June 15 – 22

We left Missoula Tuesday June 15th and and headed to Darby, Montana which is about a 66 mile ride.  The weather was once again threatening rain the entire day but for the first few hours it held off.  Along the way we were riding through a town called Stevensville which has a population of about 550.  We were slowly making our way through the “Downtown” area when a distracted woman driving a mini-van hit Bobby with her car.  She was only going about 5 mph and only made contact with his trailer so he was able to stay on the bike and was totally unharmed.  As we rolled out of Stevensville the weather began to take a turn for the worse.  The temperature dropped and it started raining.  We made it another 20 miles to Hamilton and decided to call it a day.  We were about 13 miles short of Darby but we were tired, wet, and Hamilton ended up being a pretty good town to stop in so we found a campsite and went to bed.  The next day we woke up to even worse weather.  The mountains that were all around us in Hamilton, and clearly visible the day before, were covered by clouds and it was raining.  We were planning on going over our next pass that day, Chief Joseph Pass, but all the locals said that it would be snowed out for the next couple days.  It’s about a 3,000 ft climb so Bobby and I decided it would be wise to wait out the storm.  We spent the next day at our campsite just relaxing and throwing the football around.  We came up with a plan to ride the next day to a town at the base of the mountain named Sula.  It was only about 40 miles away but with the weather still pretty rough on the pass we decided that if we can’t go over the pass we should get as close as possible to make the climb easier.  Sula has a population of 50 and we camped at the cafe/gas station/ campground/ convenience store which also happened to be the only building in town.  The next day the weather was perfect for a climb so we got up and headed up the biggest pass we had to climb to that point.  We climbed 8 straight miles at a 7% grade to reach 7,241 ft.  At the top there was still snow along the side of the road from the storm, but the roads were in great shape so no big deal.  We took some pictures with the “Continental Divide” sign (The first of several times we will be going over the divide.) and continued another 42 miles to Jackson, Montana.  Jackson is located in an area called “The Bog Hole” which is a relatively flat area surrounded by mountain ranges.  Ridiculous amounts of mosquitoes live in The Big Hole which made things slightly uncomfortable, but Bobby and I got to soak in the natural hot springs at our campsite so it ended up being a great place to stop for the night.

The next day we set out for Dillon which was about a 50 mile ride.  Our route included another two passes that reached over seven and six thousand feet.  We got to Dillon, population 3,752, at about 5pm and just in time to get hit by a large lightning storm.  We took cover at the local McDonald’s for about 2 hours while the storm passed over.  After that the weather got really pleasant so we decided to make a break for the campgrounds.  We set up camp but shortly after got hit with more rain.  Rain has been a huge part of almost everyday of this trip so far, and we would be lying if we said we weren’t getting sick of it.  Anyways, the next day we rolled on with Virginia City as our planned destination for the day, which was about 55 miles down the road.  Once again the weather was looking questionable but it held up until we hit a little town called Twin Bridges, population 400.  A storm was right on our tail so we stopped and had lunch at the local cafe as the storm went over us.  Earlier that day we ran into a group of older riders that were also heading across the country.  We talked with them for a little bit and then passed, only to see them again at Twin Bridges at the cafe.  After the storm we kept moving and decided to ride with our new friends for a little while.  There was three men and one woman, and they all looked to be well over their fifties.  A couple miles down the road from Twin Bridges Bobby’s chain snapped a link.  We had never had this happen to us and we were a little lost on how to repair the chain.  Luckily one of our new friends was willing to help.  Before we knew it we were as good as new and back on the road.  As we reached the next town, Alder population 116, yet another storm was brewing.  Bobby and I had two choices. The first option was to call it a day at Alder, or press on and try to beat the storm another 12 miles to Virginia City.  We decided to go for it, and thankfully we made it to a pizza shop in Virginia City right before the storm hit.  It was about 7pm when we got there and by 8pm the storm had passed and the weather was once again pleasant.  Thats when we decided to take advantage of the good weather and just keep riding to the next town.  It was only about a 14 mile ride and we had about 90 minutes of daylight left, but the ride included another mountain pass.   As we climbed up the mountain we passed the freshly fallen snow until we reached the top, about 7000 ft.  At the top we were rewarded with an awesome view of the valley below with a mountain range just beyond the valley. We rode into the town of Ennis and set up camp by about 9:30 pm, made a couple of phone calls and then hit the hay.  We rode close to 80 miles that day and we were beat.  The next day we woke up and went to get breakfast at a little place called “Yesterdays”.  As we were eating we were talking to a guy and when we told him we were planning on riding into West Yellowstone, he laughed and told us we were going to be battling headwinds the whole way in.  Hoping he was wrong we headed  off on our 70 mile ride to West Yellowstone .  About 10 miles in and 1 1/2 hours later we were getting blasted by 25+ mph headwinds and we were only moving at about 5 miles per hour.  Eventually, 6 hours later and 30 miles later, we pulled over to a day site called Palisades. We were resting on some rocks when a man who was working construction drove up in his truck and told us that if we wanted to camp there then Andrew and I were more than welcome to.  We took him up on the offer and immediately set up camp.  We decided that we needed to get up extra early the next morning and get it moving to beat the headwinds that we were battling that day.  We set up camp, and were asleep by 9:30 that night.  The following morning we woke up at 5:15 and it was about 35 degrees outside.  It was really hard to get moving but regardless, we had to do what we had to do so we started moving.  After about 15 miles up the road we found a restaurant for breakfast and ate and warmed up a bit.  After we ate we kept it moving and we finally rode into West Yellowstone 40 miles later (for a total of about 55) around 1 p.m.  We went to the local bike shop called “Free Heel and Wheel” where the co-owner Melissa gave our bikes a total makeover.  New brakes, tightened all the bolts and trued our tires.  We are now good to go for tomorrow when we make our way into Yellowstone National Park, where we will be sleeping with the buffalo, grizzlies and black bears.  We will have some amazing pictures coming so stay tuned to our facebook page. We anticipate encountering some amazing animals within the next few days!

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