Eureka-Yaak, MT: Bump this road to the top of your must ride list!

June 23, 2016

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First - let me say, I have to dig back and find out who suggested the road to Yaak. I owe them a hearty thank you! It is only day four of the trip and I'm sure this will be one of my favorite days.

Now, back to the beginning of the day. 7:10 departure. The sky was extremely overcast and threatening. Oren said the local TV weather said it would be gray all day, but not rain until tomorrow. I admitted it was cold and put on a vest to start. I should have dug around a bit more and found the heavy gloves and the ear warmers. I had only 13 downhill miles to freeze until we started climbing.

The Ksanka Inn was located right at the intersection of 37. We took a left and headed downhill to Lake Koocanusa. Once there, we took a left. Jacinto and I had ridden this road in ~1994 with Cycle America. I enjoyed it then, and now. My pleasure was tempered by looking across the river at the road climbing away. That would be our road. We had to go four miles down river to the bridge, then turn around and come back up.

Oren and I stopped for photos at the bridge. The entire morning this morning had been delightfully traffic free. Perhaps because of the early hour? We did see a single vehicle as we crossed the long bridge. Once on the other side it was a honking 10% climb up and away. I've never met a river crossing that I didn't have to climb away from.

We had 5,000 feet of climbing today. I didn't need to climb them all at once. Whooooeeee. I was happy when the road leveled off to only 3-4%.

I had Bertha awake and on the job. Oren said I couldn't keep saying 'the lady'. I had to give the ridewithpgs lady a name. I decided on Bertha. That sounds like a very efficient German lady. Oren and I were riding loosely together. Bertha warned me that I had a sharp left. I yelled at Oren. OH, wait a minute. That sharp left was just a potty. What the heck, I would take advantage of the potty.

Just a few more feet down the road was another sharp left, on a steep downhill. I yelled at Oren again. He came back. Bertha said this was our turn. Oren didn't like the looks of that at all. The road was straight up. Bertha said it was Road 596. That was our road. Oren still didn't want to believe her. He went back to the road sign. Yes, it did indeed say this direction for Yaak. Darn, darn, double darn. Oren went back to the main road to dump the bike in the granny and get a run at it. Nothing like a stiff climb to get the blood flowing!

I warned Oren again that I"m a slow climber and it was every man for himself for the next seven miles to the top. He assured me he wasn't leaving Bertha, if I hadn't yelled at him, he would have continued the long downhill and who knows where he would have ended up. Notice Oren didn't say a thing about me, it was Bertha he wanted to stay close to.

I usually climb 1-2 miles before taking a break. The problem was I kept stopping to take photos. I got behind Oren, but he always waited. Then I noticed Oren was waiting in the center of the road? "Oren, do you know you are parked right in the middle of the road?" "Yes." Silence. He doesn't move. Oookkkay. He did have a point in that we hadn't had a single vehicle pass us since we made the turn at the bottom. Not one. Considering we were climbing at 3-4 mph and it was a seven mile climb, that is quite a while with no vehicles passing.

More photos and more breaks. I warned Oren once that I was stopping for a pee break. He informed me I hadn't picked a good spot, it wasn't very protected from sight. I asked who was going to see me Mr. Park Your Bike Right in the Middle of the Road Because There's No Traffic? I proceed to pull my shorts down right there. Yeah, I think I was getting a little tired. Or a lot tired.

I always write down the elevation at the top of the climb. It helps me to pace myself to know how much further I have to climb, not in miles, but in feet of climbing. Did I do that this time? No. I don't know why. This is one of only two days the entire trip with over 5,000 feet of climbing. We knew the top was near 6,000 feet of elevation, but not the exact number.

As we got closer to the top we took more breaks and had more snacks. Oren felt he hadn't prepared well enough, he was feeling extra fatigued. He had several Gu packets - that's his sign of emergency.I had 2 1/2 bottles of Spiz. That's about a half bottle more than I like having in a day. Too much of a good thing. But Spiz does get me going down the road.

You know, it doesn't matter how far it is to the top or how many feet of climbing, I'm always happy to be there. My stomach had been growling on the way up, but I didn't dare eat anything. On the extreme effort of the climb is not a good time to ask my stomach to digest more than Spiz. At the top I had a Grizzly Bar and a bunch of trail mix.

