August 27, 2024
Day 9: All the Weather
Room With On Suite
Stats:
Distance 95.5km
Climbing: 2080m
Moose: 1
Coyotes: 1
We got up a bit earlier than usual to make pancakes in our Llama Ranch cabin and tidy it up before getting on the road at about our usual time.
It was a cold morning but with beautiful light and the first 500m climb of the day felt pretty good and rewarded us with moose and coyote sightings.
We made it to Helena an hour or two after we had made lunch on the trail. The highway riding into town, and the oppressive heat coming off all the pavement, didn’t give us the best first impression. It did have a nice pedestrianized street downtown but the break was brief.
We had already climbed over 1000m before arriving in Helena, and leaving we knew we had another 1000m to go. The afternoon’s climbing was just a slog - not too much in the way of scenery, baking sun (30+ degrees), wasboarded gravel road, etc. We both had to dig deep to get to our target campground. Although it’s quite scenic, we were too tired to really appreciate it and just got down to business making dinner, cleaning up, and getting ready for the night. Clearly the amount of climbing is a bigger factor than the distance. This was a hard day.
It had been such a hot day, and the heat lingered at the campground that we had no thoughts of it being a cold night. People were swimming in the lake while I was doing dishes. However!
However, we were in the mountains at 2000m of altitude and things changed fast. Just as we were getting into our tents a few drops of rain fell. No big deal - I think I fell asleep almost immediately, but was soon woken up by strong wind. It kept getting stronger and was knocking the tent around. I could hear some cursing from Andrew but I didn’t realize that he was packing up his tent as I had buried myself in my hoodie and sleeping bag hood. His tent was oriented such that it was suffering more from the wind so he decided to bail to an outhouse. I was considering doing the same but also hoping that the wind had peaked and was also concerned that I was the only thing holding my tent down.
In case it became necessary I got some more clothes on and organized my stuff.
It became necessary.
I jumped out into the wind and sleet and collapsed the tent and stuffed everything in my pack and ran for an outhouse. There was no other remotely good option. Even the concrete outhouse was being rattled and buffeted. I set up for the night and finally got some sleep.
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Spoiler for tomorrow, we survived in our separate rooms (nice “on suite!”).
Today's ride: 96 km (60 miles)
Total: 1,020 km (633 miles)
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