Reunion

Great Irish pub in Butte run by a guy from Co Antrim

Towards the Border
This morning I was up early to decamp whilst Charlie was fast asleep in her car! Kids….ppppffftt!

Having dragged her arse outta her bag we headed to Whitefish to get a hot breakfast before Charlie headed north to the border and home to Banff. I’d made the decision to ride to a small bike campsite about 10k from Eureka, mainly along the road to see how the sores were. That was the first mistake of the day. What a mad road it was, with no hard shoulder and stupidity emanating from every god forsaken RV and muscle ute along the road. I’m usually pretty chilled about coping with road madness, but this was dangerously unenjoyable. So after 10 miles I made the 2nd mistake….i dialled in to my Maps.me (remember this navigation system from my time in Asia….clearly I had forgotten!!) a route that took me off the road. Which it did, straight in to a trail just like the Divide. Initially it was quite enjoyable- rough, but enjoyable just to be back in nature…..and then fear took hold when I realised (slow learner!) that this was bear country, I was out in the middle of nowhere, in terrain that had clear signs of bears! I confess to being scared. I sang as loud as I could – apparently that helps distract them….in my case it probably just pissed them off even more! The trail turned to rocky ravines and then as always with Maps.me…disappeared. Now I was really worried! There was a fair bit of hike-a-biking to add to the stress, fallen trees, dead ends and crazy unrideable descents. Whilst I was relieved to come across a guy picking huckleberries on the trail, that relief was short lived when a) he told me two bears were in the area but an hour ago and b) he had a very large hand gun slung across his chest…..what was I gonna do, through my bicycle pump 🤣🤣! He was very kind and followed me on his quad bike until the trail reached a railway side track, which was less exposed to bear activity….another trail angel! That train track trail was great – until it wasn’t! Yet again Maps took me off trail ….to where there was no trail, so I had to push Bob through thickets and rocks to something that resembled a trail. And then I fell off!! There had been quite a bit of rain recently, so the trails were full of puddles which required you to pick a side, and then gun it through to the other side. I’d gotten most sides correct, but had misjudged a few resulting in soaking shoes and Bob up to his axles. Then on one huge puddle on a downhill, I had to make a split decision…..left or right….i got it wrong. Mid way across I lost balance and got thrown off Bob down a small ravine, while Bob landed in the puddle! I was scratched and bruised but ok, and Bob was mostly ok! Once I got up and riding, my knee, which took a smack off the handlebars as I parted company with Bob, really hurt so I had to take things easy for a while.
I eventually came back out on to the highway….and whilst it was still madness, there was at least a small hard shoulder, so I decided to haul myself to a nearby town to have something to eat. It was raining heavily by now, so my scratched legs were stinging like hell!

In Fortine there’s a tiny cafe (in fact that’s all there is there!) which served the most delicious sandwiches and cakes, so that’s what I had for lunch.

The Bike Station is a hiker-biker camp and hut site on the Divide which is where I headed for, some 6 miles from Fortine. My knee was very sore, so I was so happy to get to shelter and use the facilities at the camp to clean myself and Bob before pitching my tent and cooking tea in the common room.

It’s been an eventful reintroduction to riding on or near the Divide! From here it’s only a hop, skip and jump to the border with Canada 🇨🇦 😊