Day 14 (68 miles)
Trip Start
Jun 13, 2008
1
15
36
Trip End
Aug 09, 2008
Cut bank,
Montana,
United States
Sunday, June 29, 2008
for our major pass in the rocky mountains, maria's pass wasn't all that difficult. we quickly finished the last 8 miles of the climb and found ourselves staring at the continental divide
continental divide
. coming down the other side, the descent was short and sweet, but like the ascent, it wasn't super long or steep, so no new speed records to speak of. the road follows a train line, and after about two miles, an amtrak train driver honked at us, so we started to wave at every train we saw to try to get them to toot their horns. surprisingly, about half of the engineers responded. oddly enough, the rockies (at least in northern montana) don't really have foothills, and we quickly found ourselves riding through small grass-covered rolling hills. the main difference between the scenery today and what we'd be seeing for the next few weeks were the spectacular mountains rising up behind us.a few miles later, we arrived at the park entrance in east glacier. we took a quick stop to fill our water bottles but had to carry on because we discovered that the tap water there isn't potable due to really high chemical levels. we proceeded on to browning, where we found the rest of the group just stopping in at a roadside restaurant. thus far, it was pretty rare to have everyone stopping for lunch at the same time, and it was fun to have a big group meal of cheeseburgers and pie. it was also good to have a group lunch for dan's last day. he was only able to get away for two weeks of the trip, and he had to run away once we reached cut bank.
continental divide 2
after browning, we picked up highway 2, which we were slated to follow most of the way through the rest of montana. the stretch between browning and cut bank turned out to be absolutely brutal on the tires. luckily, i had gotten my tire trouble out of the way the day before, but the tally came to:
julie: 1 tube, 1 tire
dan: 1 tube (in the last 1/4 mile, no less)
brad: 3 tubes, 1 tire (including a very rare double flat)
us people found it a bit tough, too, because it was 40 miles into a headwind and it was really hilly. we were expecting it to be easy because "it's only a 70 mile day", and we had been briefed based on an elevation profile that it was "almost all downhill". after lunch, we were thinking we would bang it out in two hours, but we were on our bikes for almost three instead. sometimes the shorter days end up seeming longer because you don't have to psyche yourself up for them the same way that you do for the longer ones.
we finally arrived in cut bank and found the church where we'd stay the night
rockies in the distance
. the pastor/groundskeeper was a really generous guy who cooked us dinner, offered to take us shopping, wanted to give us rides around town, and even offered to take dan to the airport the next day to meet up with his father. we had a really comfortable stay there.cut bank (and most of the day's route) is on the blackfeet indian reservation, and i found it unsettling to see the difference between towns on and off the reservation. east glacier, browning, and cut bank were all a bit run down and it was pretty clear that they weren't prospering. many of the people we interacted with obviously had some native american blood in them, and just after talking to a few, i realized even more how marginalized they are as a people because i hardly ever see any native american folks back home.
