Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (Whitefish to Helena)

Another week on the trail and over 700 miles ridden. The scenery changed from mountain wilderness with clear lakes and rivers to rural to a landscape heavily impacted by humans, especially around Helena.
The first acknowledgement of the trail in 3 weeks!

Country living in Montana.

 Pine trees everywhere - even the phone tower looks like a conifer!

Bigfork is a small detour, but well worth it. A cute little arty town on Flathead Lake with chalet style buildings, great food and a brewery.

Between Bigfork and Holland Lake, the trail leads mostly through forest with snapshots of views of the surrounding landscape. It's fun but hilly riding on mostly gravel roads and some single track. Below a beaver dam. 

There is always plenty of surface water to filter and drink.

Camping at Cedar Creek (note our neighbours lent us chairs!) .... 

 ... and at Holland Lake.

Due to an historic heat wave in the Pacific Northwest of the US, the fire danger was extremely high. Several fires were out of control exactly where we were heading! Three sections of the trail were closed and we had to divert onto main roads between Holland Lake and Lincoln. Kirsten was very disappointed we could't stick to the trail. 

Seeley Lake was on evacuation stand-by and the lake was closed off to all activities to allow fire fighting aircraft to scoop water. There were at least six planes circling over us all afternoon.

Early the next morning - time to leave.

Salmon Lake, a gorgeous spot we would have missed if we were on the trail. 

After about 30 miles on the road, we were rewarded with a fabulous breakfast at Ovando.

It was too hot to ride again, so we spent a lazy afternoon reading books in the shade (Harry Morgan Campsite on Blackfoot River). A thunderstorm over night hopefully extinguished some fires, rather than started new ones!

The next day, after another 30 miles on the road and another hearty breakfast (including about ten cups of weak but free coffee), we were back on the trail. After Lincoln, the fires were finally behind us!

There is still smoke in the mountains.

More forest trails with squirrels and chipmunks everywhere.

Barbara Nye in Canyon Creek welcomes cyclists with a cold drink! She also provides a free cabin (fully furnished), free camping, free food and a solar shower!

The resident lama took a liking to Kirsten - I'm not sure it was mutual.

I was mesmerised watching the hummingbirds - very hard to photograph though!

After another two crossings of the Continental Divide, we head downhill towards Helena.

Helena was originally a mining town after gold was found in 1864. It has an interesting history and some very nice buildings. A great place for a day off! 

We went on a tour of the Montana State Capitol building, which was restored after a 7.5 magnitude earthquake in 1959.

Charles M. Russell painted Montana landscapes and historic events around 1890-ies. He is called America's cowboy artist.

 

We still have to watch out for these....

Glacier National Park

A shuttle bus with bike racks takes travellers from Whitefish to Apgar, which is the western entrance to Glacier National Park. The ride takes about 50 minutes and costs only $10 each for the return trip. We were the only customers!

After the solitude and remoteness of the previous days, the huge number of people, cars and RVs was a shock to the system! All camp sites are booked out a year in advance. Lucky they keep a few spots for hikers and cyclists! It was very cozy, but also fun meeting all the others.

Our nightly cold "bath" with a fabulous view (instead of a shower). Lake McDonald.

The only road disecting the National Park is from Apgar over the spectacular Logan Pass to Saint Mary on the eastern boundary. The park services run a regular free shuttle bus, again with bike racks. So we caught the first shuttle to the top of the pass, cycled down the eastern side of it, had lunch, caught a shuttle back to Logan Pass and cycled down the western side of it. It felt like cheating, but this is not part of the Great Divide Ride and it was so much fun!

View from Logan Pass and the road from Apgar. Many back country hiking trails start here, but again, bookings are made a year in advance.

The eastern side of the park had a fire in 2015.

Saint Mary Lake.

Kirsten taking a break and soaking up the view. Note the visi vest. There were thousands of cars but everybody was very slow around the narrow bends and very bike friendly. We even witnessed a "bear jam", a young black bear crossing the road and bringing traffic to a halt.

Some more flora and fauna: a mountain goat ....

.... a ground squirrel and ....

... alpine flowers. 

Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (Eureka to Whitefish)

Our first day off to do some bike maintenance, laundry, restock and relax bottoms and knees! Eureka is a cute town with a lovely timber cabin motel and a pub with fabulous local beer and steaks.

After Eureka the trail continues along the Flathead river, returning to within 6 miles of where we were two days ago. Crossing into the US legally meant climbing over two mountain passes and two days' detour. 

White-tailed deer can be seen everywhere. Lucky for us because they are the main prey of large carnivores.

And here is our standard lunch: bagels, salami, cheese and mustard. It's fantastic how every nice spot has a picnic table!

Crossing the Whitefish Divide. This is what most of the trail surface looks like, ...

 ... which gets very dusty when there are cars on it. Lucky we have come prepared.

Our first glimpse of Glacier National Park and the first reason for a detour. The trail runs along its western border, rather than through it.

Camping at Upper Whitefish Lake. Yet again a beautiful site with a private beach. To top it off, our neighbour gave us a cold beer each! And took the empty bottles back to carry out.

This was our last night camping with Garth. He left us at Whitefish to ride to Missoula and fly home, while we took a shuttle bus to Glacier National Park.

Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (Sparwood to Eureka)

We survived three days in Grizzly conservation and breeding habitat and we didn't even see one. The locals told us to make a lot of noise to alert the bears to our presence. I think my loud (and terrible) singing must have scared them away! We saw plenty of footprints and scats though (see below). The bears are feeding on Huckleberries at the moment.

The wildlife in Canada seems to be dominated by large carnivorous mammals (bears, cougars, coyote and wolfs) and their prey (moose, deer and elk). We also see and hear a lot of different birds, but very few reptiles. A Garter snake below,...

.... a chipmunk, ....

 ...... some sort of Grouse ...

... and a furry forest creature.

The bridge got washed away and apparently will not be replaced. The water is very clear but very cold!

Approaching Cabin Pass.

The roads are very dusty due to a very dry summer. Lucky we can scrub it all off before  getting into the sleeping bag.

Camping at Wigwam Creek.

Single track again, this time too rough to ride.

The scenery is just stunning!

 There are flowers everywhere!

Kirsten getting water. We bought a filter pump, which will hopefully remove the giardia.

 Climbing up >1,000m to Galton Pass, the toughest day on the ride so far.

Leaving Canada and entering the US. No queues or inspections. The custom officer even waived the fee and told us to buy ourselves a beer instead!