Wyoming

Writer's note: This one is really long because I had lots of time to kill on the ferry ride from Skagway to Juneau this morning:

John and I were both in a good mood as we started grinding up the Ashton-Flagg Ranch Road. I was happy to have company for one more day and John seemed excited to be drawing closer to real civilization. I had been promoting Idaho Falls as a good bailout city, but he was set on Jackson. We crossed into the Tetons just as our daily dose of afternoon storm clouds began to settle and darken. John said something about Flagg Ranch and turned on the turbo. Within a minute he was out of sight. John tended to be more of a fair-weather riding partner - which is great. Not a criticism about him at all. If I had the raw strength to sprint away from the rain, I would have used it. John had power. I had good rain gear.

Jeremy Noble passed me on the last climb into Flagg, turning slow circles on a big gear. I made a mental note to try and keep up with Jeremy on the hills in the future, which would allow us to ride more together rather than just leap-frog each other. I wasn’t sure if Jeremy even wanted me shadowing him, but I figured we were getting to a time and mileage of the race where any human contact was at a premium. I wasn’t quite ready to face the entire rest of the race alone.

John and Jeremy both escaped the storm, for the most part. I descended in a cold downpour amid the splatter of slick mud and crescendoing thunder. For its encore, the storm belched out a blast of pea-sized hail, which pounded my back and stung my scalp through the vents in my helmet. I sloshed into the Flagg Ranch lodge to find John and Jeremy warm and comfy by the fire. I went to the gift shop and bought a snack combination that I was beginning the think of as “rocket fuel:” a chocolate chip cookie/ice cream sandwich and a large coffee. John made a reservation at a lodge near our cut-off junction and we took off down Highway 89.

Riding down the highway struck me in the same way eastern Idaho did - familiar places, startlingly difference perspective. John and I ended up at a semi-posh horse riding ranch just before Togwotee Pass. Freshly showered and reclined in bed, I sipped hot herbal tea with my nightly brownie and remarked how surprised I was that the Tour Divide felt so much more like a vacation than an epic race. I was staying within my goals, and there were certainly challenges, but I had expected near-constant struggle and strain. “Don’t worry,” John said. “The suffering will come.”


The next morning, John bid me goodbye and I started up Togwotee beneath a bluebird morning. I felt fresh and strong and even pushed my usual pace up the pavement, taking big gulps of cooled oxygen as I drew closer to alpine elevation. Sweeping snowfields wrapped around cathedral-like mountains. Creeks roared in the still air. The cut-off to Brooks Lake greeted me with a deep snow drift that I knew could be covering the road for as many as five miles of unmaintained dirt.

The kicker to Brooks Lake is that you can stay on the paved highway and bypass the whole thing. Not only that, the highway is downhill the entire way. I knew this - everyone knows this. In fact, this stretch is probably the most common place for cheating in the race. And, of course, I had no intention of cheating in the race. But even if I hadn’t been racing, even if I had just been touring, I probably still would have taken the snowy road. That’s how excited I was to be up there - the amazingly nice morning, the spectacular surroundings.

The snow was fairly packed and probably would have even been rideable if I had hit it up early in the morning, but it was noon and turning mushy. I started walking. I expected this and was even excited about it - snow hiking was a fun diversion from the constant pedaling, and I knew everyone had to deal with it so I didn’t care about the fact that I was going slow. But as I started to lose elevation, the snow fields started to disappear. And what they left behind was mud. The worst kind of mud. The mud that grabs and pulls entire shoes off feet, sticks to every corner of the bike, and forces a hapless smallish cyclist with low clearance on her 29-inch wheels to literally hoist her 50-pound bike as she struggles to free her feet from the sticky goo. And within feet, just like that, I went from on top of the world to mired in frustration and mounting depression.

