We left our jovial and sociable host Ron's house this morning. We spent the evening chatting with he and his wife over root beer floats, and then woke to omelets prepared with the precision of his engineer's mind as we discussed our lives and our trip plan from here. Ron is the kind of fellow who has opinions but lets you have yours as well, and as we discussed the journalistic slant of the newspaper in Portland I smiled to myself at the common ground that liberals and conservatives can find when they leave the mud-slinging to others. The omelets were flavored to each person's taste with Ron's homemade hot sauce from the impeccable garden outside, Adele's less zesty and mine with, as Ron put it, a bit more "pizzazz."
We cruised down highway 93 out of Hamilton on a bike path that stretched to the crossing of the Bitterroot River, and then began our dogged ascent toward the Chief Joseph Pass, an altitude of above 7,000 feet where the air thins out.
Arriving in the appropriately named Darby – an old-fashioned name for an old-fashioned town – we weathered the first cloudburst of the day at the local grocery. Adele picked up two coffees for $1 each at a drive-up espresso stand and we sipped them while waiting for the skies to clear. Thunder rolled ominously but the clouds never assumed the demoniac shape of the hailstorm that chased us through eastern Washington, and soon the sun was steaming the fresh rainfall off the pavement before us. There was a siren similar to the one in Kamiah ID (I learned it's actually pronounced KAM-ee-eye) and shortly afterward a fire truck raced by on the highway, perhaps in response to an accident on the road after the slickening of the pavement. I don't mind sirens being used, but it would put my mind at ease if I knew why they were sounding with an ever-alarming rise and fall in pitch.
We encountered a friendly Frenchman descending against us later in the morning named Etienne who had sealed off four years of employment in Virginia with a nice long bicycle tour across the country. In regards to the climb before us he said that we would "need courage," a rough approximation in the French vernacular for good luck.
Beautiful weather persisted as we toiled up inclines that didn't appear to be as steep as they were until we reached Sula, the last store on the highway before the climb in earnest to Chief Joseph's summit. We pulled off the road for some tasty cold beverages we purchased with cash from the kind-looking old ladies behind the store counter, intending the stop as simply a rest before continuing, but the dark black clouds amassed above us while we were stopped and we decided to wait out their impending break on the covered porch of the store that was Sula.
We met a young man named Cory who was waiting for a rescue from his girlfriend making the drive from Great Falls through Missoula to where he waited. Hailing from Tennessee, Cory was on a trip to a competition in Great Falls, riding his motorcycle with his mountain bike mounted to the rear so he could take advantage of the forest riding to be had in the surrounding countryside. He suspected a bearing to be the problem that troubled the motorcycle's engine, and had fortunately been able to coax it over the pass before coasting it down to the tiny outpost we met him in. He convivially chatted with us for a long while about our journey, his travels in the Smoky Mountains, and culture differences between the country's coasts.
Tim arrived from uphill as we were waiting for the rain to pass, a jolly fellow with the gift of gab and a classic Ghostbusters t-shirt on a Trek touring bicycle. He appraised the coming Yellowstone country and we shared out collective disdain for Xanterra, the contractor that operates many of the National Parks' visitor facilities. He reminded us of the "no-drop" clause written into the Park Service's code that allows people arriving by bicycle or on foot the right to a place to camp even if the campground is full. Tim had a canister of bear spray mounted to his belt and warned us that grizzlies were not to be trifled with. I noticed the stick mounted to his pile of travel gear on the back of this bicycle, and he explained that he spins fire, much like the fire dancers one would see on Portland's Alberta Street on a Last Thursday, sometimes for fun and sometimes with his cap out for spare change from the appreciative.
The clouds seemed to be carrying their rain elsewhere even though we hdan't glimpsed blue sky yet, and so we turned down Tim's invitation to camp there and drink with him that night ("you look like the drinking type!" he complimented us) and decided to press on. Tim and Cory waved farewell.
The summit climb was brutal but lovely, and once we passed the summit we descended gloriously into the valley of Trail Creek. Our original goal of the town of Wisdom seemed too far to us given the time, and we made camp at Mary Creek Campground, another USFS gem tucked into the mountain pines. Fire and insect repellent held the mosquitoes just hardly at bay while we ate dinner, washed up and hung out food from a tree using our bicycle cable locks out of the reach of bears.
Yellowstone now seems more a reality than a dream, and we are looking forward to exploring the land bubbling geysers and queued up cars staring at lazy moose.
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