6/27/98 Bryan

Otto woke us this morning with a breakfast of eggs, bacon, and granola. We packed up camp and rode 17 miles to Elk River. There, we stopped in a store to stock up before our ride to the Dworshak reservoir. There, we finally found some reliable information about the road we wanted to take to the reservoir. The store owner informed us that Elk Creek Road was gravel for 17 miles and paved for 17 miles. She said that it was a very nice road to bike on... I wasn't quite so sure, but decided to go along, anyway.

We hacked for a bit with some guys from Panama, then left for the reservoir. The gravel road was really nice. The riding was a little slower and steering was approximate, at best, but it was a refreshing change from the paved roads that we had been following for the past 600 miles.

The gravel ended near the top of a ridge overlooking the reservoir. We paused for lunch before a fast descent down to the water. We went for a quick swim in the water, then headed back up the ridge on our way to highway 12.

At about 5:30, we stopped for dinner in Orofino. Our waitress told us that it was another 63 miles to Lowell, our intended destination. Clearly, we couldn't make it there before dark. We rode for about 20 miles on 12 before stopping just past Greer. We slept on a boat loading ramp. The sky looked clear and there weren't any bugs, so we decided to go without tents. We were awakened by a brief shower around 3:00 AM. We rushed to put up the tents. By the time they were up, the rain stopped. :-)

6/28/98 Jonathan

We got up from our slanted sleep on the boat launch area. The Clearwater River had a nice gradual descent and we basically followed the river up for 80 miles. There were 7 campsites along the way and almost nothing else. One store sign said "last chance" on the side. We headed up the river and just kept peddling. We drafted off each other and made quite some distance.

We had lunch on some rocks along the river and watched kayakers attempt a run right in front of our picnic. They tried to climb back up the river and surf in the standing wave created by a large rock in the middle of the river. We dunked ourselves in little pools created on the side of the river and enjoyed our lunch.

We stopped in Kamiah at a store to get some gatorade... this was early on. After that town there was nothing for 80 miles. Here we ran into Jerry who gave us a newspaper including one article about grizzlies and another about bicyclists getting hypothermia on the continental divide pass. By that point we had enough encounters with him and enough of us stories about the 20 people who have disappeared in Glacier National Park in the last 30 years. Their remains are still missing, that is.

We continued on up and began to run short on water. We came across a few campsites but no water source. Finally at one site about 20 miles shy of Lolo pass one gentleman offered us 1 gallon of water which served us quite well. We continued on to the final campsite before the pass and by that point we had reached about 102 miles for the day. I felt it was getting rather late and I knew the pass would have at least a 5-6% grade for the last 5 miles. I preferred to stay back considering the long day. Otto also had a stomach ache and opted to stay back while Julian and Bryan pressed on until 10pm to the top of the pass. They made it to the border which is at the pass (also the site of Mountain Time Zone) and camped in a tree logging entrance area...they awoke to oodles of trucks of all shapes and sizes driving by their tents the following morning. Otto and I cooked up a nice meal and hit the sack quickly.

6/29/98 Bryan

Today was a pretty easy day. Julian and I woke up around 8:30... er... 9:30 (we're in Mountain Standard time now). The sun was blazing into our tents. The walls of the tent blocked most of the occasional breeze. The heat was getting unbearable, so I decided to get out and start working on breakfast.

Jon and Otto had not yet made it to the top of the pass, so we ate our oatmeal alone. Our solitude was brief, however, as we soon learned that we were camped in a logging truck parking lot. The loggers didn't mind our presence, though. They just pulled in and went about their business as we packed up camp. Our tents looked pretty funny in the middle of all those trucks and cranes. It was quite a sight.

Julian and I finally pulled out of camp around 11:30. We hadn't seen Jon or Otto, yet, so we decided to bike back to the Idaho-Montana state line for a little border hack session. When we arrived there, we found Jon and Otto waiting for us. Jon was a little banged up. He showed us his battle wounds and explained that he had a bit of a run-in with a chipmunk. Apparently the animal ran out in front of him while he was climbing the pass and stopped. Jon braked, forgetting that he was still locked in the pedals. He then crashed, receiving some of the worst injuries that we have seen thus far. Fortunately, he finished the climb safely. We hacked for a few minutes before saddling up to head for Lolo Hot Springs.

The Hot Springs was about 9 miles from the pass. Our ride began with a 3.5 mile descent down a 5% grade. That momentum carried us to the hot springs in about 30 minutes. Once there we changed into our bathing suits for a dip. It was very nice. The warm waters soothed our muscles which were aching from the previous day's climb.

After swimming for a bit, we went to the "Eatery" for lunch. It had been several days since we had been this close to civilization. Julian's actions in the restaurant rest room confirmed this (ask him if you want more details). We ate until we were stuffed. Then, we hit the road for Lolo around 3:45 PM.

The ride to Lolo was a very gradual descent. It would have been quite nice if it weren't for the constant head wind. Jon, Otto, and I solved this problem by drafting off of each other. Julian rode by himself. Along the way, we saw numerous cattle pastures among the mountains. It was very much what I expected for Montana.

About 10 miles outside of Lolo, my BOB tire blew out. Now, all three of us have had one BOB-blowout. Jon has talked to BOB about this and they seem very concerned. They are anxious to help us in anyway necessary to keep us on the road.

When we arrived in Lolo we checked we found that for the first time in several days, we had cell-phone access. We checked our voice-mail and found that people in the lab are quite concerned about our project. They are worried because we have been out of contact for a few days... Idaho was sparsely populated and didn't allow for much communication. Tonight, we are staying in a Days Inn in Lolo to try to catch up on some of our data transfers.