The problem with mud like that is that you just don’t know how long it will last. It could be 20 yards, or it could be several miles. I was still looking at the possibility of several miles. The road was not even passable on foot, and it was cut into a steep mountainside that made it nearly impossible to go around. I undid the straps on my frame bag and lifted the bike, gear and all, on my shoulder in order to step down the steep slope and try to pick my way along the rocks. Calling a situation like that sketchy is an understatement. It was so hard to balance with the bike that I slipped a couple of times, rolling my ankle once but luckily doing no further damage. I could have easily tipped over and fallen 6 feet or so. But such was the impossibility of the mud.

After a long stretch of time with little ground covered, I would reach another snow drift, which would lift my heart out of the depths and give me hope that the struggle was over. But the snow would end, the mud would begin, and I would continue the slog. After three hours in which I covered less than three miles, I finally made it to the Brooks Lake Lodge, where I was relieved to discover a plowed gravel road that was mostly dry. I coasted back to the pavement, greatly humbled.

My mood improved again as I pedaled beside the Wind River Mountains. The day was beautiful, despite a strengthening headwind. I began the climb up Union Pass on a wide gravel road, munching on Sour Patch Kids and cheese crackers. Although I was somewhat low on food, I opted not to stop at the little store at the highway junction because I was under the impression there was a lodge at the top (this was a case of misunderstanding something John had told me and not bothering to double-check my maps.) But I started up thinking I was going to find the crowds and commerce of the Tetons. I crested the 9,210-foot pass to a starkly different world. The high alpine plain was streaked with snow and devoid of any human structures. Unhindered by trees or mountainsides, the headwind that I had been fighting all day hit fever pitch. Riding into it, I could hardly make my legs move. Any time the road curved, the crosswind was strong enough to nearly knock me off my bike. It was discouraging, but my capacity for frustration had been so drained by Brooks Lake that I accepted it without complaint, put my head down, and plowed forward. And I began to accept that there was no lodge up there. There was no food. There was nothing but the rolling alpine meadows, the wind, and the fact that I had no choice but to pedal.

The route began to descend into hillsides heavily populated by cows, and finally the Green River Valley. Like the Snake River the day before, the crossing of a major river made me feel proud. Part of that feeling is a tangible sign of progress; another is a fact that these rivers define the regions they travel through. “So you’re the Green River,” I said out loud to the rushing water. “You don’t look so big up here.”

The road to Pinedale was lined with wide-open sagebrush fields. Dark descended long before I made it to town, but I was pretty much running near empty with only a couple of Power Bars in my emergency food rations, so I had to put in the miles. I didn’t mind at that point. I was happy to see such different terrain. It was the first time I could really recognize just how far I had come. I stopped at what looked like the nicest hotel in town pretty much solely because it was next door to a gas station - likely the only food source that was open after 11 p.m. For anyone considering entering this race in the future, this is my biggest piece of advice: Get a good credit card. Pretend that you have a million dollars. Pretend money has no value. Buy yourself exactly what you think you need. Take care of yourself first and worry about your financial situation later. This race is hard enough without trying to do it on a tight budget.

The next morning, rested and well fed, I set out toward the high desert of central Wyoming. My body felt great but my bike was a different story. The mud and miles had taken their toll and it was making weird clanking noises. The brake pads were nearly worn out. Even after adjusting them several times, they still barely caught the rotor unless I throttled them. The cables were gummed up and the shifters weren’t working properly. I couldn’t shift into my small ring unless I stopped and physically moved the chain with my hands.

The rough gravel road climbed and dropped steeply over the drainages of the Wind River Range. Because I didn’t have a low gear and was feeling good, I mashed up the steep grades before flying down the next hill. By the time I reached South Pass City, my knees were on fire. I stopped for a while at a rest stop near a highway crossing, and by the time I tried to ride again, my knees were stiff to the point of sharp pain. The climb into Atlantic City was the steepest of the day, and I had to walk up most of it. A couple in an SUV passed as I was hiking. They honked and waved.