We looked at the map to see if there were any surprise uphills. No, it looks like it should be fairly level. As we reached the top and headed down, we finally saw a few vehicles. One white car passed us both directions in short order, I think they were lost. A few motor cycles. A couple of trucks. If we'd had to thumb a ride on this road, we would have been a long time waiting.

The down side of the pass was fairly rough with dips and swells. Even though I had put on my vest, I was chilled on the downhill. I wasn't appreciating the reward, I wanted the road to level off so it wouldn't be so cold.

Bertha gave us directions along the way. Mostly she was reminding us to stay on the main road. We did arrive at an intersection. Hmmm, do we really turn here? Two paved roads at once way out in the middle of nowhere. We were just looking at the GPS map when a truck stopped to see if we needed help. The friendly lady said both roads go to Yaak, but the one we were on was a short cut. Yes! I'm in the mood for a short cut to real food.

I spent time imagining what sort of food the bar might have. Hamburgers and fries. Do you suppose they'd have homemade soup? Or Campbells? Or no soup at all? Oren laughed at my speculation and said I should be thinking about a burger and fries. I could do that.

I was desperately counting down the miles to real food and a real bathroom. We came upon another intersection with lots of flashing lights and an ambulance. A man with a walkie talkie and a stop sign stopped us. A motorcycle hadn't navigated the corner and went down in the gravel. While we were talking a voice came over the walkie talkie saying that the ambulance would drive down to meet the flight for life. It must be bad. That is a sad end to what must have been a good day for them.

We did get details from the stop sign holding man. Two places to eat in town. Both bars. Right across the street from each other. John, who owned our lodging for the evening, also owned the Dirty Shame Saloon. Four more miles to town. It was a slightly downhill slope.

Oren was concerned we had missed town. But surely we couldn't miss two bars? Wait. Here we are. The Dirty Shame had loud music blaring. Oren nixed that. No loud music. We went to the tavern. Starving, starving. We knew our lodging was two miles further down the road. No way was I riding back tonight. I wanted to buy enough to last all night. I ordered the double burger for $14.95. Oren and the waitress were discussing sweet potato fries. Yum. That sounds good. My double burger came with a half pound of fries, but I would have the sweet potato fries also.

Our food finally arrived. It was very good. It was with restraint that I didn't eat the entire double burger. Then I got the bill. Those fries cost me $4.95 extra. I'm still fuming about it. But did I ask at the time. No. I didn't. That was the most expensive burger I've ever had. It was over $20. with a tip.

We looked in little store. No instant oatmeal for an emergency. John had said breakfast is included, but what sort of breakfast?

Oren and I decided to take our chances with breakfast. We went outside and were preparing to leave. Look, who is coming down the road but Jacinto. Of course, I'm always happy to see him, but I really wanted a shower. Now I would be polite and stay and talk while he eats. Of course I had to tell him my sweet potato fries story. He decided to go across the street and check out the noisy place. It wasn't that my food wasn't tasty. Truth is most anything is tasty after climbing 5,000 feet! Jacinto must have ordered something, because he wasn't coming back. Oren decided to leave.

Jacinto came back and yelled at me to talk to John, who was running the bar and also owned our lodging. Instead of staying in the loft, dormitory style, we could have the bunk house, which was on the ground floor and had a TV and showers right there. Same price. Sure - we would take that. Thank you for offering. He called to confirm that with Dallas, but we were too late, she had given the bunk house to a couple of motorcycle guys. Well, heck. We were back upstairs.

We spent time shooting the bull with John while the pizza baked. The Dirty Shame has a monster wood stove that John said could take up to a half cord of wood at a time. Depending on the winter, he used as much as 40 cords of wood a winter. This last winter wasn't so bad, they had gone through 17 cords.

Finally, finally, the pizza was ready. Now Jacinto had to figure out how to carry it. I took the rack bag off his rack and put it in one of his (thankfully) lightly packed panniers. Then the pizza went on top with a big bungie cord.

Yes! I could feel that shower already. We had only two miles to go. Into a head wind, but who's caring about that?

Oren gave us the tour when we pulled up outside. Our bicycles are in the woodshed. We took all food items off so critters wouldn't go looking for a snack. I didn't even go upstairs, I stopped right at the bathroom for a shower. I did wash my clothes out. At this point it's pretty late in the day for them to dry, but I have them outside in the breeze. Hopefully that will do the trick.

This is a very fancy lodge with stuffed animals everywhere. I'd say we scored quite a deal, $30. a bed and that includes a full breakfast.