Day 7 - Seeley Lake, MT to Lincoln, MT

Today's ride started chilly and damp and Mike and I elected to take an easier day along the main paved highway and avoid the mud on the logging roads. After we met up with some others who had chosen to ride the dirt, covered head to toe in caked on mud, we knew we'd made a good call.  
We started out heading down the Clearwater River valley to where it joins the Blackfoot River. 
The transition from the Swan River valley that we followed yesterday to the Blackfoot today is pretty remarkable -  dense evergreen for and pine forest on the Swan, to open prairie with scattered ponderosa pine on the Blackfoot.

We planned on a short "active recovery" day to Ovando, only about 29 miles from Seeley Lake, but when we arrived in Ovando, we met back up with Ingrid, our intrepid Kiwi friend, and decided to go on together a further 28 miles to Lincoln.  It was relatively easy riding, with only a couple thousand feet of climbing so we're still calling it an "easy" day! 

Today's note of local interest- is the roadside memorials placed by Montana State DOT.  Whenever there is a vehicular fatality, they place a small white cross on the roadside at the site of the crash. 
Sad, but it lets everyone know you need to really be careful on the road... Given the number of crosses we've seen, I'm beginning to wonder if anyone in Montana dies of natural causes! I'm making VERY good use of my Garmin Radar:-)

Tomorrow will be more of a test of our legs as we head up over Stemple Pass- our first crossing of the Continental Divide since day one. At just shy of 7000', it will be our highest yet, and we'll start the day at 4500', so it will be uphill right out of the starting gate ;-) The good news is, it will essentially be downhill all the way into Helena from there! More to come when we get there -
Cheers!

Comments

  1. Carol DyerJune 16, 2023 at 5:39 PM

    I wish they would do the white cross memorials for road deaths here in CA. However it would probably look like the National Cemetery!

    ReplyDelete

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