Day 10 (74 miles)

Trip Start Jun 13, 2008
1
11
36
Trip End Aug 09, 2008


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Flag of United States  , Montana,
Tuesday, June 24, 2008

for our first day in montana, dan, brad, and i got it into our heads that we wanted to finish this ride quickly. after all, it was "only" 70-something miles...that's cake, right? so we set off at a strong pace and by bending the rules again (it's okay...we're family and dan's on the board of esperanza ride), we were maintaining an average pace of 19.5 mph for the first 67 miles or so. we all knew that pushing so hard was probably a bad idea because we had our first century ride coming up the next day, but it sure was fun to be knocking down the miles so quickly.

the first stretch of road followed the bull river. unfortunately, i don't have any pictures of this area. we stopped about 10 miles in for a snack and a stretch, but the break was cut abruptly short by the mosquitos. as soon as we had stopped, they relentlessly descended upon us. i had never experienced anything like the swarm that came out of that grass... it was an evil brown cloud of bugs, and they were landing everywhere, biting through the bike clothes, and even chasing us and getting a few more bites in as we were frantically biking away. it wasn't until we were going about 15 mph again that we were finally free of them. i felt like pigpen from peanuts with them buzzing all around my head! after that break, we agreed that there would be no more stopping until we reached a safe haven. julie was riding with stephanie, and apparently she got a flat tire along that stretch. i guess she and steph were taking turns with one person working on the tire and the other on mosquito swatting duty.

our quick pace came to an end just before we got to libby dam with about 7 miles to go for the day. at that point, the road starts a really steep climb (steeper than any of our big mountain climbing days in the cascades) that was like a slap to the face...especially after keeping such a fast speed. we did manage to get ourselves up and over after a while, but that one little section knocked our average pace for the day down to 18 mph. oof! we did still make it into camp much earlier than usual, and we had most of the afternoon to sit around, take naps, and all that other good stuff.

the reservoir formed by libby dam is named lake koocanusa, and that's we made camp above it. the name apparently is a combination of kootenai (the native american people indigenous to the area), canada, and usa. it's a very expansive and pretty lake...and cold. because again we lacked showers, we clambered our way down the steep canyon walls to rinse off in the lake. as a true statement to how grungy one feels after a long day of cycling, a few of us braved the waters that are largely made of snow and glacial melt in order to clean up just a little.
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