7/5-The End Of Cutthroat, and the Beginning of Steppe

I had a lovely evening with Pete and Verna from Nebraska last night (but Pete had lived in Auburn). Finally had to excuse myself and go to bed. 

I wasn’t in too great of a hurry this morning. I thought I only had 45 miles to Cooney Lake State Park. Tuan was heading to Billings today on frontage roads. 

The first 15 miles to Reed Point were all on the frontage road. 

Morning on the frontage road

Some bird of prey

I thought it was cute how the one horse had its head I. The back of the other one. 

It was trending downhill, so I arrived in Reed Point at 9:00. The little gas station/convenience store was just open. It was a bit early for chocolate milk, but I figured I wasn’t going to have another opportunity. 

Coming in to Reed Point

Very western looking

Wanda and a friend. 

I started climbing as I was leaving the town. It was a 3.2 mile gravel climb with an average grade of 7%.

It’s going up!

Looking back down to the town

You can see the switchbacks

Looking back down. 

I was actually quite proud of myself. I managed to ride the whole climb! Of course I took breaks, but I didn’t walk!

The top, but there wasn’t really a descent

Lots of this long straight gravel

I was just riding along when I saw this calf on the wrong side of the fence. 

He ran along beside me for awhile. He was definitely looking for a way back to his friends. 

There was more up and down on the gravel. Finally I came to some houses. 

Okay, I’ll stay on the road

Interesting vehicle for gravel

The road became pavement, and I came down to the hwy, and the end of Segment 2-Cutthroat. It was 664 miles! I loaded up Segment 3-Steppe. Here I realized I did not go into Columbus. I had 15 miles to the state park. I figured I had enough water, so I stayed on the route. 

I turned onto the rollercoaster that was Shane Creek Rd. So many ups and downs! There were three climbs that initiated the climb pro. 

By now I was getting tired, hungry, and thirsty. I was starting to ration my water. My mouth was so dry. 

The road finally came down for a good bit. I even had a deer sighting. 

Thanks for posing

According to the route, the camping was on the north side of Cooney Lake. I was beginning to get a bit worried, but then I saw the sign for the north shore. It was another couple of miles to the first campground. When I arrived, I immediately went and filled a bottle, and sat down and ate a fruit pie. I drank a good liter of water. 

I have looked at the route for tomorrow, and I am not sure what to do. There is no camping or lodging for over 100 miles. I will be entering tribal land, so stealth camping could be tricky. I thought of going to Billings from Joliet, but then to get back to the route, I’d have to ride I-90 I think. I might just go as far as I can, and hope for the best. I think there is more downhill tomorrow than today. Today was very warm, and I think that made it harder. If I continue on the route, I’ll fill all my water in Joliet. 

Cooney Lake

My campsite

7/4-Happy Two-Fiddy!

I got a text from my youngest son this morning. He was standing with the governor of Massachusetts in a Life is Good t-shirt that said “Two-Fiddy”. I thought it was the perfect title for this year’s 4th of July post. 

Today was my longest distance so far at 81 miles! I left Bozeman about 6:45 after a good breakfast at the Super 8. I was concerned about the route because the route I was able to download was different from the Bikepacking.com route. I messaged Crowell Herrick, the guy who did the majority of the Montana routing, and asked if it mattered which way I went. He said the Bikepacking.com route was better. I figured, for the part that was different, I would have to stop periodically and check the route on my phone. But, I didn’t! The route I was running on my Garmin was the right route! Maybe it was updated?

On the Kelly’s Canyon Rd which was the correct route!

Crowell told me there would be a rippin’ descent after climbing up Kelly’s Canyon. 

There was this on the way up. Lewis and Clark camped here on their way back to St Louis. 

Boy howdy, was he right!!! It was an awesome descent! There was a woman out walking at the bottom. I had to stop and tell her how much fun that was!

Then I was on to Bridger Rd, but not for too long. When I turned off, it was the beginning of a succession of shortish climbs. There was not much distance in between each climb.

Little lines of snow across the tops

Cranes

Today’s deer photo (I saw another one, but didn’t get a photo…one a day is enough)

 I stopped for a sugar break just before another climb. This guy pulled up. 

This is Boone. He was in quite the get up! I saw him again later as he was climbing back up Bozeman Pass from the other side. 

I finally got to a decent downhill section that took me back to an I-90 frontage road. 

Down!

A little school!

At the turn onto the frontage road. This is the only way I want to see a grizzly!

Now I had another not too long of a climb up to Bozeman Pass. A bunch of roadie cyclists went by. They just went to the top and turned around (unlike Boone, who went down the other side, then climbed back up. The roadies were wimps!). I stopped partway up to take a photo of this freight train chugging up the Pass. 

It was a really long train of tanker cars, but only one engine. No wonder it was going so slow!

At the top, I could see a Bozeman Pass sign over on I-90. 

Woo Hoo!

Now I had a most awesome downhill. The descent from the Pass was waaaay longer than the climb, like miles longer! It was awesome! I basically went down all the way to where I turned to go into Livingston. 

