Feeling good and with high mileage expectations we headed out to Whitefish, Montana, as our Great Divide map says, “not by the most expeditious route.” If you discount Don’s brakes not working right out of the campground (a consequence of laying the bike over next to the tent in a downtown park), we had a great ride south out of Eureka. A beautiful slight uphill ride into the mountains on a newly paved one lane road, added to the delight. It wasn’t until we couldn’t make the map match the sparse road signs that we even sensed a problem. We’d been leapfrogging back and forth with the Commonwealth boys, and when they were stopped at a remote intersection none of us could suss out which fork to take. After 20 minutes of debate I flagged down the only truck who quickly said, “You aren’t the first ones to miss the turn 10 miles back. Let me show you where you are. That ridge line is the Canadian border.”

Incredulity turned to resignation and the error turned out to be 14 miles one-way of gravel uphill climbing, 28 miles total. The right turn we missed was still on that new-minted macadam. Turns out the two-track we’d missed was the bane of all the racers three weeks earlier. Avalanche chute after avalanche chute left debris we had to stoop under and climb over. One run of debris was over two football fields’ long and we had to side-hill more than 100′ feet above the last detritus of downed trees and rubble.

The “glorious downhill” section proffered in the map text was a very tired run down to a primitive campground. We got the mileage we’d anticipated, just not the distance. Only good thing to be said is we didn’t climb that mountain and thru the avalanche debris in the rain and cold temps the racers experienced.