First PersonTo Walk Lolo Pass Since Lewis & Clark

9/4/2006: Day 16, 38.5 miles; Total 616.0 Miles

We slept in a little this morning as we had tough times yesterday. We drove back to near the rowdies but stayed up the road a bit; thereby missing about 0.2 of the route but I didn’t want anything to do with the guys we saw last night. The TB wanted to call my State Trooper friend, and I just wanted to be out of there.

We were at about 2500 feet of altitude and were headed for the peak of Lolo Pass at 5200 feet. I figured if Lewis and Clark could make it bushwhacking in the woods, I could do it on the road; and that pushing a bike would be easier than leading a horse.

At one point I saw a cement mixer looking device out in the river suspended between two pontoons. The river was about 30 paces wide and 3 feet deep. The device was spinning slowly and the river upstream was diverted to flow toward the mouth of the device. I don’t know what it was, and would like feedback from my readers. I wonder if it was some type of automatic gold panning operation. As I observed the machine, I saw an eagles nest high in a streamside tree—but no eagle.

Just after the machine, I saw a cyclist coming and wave him down. It was Harold Pederson a “psychologist who got tired of it and so became a contractor.” He says he “drives nails now.” Harold has been on 27 long distance bike rides and this one is 700 miles from Butte, MT, to Astoria, OR. He has done 7 bike rides in foreign countries. He goes about 100 miles per day. He is a very likeable guy, but the 100-mile stuff makes me hate him. He gave me some good tips, and we gave him lunch. I didn’t have any tips for him other than to tell him about the Hot Spring. And then he said, “You went to the wrong one, there’s another one where clothing is optional!”

I made good progress up towards Lolo Pass to about the 3800-foot elevation level; then I was reduced to a walk pushing the bike as we went. I then walked the final 3 or 4 miles over Lolo Pass at 5200 feet, thereby becoming the first person to walk Lolo Pass since Lewis and Clark, I think. Later the TB said, “That hill back there wasn’t bad, I didn’t have to shift the VW into third, it did it itself.”

At the top we switched to Mountain Time and moved into Montana. The TB was kind enough to get pictures of me at both signs, although he complained because there was a dead deer nearby and it smelled a bit. He couldn’t understand how a car could hit a deer, until I explained, “you don’t hit them, they hit you.”

While riding (and hiking) we think of the neatest stuff. For instance, the earth is a globe of 360 degrees. There are 24 hours in a day. So each time zone is 360/24 or 15 degrees of longitude. We have covered one time zone or 15 degrees of the earth or 1/24th of the earth’s surface. It sounds so easy.

The TB had picked out a campsite some 6 miles down the mountain from Lolo Pass. It was a rapid descent at about 25 mph, a far cry from the slow walk pushing the bike up the other side. I stopped twice to feel the rims and they were warm but not hot from excessive braking. On the way down I saw three live deer. They are ugly faced compared to Pennsylvania deer.

The Lee Creek US Forest Service campsite had a nice level spot, no electric, no shower, and a metal bear box for storage of all food and anything that smells. Last week some other campers heard a bear try to open one of the bear proof trash containers. It is nice to be able to start right from the site and that will be the case here.