Montana "March"
On July 2, our friends, Corry & Gerard van Boheemen, Gail & Glenn Vanderlinde, Margo Clark and Bonnie Swafford will begin a tour that will take them through some beautiful scenery in Montana and Canada. | |
They will be sending back periodic progress reports which will be posted here. | |
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No topographic data for section in Canada
| Date | Miles | Elevation | Comments | Stop |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28-June | - | - | We
will leave monday a.m. at 6, planning to drive to Klamath Falls, OR, the first
day, which I think is about 600 miles of driving for Bonnie. She will be leaving
Nipomo at about 5:00 a.m., stopping to have coffee at our house, picking us up
(G & G) on the way. Margo will pick up Corry & Gerard, leaving at 6 a.m. also. Then we will drive from Klamath Falls, on up to Spokane, WA, for our second night. Then drive on in to Missoula, then drive back west to Trout Creek, to park Margo's car at Jo's house on a Lake. Then after a good night's sleep, hopefully, we will start cycling on July 3. We plan to stop at Adventure
Cycling (in Missoula) to check it out. Glenn has not been there before, &
Missoula is a quaint, old fashion town, the downtown part of it. It is pretty
big, with malls everywhere, but I like the old downtown part, with the farmer's
market & ice cream stores. This is the plan. | |
| Hello, We are on the road, with beautiful, perfect weather, so far. We stopped for coffee & found a library to let you know that we are having a wonderful trip. A great drive up here to Trout Creek, MT. Bonnie almost hit a moose crossing the road. We stopped & saw several more alongside of the road, along a river while driving over Thompson Pass. The same pass that Corry, Gerard & I climbed up two years ago. Too many adventures to tell about. Later, from the Montana gang, Bonnie, Margo, Corry, Gerard, Glenn & Gail | Trout Creek | |||
| We rode from Trout Creek, MT to Plains traveling East on Hwy 200 with perfect weather, in the high 80 degrees, with a little breeze at our backs, along the Clark Fork River, crossing the river quite a few times. Glenn had a flat tire before we even started. What a perfect day. | Plains | |||
| We bicycled from Plains, to Polson, with a breeze pushing us 40 miles along Hwy 200 to Ravalle to lunch, for buffalo burgers. It warmed up to 93. After lunch, we turned north on Hwy 93 for about 35 miles through Mission Valley to Polson. Gail had 3 flats in 4 miles. We stayed at a Best Western on water's edge on Flathead Lake, walking out our door onto private boat docks. Beautiful area, everywhere we have gone. | Polson | |||
| We biked 68 miles with a lot of hills, the longest being 4 miles. We cycled, from Polson, Hwy 93 along the west side of Flathead Lake, the largest natural lake in the USA, to Whitefish. Gail dropped her finished roll of film (on the road) just before Flathead Lake, while taking pictures, up on the hill at end of our ride. The next morning, going back to look to see if it was dropped there, we "found" the roll of pictures still on the ground. Hurrah! Mexican dinner at Dos Amigos. Margo & Glenn bicycled an extra 7 miles today. Ask Margo, why. We toured the town. It warmed up to 95, dry heat, so we did not feel it too much. Excellent riding with breezes at our backs. | Whitefish | |||
| We headed east, at 8, onto Hwy 40, to Hwy 2, north, to Glacier West, to West entrance. We, especially Gail, enjoyed the great expertise of a 16 yr. old girl, Adriana, riding her Arabian horse, bareback, for miles along highway, from Hungry Horse to Glacier West. We talked with her several times. We spent 2 hrs. in Hungry Horse for breakfast. Adriana has learned the "Pat Perelli" style to train her horse. She certainly had a wonderful relationship with her arabian horse. She would jump on onto her horse, effortlessly.We climbed almost 4000 ft, riding 67 miles. | Glacier West | |||