7/2/98 Bryan

Today was rather eventful... Last night we camped in Hamilton, MT. Julian said that he wanted to get an early start in the morning so we could make it up the continental divide (yes!) before the heat set in. He suggested getting up at 5:00. After some reasoning from myself and Jon, Julian agreed to wake us all at 6:00AM. I woke up at 7:00AM and realized that Julian had not yet sounded the alarm. So, I called out to ask what was up. Julian responded that he had granted us all a 1 hour extension. How nice of him. We actually got up around 7:30AM.

We hit the road around 9:30AM. We were about 45 miles from the Divide. The first 10 miles went by really fast. We stopped in a grocery store in Darby to stock up on lunch and dinner items since there weren't any significant cities between there and the pass. As I was wandering through the aisles, I noticed a sign that said "Genuine California Sourdough -- Baked Fresh in Store Daily". I asked one of the workers how it could be California Sourdough if they baked it in Montana. She responded saying that the bread was actually baked in California, then shipped frozen to Montana. They just thaw it out in the store... shocking!

The climb continued at a very gradual pace until we came to Sula, about 12 miles from the pass. We stopped in at the ranger station there to look for messages from Otto. The rangers told us that the really tough climbing didn't start for another 5 miles. We had already done 3 mountain passes by this point, so we weren't too concerned. This one turned out to be pretty rough, though. The steep grade went on for 7 miles. We were there from 1PM-3PM-- probably the hottest hours of the day.

What a relief it was to finally arrive at Chief Joseph Pass, 7,241 feet. We had reached the continental divide! We have been working toward this point for the last 2 weeks. It was an exciting moment. We found Otto there waiting for us. After a quick hack session across the divide, we decided to bike a few more miles to a creek where we could stop for lunch and a swim.



After lunch, we continued down hill through the "Big Hole" region. We could see a big storm raising in the West. As it approached, we became a little concerned about biking across the plains in a thunderstorm. We found an open shed at "Ruby Ranch" minutes before the storm hit. We ran inside.

After trying fruitlessly to capture a photo of the lightening, Julian unrolled his Thermarest for a quick nap. I studied the maps. We still have quite a ways to go to get to Yellowstone... more significant than the miles is the fact that we still have to go over 3 more mountain passes, then a gradual climb into the park. Hmph... and I thought all of the uphill ended after the continental divide. Oh well.

After the storm, we rode another 10 miles to Wisdom, MT. We are camping here for the night. We will try to get an early start in the morning. Hopefully we can get over those three passes before quitting tomorrow...

7/3/98 Jonathan

Today we got up at 6am. Otto left at 6am to head to Yellowstone so he could catch his flight. We made the wise choice and went to Wisdom for breakfast. We had some good home-cookin'. We mailed back yet another a package (some owner's manuals and other miscellaneous items) at post office. It weighed in at 3 lbs 6 ounces.

Things took longer than expected that morning after breakfast due to catastrophic simultaneous Palm Pilot failures. Bryan dropped his palm pilot on the ground and the screen went kaput. He played with it for a few minutes but the screen seemed to be fried. However, based on the noises it was making it appeared to be still functioning. We thought we had the application running so we proceeded. At the same time Julian's system went wacowaco. His Palm Pilot was logging data at an incredibly fast rate. Somehow the serial line was tied high; either it was due to the Palm Pilot entering some weird state or the sensor coordinator was spitting out data at an improper rate. In any event, we reset both systems and it returned to a normal state of operation.

We headed out of Wisdom and onto Jackson. Jackson was the last town on the route for something like 40-50 miles so we loaded up on water and foodsnacks. We cleaned the local food store our of gatorade. We also checked out voice mail and made a few phone calls. Julian left his organizer on top of the phone booth in the town and he is still trying to work out its retrieval.



11 miles from Jackson was the Big Hole Pass. It stood at 7361 ft--the highest point of our trip thus far. The grade on the climb was not too bad (only 6-7% for the last 2 miles) and the vertical distance climbed was not too bad since the Big Hole Valley stood at about 6000 ft. However, the climb had a headwind that slowed our climb considerably. It was the worst winds we have yet experienced. The winds were at least 25-30 mph. We stopped at the top and had an awesome hack session. Our foot skills are improving.

We continued on down for 15 miles and turned off the road to go to Bannack State Park. This town--the first capital in the Idaho/Montana Territory, and the first gold mining town in Montana. The town was left intact and is the oldest ghost town in Montana. The first sheriff of the town was named Henry Plummer and was hung after it was uncovered that he led the Innocents--a band of outlaws who murderd and stole gold from local prospectors. His double-role status remained secret for almost a year. It was after a vigilante group formed to put and end to the terror in Bannack, that his identity was uncovered. It is estimated that the band stole what is now valued at $30 million, of which a large portion many believe is still hidden in the hills.

We enjoyed our history lesson and stopped to have a picnic inside at the schoolhouse. It kept us somewhat free from the mosquitos. We got back on the road by 5pm and had to make our way back to the road and up Badger Pass (6760 ft). After that pass we had a nice 15 mile descent into Dillon, MT (pop. 3,000). It was nearing pretty late and we were pretty exhausted so we opted for fast food and motel for our food and housing. We then went for to "6 days, 7 nights"-- our first movie of the summer. It was good entertainment but definitely one of Harrison Ford's cheezier roles.