In Livingston, I stopped at the travel center and got my chocolate milk and a Bai coconut drink, and a Boston Cream Pie. Refueled, I headed through Livingston. It was a cute town. Would have been cool to stay there, but I needed to do more than 35 miles.

Main Street Livingston

The next part of the route was Convict Grade. I k ew it would be gravel/dirt because Crowell had told me it was in good shape. I usually think of a “grade” as a climb, but this wasn’t. It followed along the Yellowstone River. 

River and road

This was unusual…an ambulance went by, lights and sirens. I never did see where it went, but there were some houses later. 

There was actually a fair amount of traffic until I got to a more “primitive” gravel road. I had three more climbs on the gravel. 

A bit more chunky gravel

I walked this bit as the rocks were pretty loose

A pano of the top of the last climb-Big Sky Montana!

The descent wasn’t too bad. I was mostly able to find a fairly good line. I also had a pretty awesome tailwind. I returned to pavement at Hunters Hot Springs. 

New pavement!

There were two of these massive log entrance things. 

I had been without any shade for a long time. Not too long before I crossed over the Yellowstone River, I stopped in a bit of shade for another small snack. Then I headed to another frontage road. 

Crossing the Yellowstone River 

The frontage road took me into Big Timber (I would not describe the town as having much “big timber”). I stopped at another travel center (Town Pump). These places are great. They have everything! There was a Super 8 next door. I wanted to make sure the KOA had tent sites left before I left the town because it was 10 miles out of town. If not, I would stay at the Super 8. They had two tent sites left, so after eating, I headed out for the last 10 miles. 

There’s got to be a KOA out there somewhere!

I arrived about 4:15 or so. This place is indeed quite full, but they did have two tent sites (I only need one, of course). As I was riding to my site, a guy at another tent site on a bike called out to me. I had heard there was an Asian guy doing the route (well, he’s sort of doing it). His name is Tuan (or Twan). He rode from Livingston today. 

I feel remarkably good for having ridden 81 miles! There was a lot of downhill, but there was also a fair amount of dirt/gravel. Haven’t looked to see where I’ll go tomorrow. Hopefully not another 80 miles! Also, there’s no fireworks allowed in the park, so should be a quiet night. 

7/3- All But 8 With Brian, and Meeting a Follower

Brian and I had decided to ride together today. He was feeling okay after his crash. One of the bike issues was bent rails on his saddle. He was still able to get his Ortlieb seat bag to attach to the rails. 

Almost ready to go 

Brian was incredibly kind to go my pace. I could tell he was having an easy time. But he seemed okay with it. 

This morning before we left, we saw a flock of pelicans. Then on the road I saw this buck and later these cranes. 

We rode quite steady until Three Forks. 

Williams Bridge

We found a coffee shop in Three Forks. There was a dude sitting across from us asking Brian all the annoying questions about Canada. Brian was very patient, but I could see he was starting to annoy him too. While we were eating, another cyclist came in. It was Ben. He has been reading my blog everyday for info on the route ahead. He’ll be spending two days in Bozeman, so he’ll be behind me again, until he catches me. 

Ben and bike

Brian did a little saddle adjustment at the cafe in Three Forks. It was slowly going nose up. 

As we were riding out of Three Forks, I noticed my Garmin said the route was ending in 2.9 miles. I wondered if this would happen. I downloaded the routes Dana created. Instead of all of Segment 2 in one route, he made two routes in smaller chunks. Apparently, part two of Cutthroat was not on my Garmin. I had the route on my phone, but Brian also had most of today’s route on his Coros Dura. I just followed him. 

We were on a really bumpy bike path. Brian hit a particularly bad bump, and it totally tilted his saddle back. We stopped to fix it. 

His route was taking him to his Warmshowers host in Belgrade. Where our routes diverged, I just decided to stay on the Frontage Rd with Brian to Belgrade. We had a celebratory lunch (for his finishing his ride) at a cafe in Belgrade. I was able to get the second part of Cutthroat on to my Garmin. I was off route, but all I needed to do was ride the Frontage Rd into Bozeman. 

Brian and I said our goodbyes. It was nice having a riding partner today. I hope he continues to have awesome adventures with his kids. 

As I headed toward Bozeman on the very busy frontage road, I was reconsidering my plan to go to a campground off route. This being 4th of July weekend, I thought there was a pretty good chance the campground was full. So I looked up a Super 8. There was one just a mile away. I also needed to do full scale laundry. 

Luke, at the front desk, upgraded me to a King room because it was on the ground floor. Same price as the Queen at $105. That’s my cheapest hotel yet!

I asked an employee if they had any rags I could use to wipe down Wanda. He gave me a whole pile. I saved out one to exchange my greasy chain cleaning rag. Wanda now doesn’t have chunks of mud on her anymore!

Not fully clean, but better!

There’s a Mexican restaurant next door. Me thinks that will be dinner after my laundry is done.