Best pan chocolade west of Estepona, Spain!

Our day ended serendipitously in Bigfork with another chance meetup with Ingrid and Miles from New Zealand :-). We ran into Ingrid as she was heading in the same direction in downtown Bigfork. After flagging her down, it turned out she and Miles are staying in the same motel, two doors down from our room.  She's been having even more navigation problems, even after buying a new Garmin 1040 GPS unit in Whitefish this morning.  After an hour or so of sorting though her GPS, I think she's got things sorted out! We're planning on riding the same place tomorrow, so time will tell ;-)

That's about it for today... Tomorrow will bring some potentially more interesting weather, as a cold front and some t-storms are supposed to move through tonight... Fingers crossed that the rain will have cleared out in time for us to hit the road by our usual 7:00am start time!
Cheers!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 8 - Lincoln, MT to Helena, MT

Image
Wow. Today was one of those days you dream of when you're planning a ride like the GDMBR, where the weather is perfect: the terrain is challenging, but not so much that you're ruined at the end of the day; the people are all friendly, kind and generous; and the food is all delicious and even home-made! We began the day inauspiciously in the small town of Lincoln, with a damp chill in the air- 37F and foggy, but with a forecast for clearing sky's and warmer temps by mid morning.  After a big breakfast at Lambkins Cafe, Mike and I set off to tackle Stemple Pass-  a 16 mile, 2200' climb starting about 100 yards from the cafe.  Sure enough, within 45 minutes, the fog began to lift, and we each began shedding layers.   The road profile looked like a near perfect exponential curve, with easy grades to start, and the steeper and steeper pitches as we neared the top, with a good ...
Read more

Shakedown trip- 4 weeks to go!

Image
Getting close to time to head for Banff, but first a real test ride:-). 3 days, 2 nights camping at remote sites up in the Adirondacks.  About 30-35% gravel, with 3-4,000' of climbing over 40-70 miles each day.  It should be a pretty good test of both bike & body!  I started out about mid-day Saturday May 6 from Port Leyden on the Black River.  My route ran north along the Black River valley about 20 miles, then northeast into the Adirondacks Park to Stillwater Reservoir.  I got to the reservoir at about 5pm, and decided to catch a real dinner at the Stillwater Inn, where I enjoyed a really great burger and fries and a beer- Meier's Creek IPA even from back in Cazenovia;-) After dinner, I rode another 3 or 4 miles until I found a great campsite on a bluff overlooking the reservoir.  Camp went together pretty easily for the first time out in the wild, and I even enjoyed a pretty nice campfire before sleeping like a log.  Slee...
Read more

Day 31 - Pie Town, NM to Apache Creek, NM

Image
After yesterday's long slog along the GDMBR's gravel to Pie Town, last night we decided to consider a slightly longer route today, but sticking to paved highway instead of unpredictable gravel. Whether peanut butter mud or peanut butter powder, neither was something we wanted to experience at this stage of our journey! So after a pretty good night's rest at the Toaster House, we set off for Apache Creek along US 60 at about 7:00am.  Today we were not too worried about heat, as we would begin riding at about 7500' under oddly overcast  skies, and then climb to more than 8200' at Jewett's Gap, so for most of the ride we would see comfortable temperatures.  The wind was another thing though...but we apparently got lucky on that count for once!  The daily breeze didn't really kick up until after we got to Quemado and headed south.  Starting as a quartering tailwind, by the time we were descending along the San Francisco River, we had a full on tailwi...
Read more