| 6-July | Bonnie is our mother hen & we are her 5 little chicks. She has only lost us one time, which was today, but only for a short time. Margo tried to take us on a special bike trail, which failed to be a good trail & we all eventually got back together. We entered the Glacier National Park & spent the afternoon in Apgar Village, because bicycles are not allowed on the Highway between 11 a.m. & 4 p.m., so we lounged around near MacDonald Lake until 4, before finishng the day ending at MacDonald Lake Lodge, with a total of 41.5 miles of unbelievable scenery. Everything is so gorgeouse, it cannot be explained in a few words. Easy day with only 1650 ft of climbing. | Lake McDonald | ||
| This is the day for the Highway to the Sun Ride. We had 21 miles of climbing to the top, to Logan's Pass, which was 3740 ft of climbing. We had a total of 44.1 miles, with a total of 4410 ft of climbing. We started at 7 & bicycles had to be off the Highway by 11. We just made it. We finished at exactly 11. We stopped to take a lot pictures. Margo is our official photographer. She has this new, tiny, digital, camera, about 2 inches by 2 inches. We stopped more than all the rest of us. Bonnie would stop at all the turnouts, to feed us & give us cold drinks, etc. She is a godsend for us. She & "Muffet," our "mascott" enjoyed the views also. Everything is so unexplainable. Of course, snow along the top. Glacier Park is full of glaciers, of which we could see some of them. Such views. We stayed in some neat cabins, in the town of Lake St. Mary. We found a great cafe, Park Cafe, with such good food. | St Mary | |||
| We cycled over 46 miles, climbing 4020 ft. to Waterton Lakes, in Alberta, Canada. We had a tough day, with lots of winds. The first 10 miles was fairly flat with tailwinds, along Hwy 2. Then north of Babb, we turned west onto Hwy 17, starting our climbs, the first hill was 5 miles. We had unusual head & cross winds. We were moved around, litereally, a few times each. We were certainly glad to end todays ride. Waterton is a beautiful little town, known as the windiest town in the world. We will take a day off. | Waterton | |||
| Day off, | Waterton | |||
| We
had our easiest ride yet. Yesterday July 9 was our only rest day. It was quite
welcomed after the wind the day before. When we had turned south to ride into
Waterton Lakes for 6 miles we had absolutely wild winds from the front but mostly
from our left side trying to blow us over with mostly big gusts of wind. July
10 was a very peaceful sunny day in Waterton. Cute tourist place with beutiful
mountains all around us like we were in a bowl. This town has not changed in years
according to Margo & Corry. Today we only rode 40 miles. I forgot to look at our climbing height. Later for that info. But the riding was just rolling hills. Easy day! | Pincher Creek | |||
| Glenn, Gail & Bonnie watched OLN, the Tour from 7 to 8, went to eat breakfast across the street at the Windward, in Pincher Creek. We left our Parkway Motel on Hwy 6, in Pincher Creek, Alberta, Canada at about 9:00, to have a fairly flat ride with a few rolling hills to Blairmore, which is at Crowsnest Pass. We only rode 32 miles with 1740 ft. of climbing, in less than 3 hrs. We could see, for miles, Turtle Mountain had lost a lot of the mountain. We came to learn that this is called Frank's Slide. Frank Mullin must have been here in 1903, causing this slide, which is along the highway that we traveled on. This slide covered a mining cummunity, killing 70 people. We got to Pincher Creek, yesterday by 11:00. Today we got into Blairmore early & could not check in until 3:00. So we usually just cruz the town for a coffee shop or dairy queen. Glenn has coffee & ice cream habits, so either will do. This big "Frank Slide" is about 5 miles before Blairmore. | Blairmore | |||
