Day 73: Wilderness Gateway to Grangeville

July 22, 2006

What I saw the first few hours of the day...

Another long, hot day today. Met up with Radko, the German guy I'd met in Yellowstone, at second breakfast this morning in Lowell. He'd camped with the ACA group the previous night. I had over 20 miles done by that point--trying to ride early to beat the heat.

Um, let's see. I already rode 50 miles. Radko rode about 20. Patrick hasn't gone anywhere yet and looks the most tired of all of us!

Saw Patrick and Alvin in Kooskia and had planned to stop in Harpster for the night, but Patrick convinced me to ride up the big giant hot hill into Grangeville to camp with them instead. Really bothered by the heat in the middle of the day today and got soaked in the river twice to cool down.

The new shirt I gave to Alvin...I picked it up off the road a few days earlier

And then I realized how perfect it was when I read it. "Montana Legends...Legends in our own minds"

Playing in the water was absolutely necessary to keep cool. Alvin made it seem like it was play, but I know he was worried about getting me cooled down. I didn't handle to heat all that well through this section.

On the way up the big giant hot hill, I had plenty of time to figure out ways to kill Patrick for convincing me to ride up it that day. I probably should have just stuck to the plan and stayed in Harpster and climbed the hill in the morning, but it was nice to have those 10 or so miles out of the way for the next day, since the climb continued after Grangeville.

Alvin left me a message to help me get up the hill...but I was still ready to kill Patrick

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[Notes added later: This ended up being a dangerously hot day for me. I knew that the heat had bothered me the previous day and got up really early to ride in the cool morning. Radko and I met a strange guy in Lowell who had apparently done some bike touring and asked us whether we'd slept in any cemeteries and how many free meals we'd gotten. Radko had only gotten a few, so I postulated that I got more free meals since I'm a girl. John, the guy in the café, got really indignant and told me that was sexist. Oh well! John stopped me up the road to give me some wild plums and said 'and it's not because you're a girl, either.' John stopped to give plums to other bikers along the way, too, I later learned.

I was pretty excited when I saw Patrick's and Alvin's bikes in Kooskia. I figured everyone in the group would be way ahead of me by now, but the familiar faces were welcomed after a couple of days in the woods. Radko soon rolled up and had second breakfast. It was lunch time for me, but the strawberry pie there was terrible. Yuk.

My plan was to go about 15 miles past Kooskia to Harpster for the night. The group was going to camp 11 uphill miles farther in Grangeville. I rode with Alvin and Patrick toward Harpster, stopping for shade pretty often as I started to get affected by the heat. Patrick sprayed me down with his waterbottle (somewhat jokingly, but it was helpful), and Alvin found a spot for us to get down into the river to get cooled off. I didn't even care that my shorts got wet. I was getting a little shaky and knew I had to rest for a while. I know Alvin was worried about me. I wasn't dehydrated, just on the edge of heat exhaustion. The dip in the river helped a lot, especially when Alvin wet his shirt down and draped it over me and made me dunk myself in the cool mountain river.

Patrick had gone on ahead (he hadn't seen us find the spot to pull into the river) but was waiting at Harpster with a Gatorade Rain in hand. I told him how much I loved him (a la what I told Alvin way back in Ness City, Kansas when he got me a Pepsi when I was struggling with heat there). Patrick was adamant that I should come camp with the group. I think he was getting tired of being the 'kid' in the group and liked having someone closer to his age around to hang out with. Alvin and I spent some time in Harpster-he made me get some sugar and complex carbs in my system and I downed a bunch of Gatorade until I felt a lot more stable.

There's a part of me that still wishes I would have stopped in Harpster, but that would have made the next day even tougher. As it was, Alvin dunked me in the river again before heading up the hill to take care of his group. Apparently Patrick had called Alvin after he started up the hill and realized how tough it was, saying that maybe I should just stay at the bottom if I wasn't feeling so well. Alvin didn't get the message, but he did leave me little chalk messages nearer the top of the hill to keep me moving. I didn't feel extremely bad on the way up, just really, really slow. I stopped a few times but wanted to get to Grangeville because there would be more cold drinks there. That's all I cared about.

Grangeville brought chocolate milk, some fresh veggies, sprite, cold water, and a shower. I eventually just set up my sleeping bag on top of a picnic table. Some guys were out skateboarding really late/early. Eventually Alvin got up and asked them to stop since we were all sleeping (or trying to). Oh yeah. And the group voted to change their rest day, putting them on my schedule no matter how hard I tried to avoid that. Sigh. That made for a long conversation with Alvin about whether I had to change my itinerary to respect AC guidelines not to spend more than three consecutive days with a group, but since their itinerary was the one that changed, that's their problem. I'm still paying for everything myself (food, camping, etc), so I figured there shouldn't be any problem.]

Today's ride: 78 miles (126 km)
Total: 3,706 miles (5,964 km)

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