Everyone Loves a Tailwind

June 23, 2024

Hunting Lodge to Libby; righteous tailwind all the way, hiking in bike shoes at Kootenai Falls, Libby after 12 years

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I slept remarkably well in spite of all of the dead animals and woke up at 7 am, 45 minutes before Amber and Jim and almost 2 hours before we woke Rich. I had made and drunk about 3/4 of a pot of good, strong coffee before anyone else made an appearance. Our host had left us some boutique ground coffee and obviously, he appreciates good coffee, as do I-quite possibly the only thing we have in common. After everyone was awake, we prepared a simple but tasty breakfast of scrambled eggs, cinnamon bread toast and grapes, which went down easily, lubricated by more tasty coffee.

After breakfast it didn’t take long for Jim and I to pack up-today we are riding while Amber and Rich drive. As we took luggage outside, it seemed remarkably warm and quite breezy. We were ready to roll by 10 am.

View from the road leading to last nights AirBNB

Once we turned onto Hwy 56, it became apparent that the wind, while not howling, was noticeable and almost direct from behind us. Today’s ride wasn’t particularly challenging anyway, and having a tailwind all day made it particularly easy, bordering on effortless.

Making great time, with a few stops for photos, we passed Bull Lake and Savage Lake and soon arrived at the intersection with Hwy 2 where we made a right turn. I expected to have a cross headwind at this point but no, the wind now was blowing through the Kootenai River Canyon directly behind us and it was even stronger than before!

We scooted down the road even faster and turned in at Kootenai Falls. The parking lot was packed with cars and RV’s and people. 12 years ago we stopped here and it was deserted, only one other couple present. But that was an early weekday morning; today was midday on a Sunday.

Amber and Rich were waiting for us so we locked up the bikes and hiked down to the falls. Or we thought we were, because first we missed the turn in the trail to the falls and instead, hiked to a different parking area. So we turned around and found the correct trail and then hiked to the falls.

Kootenai Falls are not your typical waterfall, they are more like really violent rapids, but they are impressive nevertheless.

After viewing and taking many photos we decided to check out the Swinging bridge. Jim and I didn’t see it 12 years ago so we wanted to this time.

I can’t remember why we didn’t hike to it back then but possibly because hiking in biking shoes is not very comfortable. But we did do it today and it was so worth it. The bridge is suspended over the canyon of the Kootenai river and it swings as you walk on it. A little unnerving but lots of fun!

Looking up the Kootenai river from the Swinging Bridge

Looking down-river from the Swinging Bridge

After the bridge we trekked back up to the parking lot where we ate leftover sandwich wraps and pizza from last night and killed some time so we wouldn’t arrive in Libby until about 3:00. The roughly 11 more miles to Libby went fast with the righteous tailwind blowing us into town.

All those squiggly black lines on the left side of my Wahoo are our 4.2 miles of hiking at Kootenai Falls

We are staying in the Caboose motel tonight and I have a picture just for Kelly Iniguez. Too bad it is a typical basic motel, not a real caboose.

Tomorrow we are going to the Lake Koocanusa Resort and Marina where we have cabins rented.

Today's ride: 35 miles (56 km)
Total: 356 miles (573 km)

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