| Today was almost all downhill from Crowsnest Pass to Fernie, British Columbia, Canada.We crossed over the border between Alberta, Canada & British Coumbia soon after we left Blairmore. Not much to climb to get up & over Crowsnest Pass. We did more of the climbing yesterday. I wish that I had checked our altitude before we left Blairmore. I had no idea that we were going to have so much downhill today. I would not like to climb from north to south on Crowsnest Pass. Corry & Gerard did this a few years ago on their tandum, pulling a trailer. That was bad, they say. We did the pass the easy way, from south to north. Fairly easy hills, a little at a time. We are breakfast next door, watched "the Tour" on OLN, then started riding after 9. We stopped for lunch in Sparwood, visiting the largest truck in the world, called a Titan Truck used for mining. Their motto is: Modern Mining benefits all of us. We took pictures of this huge Titan truck. Today's ride was 45 miles, of almost all downhill. I am sorry I did not check the altitude to see how much we dropped in those 45 miles. Everyone says hello, Bonnie, Margo, Corry, Gerard, Glenn & Gail Oh yes, We are in Fernie, along side of the Elk River. Good size town. First thing we did was find a Dairy Queen. Everyone eats the ice cream now, even Muffet gets some ice cream, our mascot. | Fernia | |||
| This was definetely our easiest day, with very lilttle climbing. Another downhill day, with only one hard hill. We rode a total of 51 miles, with 860 ft. of climbing. We rode almost 4 hrs. What a neat log cabin style building that we ate lunch in, with a beautiful view, at Barnside Provisions & Cafe, 5 miles from the USA border, after we had ridden 38 miles.Then rode on to Eureka, Montana. We dropped over 2,000 ft today. Our lunch stop was just north of Roosville, BC. We left the Canadian Rockies, in Fernie, BC. Oh so beautiful to look at as we have been riding these past days. We are back to lower, pine tree covered mountains & hills. Not more huge rocks jetting up into the skies. And some still were with patches of snow. We cycled along Hwy 3, then turned left, south, onto Hwy 93, to Eureka. No OLN on T.V., so no Lance watching in Eureka. | Eureka | |||
| We left Eureka after breakfast, at 7 a.m., riding on Hwy 37, on to Libby, Montana. We rode up & down, about 12 climbs of about half a mile, to about a mile climb, each. Lots of climbing today, 3220 ft, riding about 70 miles today. We rode along Koocanusa Lake, passing Libby Dam, on into Libby along the river. Margo's knee hurt so much yesterday, that she rode with Bonnie today, keeping Bonnie company. | Libby | |||
Four
last day of riding, we packed up our stuff to leave Motel 8, in Libby at 7:45
to have breakfast at 8 in the same place that we ate dinner, Beck's Montana Cafe,
which opened at 8, along Hwy 2 West. Then we continued on Hwy 2, along the Kootenai
River for 15 miles, until we met Hwy 56, to ride south (left turn) to Hwy 200,
then turned left again, towards Missoula, until we arrived in Trout Creek, MT,
where we started this beautiful bicycle trip. We stopped on Hwy 2, to take pictures
of Kootenai Falls. Margo & Gail were the brave souls to hike down the trail
to the Falls, to take pictures & see the beauty of them in person. This was
the hottest day of our trip, reaching 100 degrees. No breeze, just hot, hot, hot.
We all kept drinking cold drinks out of the ice chest in Bonnie's car. She saved
us again. Corry got overheated & caused her to weaken & get sick in the
evening, after bedtime. (She is now recovering from a cold.) We stopped about
noon, along Hwy 56, at Joe's Bar & Pool Hall, for drinks, coffee & sodas.
At mile 32, we lunched on the shores of Bull Lake, on the newly cut grass at a
picnic table at a Rod & Gun Club, that was for members only. We bacame members
for an hour. So lovely a place to have our last picnic lunch for the trip. The
Lake was cool to look at, as we sat in the shade, eating up all our cherries,
& sandwiches. Later, we stopped to visit Jo & Woody, friends of the VanBoheemen's.
We rode over 70 miles, climbing 3,000 ft. in 5 hrs. 50 min. After all those miles, we are all still speaking to each other. We were so lucky to NOT have any rain. Great weather, with the exception of one windy day & the last day being so very, very hot. Ask any of us for questions, not that we will be able to answer. But we loved the trip totally. We are all so fortunate to have had such a great group of SLOBC members enjoying the Canadian Rockies, & Montana. Later, Bonnie, Margo, Gerard, Corry, Glenn & Gail Signing Off Now. | Trout Creek |