Highs and Lows

7/18 - Cut Bank to St Mary - 75 miles

Jen has the best jersey ever - on the front :"She loves hills.  She loves them not..." On the back : "she loves hills."  She wears this on days that we climb...and we were expecting some climbs on the way to St Mary's in Glacier National Park.

At 5am we were up, with a 6am roll out...because we were expecting some vicious headwinds that day.

We ran pace lines to rest stop 1 and rest stop 2...and passed through Browning.  Coming into Browning we stuck together. We did see some glass (as we were forewarned about) but no wild dogs.  The headwinds were pretty strong at that point which made if difficult to pedal...and we took a coffee break at a gas station in the middle of town. Kenny said it best : 'after Browning, it was like someone turned the dial up'.  To be clear, the headwinds after Browning were the worst of the trip and worst I have EVER ridden in.  After struggling to make incremental progress, I was the second person to be dropped from the pace line - about two miles out of town.  To be clear, I had to pedal to move down hill...wind gusts were up to 35 miles an hour.  They would frequently turn my wheel one way or another as I tried to inch along.  At one point, I got off my bike and found it hard to walk...

Frustrated, I stopped at the Aspen Wood cafe - 21.7 miles to go for camp that night...and I had no idea how I was going to make camp any time soon...

I was soon joined by Bethany and Kenny who also had a tough time.  The police actually lectured them for riding in the wind and warned them about the dangers of sharing the road with cars in this weather...

Andy and Justin joined us shortly and then pushed on.

After procrastinating for a couple of hours, we set back out.

Luckily, it was as if someone turned the winds back down..the rest of the day featured some gentle climbs followed by an EPIC descent into Saint Mary that lasted several miles.  Looking out, there was a cathedral of clouds over blue and lavender mountains.  Great scenery followed  great scenery. Rays of sun cut through clouds as I floated down to camp at 35 mph...amazing!!!

The worst and best legs of the trip so far had happened in the same day.  I wondered how the Going to the Sun Road would compare to this amazing descent....I would find out the next day...

In the meantime, I set up my tent...joined Richard, Rob and Kristen for dinner and made sure that no food or toiletries were left out to tempt the bears.  Despite my Dad's surprise near encounter last year, we were fortunate to have no unwanted guests that night...