Day 74, Dillon to Wisdom, Montana.

The road to Wisdom. Montana that is.

Looking back after dropping down into the valley.

Montana is a wide open place. It's incredible how much open space there is out here.
The sky and cloud combination along with the vastness of the land makes for some dynamic photography.

The plains go on for miles until they meet the towering mountains.

Life out here must be both tough and rewarding as well. I wouldn't mind spending some time here. Maybe a week.

You need a four wheeler in the summer, and a snow mobile in the winter. sounds like fun, huh?

Desolation, that's the best description I can give.

Near the rivers and wet land, things turn quite green. There is life here.

One of the peaks in the area.

Huge ranches of thousands and thousands of acres are many. There is sooo much land here.

They also raise a lot of sheep here also. All the ones we seen today were recently sheered.

More desolation.

It's a good thing we're not driving. car trouble out here could be disastrous.

This may look the same as the rest, but believe me, we rode miles though stuff like this.

We met this Great Divide route biker. He was only on the highway for about a mile before disappearing into the dust never to be seen again.

Entering the town of Jackson. We almost stayed there, cause we were quite beat. But once we ate and rested a bit. We decided to push on to Wisdom.

After dropping down into the valley, I was able to take this shot from the bike.

More desolation, below 5,000 feet, it's mostly like this.

Home on the range. Nice place to visit, but could get a little boring at times.

This is part of the Great Divide mountain bike route.

Cable spools. They use a lot of um out here.

The bad lands. What else would you call this?

There it is, The Little house On The Prairie.


Day 74, Dillon to Wisdom, Montana. “Escape From The Storm”. 66.99 miles.

Friday, July 24, 2009. The morning clerk at the Sundowner Motel showed up late. So the coffee wasn’t ready, and the Continental Breakfast wouldn’t be ready till she was done making the coffee. With that, Lisa and I went down the street to have a real breakfast.

We left Dillon a little after 8:00. Since Dillon resides below 5,000 feet, we were able to ride in our shorts and jerseys for a change. It was already 74 degrees. Today we had two mountain passes to deal with. We weren’t sure how we would feel later in the day, so we decided to stop at Jackson, 48 miles from Dillon to see how we felt. For the first 7 miles, we rode on fairly flat terrain. This part of Montana is finally starting to look interesting. The climb crept up on us gradually. We hardly even noticed it at first, then slowly the road angled upward, until we were creeping at a measly 4.5 miles an hour. We stopped a couple of times to rest, and take in some fuel. There is no services until Jackson. The scenery was getting better. We were now in the sub alpine region where there are pine trees again. We could see off in the distance storm clouds forming, and even a few bolts of lightning. They seem to be well out of our path, so I wasn’t too concerned, but still offered a prayer for our safety. Once over the top, it was a blistering descent into the valley that lasted a good 3 or 4 miles. On the way down, we passed two young girls fully loaded headed the other direction. They have their work cut out for them. At the bottom, we stopped for a few minutes to take in more fuel. I saw a lone figure approaching from the other direction. As he got closer, he pulled over and chatted for a minute. Come to find out, he was doing the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. We wished him luck, and he was off.

A few miles later, we approached the second climb. We knew it was coming, so we were prepared. Hills are really no big deal. Everyone at one point, has to climb them. It’s just how prepared you are when it happens that makes the difference……………….. Part way up, we stopped again to rest our legs and refuel. I looked around and noticed the ugly looking clouds. They looked mean, but fortunately for us, they were on either side, and behind us. We thought nothing more of them, and continued on our way.

Upon reaching Jackson, we were immediately met by Mr. Lensminger. He and his wife Kathy were on a self supported bike tour and was headed to Yellowstone. We talked about our experiences over lunch, and learned that they were from Oklahoma. He was a school teacher, and Kathy a tax preparer. Upon leaving Jackson. A group of self supported Adventure cyclists we had camped with two days ago showed up. One of them told Lisa they got caught in a thunder storm and got hailed on in Dillon. Wow! Dillon was where we were just a few hours ago. How lucky was that? Anyway, we decided to push on to Wisdom on the recommendation of the Lensmingers. We found the Nez Perce Motel and made ourselves at home. No one was in the office, but there were envelopes with room keys inside, and a note saying to chose a room, and they would be by later. Pretty neat huh? Well, good night everyone. Aloha, Ted.