Section 2 Polaris, MT to South Pass City WY - D10

06/19 Day 10, Montana  Polaris - Lima  (100 Miles)

Noting for the record that if we ever really needed a car to go by, all I would have to do is stop to pee on the side of the road.  My bare butt became some sort of beacon for cars along the Tour Divide. 

We start a new map today! Two down, 5 to go.

Another cold, wet start this morning making it hard to leave the warmth of the lodge.  But breakfast was had and pictures taken and off we went.  We were joined by Will and Reinhold who had stayed at a different lodge nearby. 

The 1^st 35 miles were a fast gradual down hill we thoroughly enjoyed after all of the hard climbing the day before.  Then there were cues that read “next 47 miles are very remote” and “Rd can be mucky when wet”.  Mucky?  That is not the word we were using.  Cussing like sailors more like it.  Bannack Road (part of the Lewis and Clark Historical Trail) was thick mud.  The kind of mud that after 3 rotations of the wheel, it no longer rolls.  We pushed, carried, scrapped, meandered looking for dry spots, rode off in the sage fields…..for miles and miles and miles. 

Sheila TB finds a dry patch

Sheila R takes a turn actually riding

There is only one way to get there from here

James Hodges from Virginia had joined our merry group by this time.  He had been having neck trouble since Butte.  He could not hold his head up and would ride with it drooped down, using his right hand to lift his helmet, look around and droop once more.  Had to have been awful for him but what a great attitude – he just carried on.  At one point I had stopped to make some adjustment completely forgetting that James was not far behind me.  He rode right into me.  I got a leg gash, he fell over.  I felt terrible.  I would have given him a bear bell if I’d had one.

Bannak Road mercifully ended near Grant and we turned south on to 257.  We had no more of the horrendous mud of the morning, sunny skies and soul lifting views of the vast Centennial Valley.  The area is like a huge basin between the Tendony Mountains to the east and the Beaverheads to the west. 

Towards the end of 257 we were rewarded with a fast 3 mile descent.  The road improved and was up and down towards Lima.  Near the end of the dirt road we entered the Deadwood Gulch Rec area and were rewarded again with a lovely ride through a beautiful canyon with fantastic rock formations along what I think was Big Sheep creek. 

STB and I thought about James as we went through this canyon; about how he would not have been able to see it.

The ride was 10 miles longer than we expected and of course the mud made for a much longer day.  The last few miles were head down into the wind on the service road of Interstate 15 but at least the sun was out as we rolled into Lima. 

We got a room at the “retro” Mountain View Motel – soap was from a dispenser on the wall, heat was from a plug in unit, the laundry room was the scariest place I’d ever been (I heard that guys had come in too late to get a room and had spent the night in the laundry – there were mice-o-plenty).  We were able to get rags and buckets to wash our bikes and that was invaluable.  Dinner was across the street at Jan’s café.  The burger and yellow food group items you’d expect but man, the pie! 

Not for the last time we realize that each day, no matter how well we review the cues or maps there was always a surprise.  Something we did not know about or could have planned for.  I am sure we were supposed to see the beauty of the unexpected challenge, but when you are in it…..

Note - Medicine Lodge/Sheep Creek watershed divide 8000ft, Tendoy Mountains to the east, Beaverhead Mountains west, begin entry to Centennial Valley wetlands