Atlantic City is another example of a place where I misunderstood John’s recommendation about it and failed to double-check its services on my map (this would be the last time I would be so nonchalant about preparedness. I ended up finishing the race with more than two days worth of food.) My heart dropped to my knees when I saw the sign that said “Atlantic City, population 57.” I had no idea the town would be so small. It was after 6 p.m. I had been expecting to load up with everything I needed to cross the Great Divide Basin, over 140 miles of no services, before I continued on that night. I’d be lucky to find a cattle tank in this town. I rode by a touristy-looking mercantile with a sign on the door that said, simply, “Closed Tuesdays.” It was Tuesday. But I could see signs of life in a building next door. And when I walked inside, I realized it was a bar.

The bar turned out to have a full menu of dinners and a little shelf with provisions. They weren’t good provisions. In fact, everything on that shelf was food that I would never eat in real life, and would probably even spurn on a hungry trail unless I was desperate. But I was desperate. I loaded up with single-serving packets of Spam, expired Oreos and heavily processed pastries that I would later learn had deteriorated beyond the point of stale to near dust. But I was grateful for them. I ordered two Pepsis, fried chicken strips and soup, and sat down, happy.

My knees were still throbbing and I debated how far I’d be able to ride that night without significant rest. While I was stewing about my knees and my backpack full of Spam, a couple eating dinner next to the window waved me over. “Were you the biker we saw out of South Pass City?” she asked.

“You mean the one walking my bike?” I said. “Yeah, that was me.” She asked me to join them. She said her name was Maryjane, and she and her husband, Terry, were retired and lived in an old gold mill that had been converted to a house. She asked me if I wanted to spend the night at her house. I smiled. I had been hoping to ride further into the Great Divide Basin, but how could I refuse? As I said earlier, money is worth little on the Great Divide, and even miles can only amount to so much. Kindness is worth everything.

The comfy hide-a-bed amid the stone walls of the old mill turned out to be one of my big blessings of the trip. I woke up at 4 a.m. and made myself a huge breakfast and liters of coffee to fuel up for the long, thirsty, Spam-subsidized ride across the Basin. I massaged my knees for a bit but noticed the were feeling significantly better after a long sleep. I wrote a sincerely grateful note to Terry and Maryjane and walked out to find my bike covered in frost. The first hints of sun pierced the salmon-colored sky just as I was passing what my map promised would be the last tree until Rawlins, and I smiled, because I decided that day was going to be a good day.

The ride through Great Divide Basin was significant for me because it paralleled both the Pony Express and Oregon Trails. My family has lived in Utah for generations, and I have great-great-etc. grandparents who crossed the plains with the Mormon pioneers. My great-great-etc. grandfather crossed the Rockies with an early company and helped settle the town of Hyrum, Utah. They went through the Great Divide Basin at a time when there was truly nothing out there, and they had little more to go on than faith. I like to think that the adventurous pioneer spirit of my ancestors lives on in me, and I was excited to see the desolate regions they had traversed, to see the desert landscape that had not changed much since the 1850s, and see it in a manner that was not so different than theirs.

The day before, I had asked Maryjane about Willie’s Handcart, a historical site that the route goes right by. She told me that Willie’s Handcart Company had been bogged down further east because the wheels on their wagons were breaking and they didn’t have the tools to repair them. By the time they got their wagon issues sorted out, they lost several oxen and ended up reaching the Great Divide Basin perilously close to winter. The were slammed with an early storm near the crossing of the Sweetwater River, and many people in the company perished. Historical tragedy was fixed in my mind just before my own freewheel started to slip.

I was about 30 miles beyond Atlantic City, coasting near the bottom of a long hill when the hub first refused to engage. I spun the pedals wildly as the bike slowed to a near stop. I hopped off, lifted the rear wheel off the ground and turned the crank by hand, frantically willing the wheel to start turning again while imagining my 30-mile walk back to Atlantic City. When it finally engaged, I dropped the wheel and jumped back on the bike quickly. I pumped hard up the next hill and tried to coast again, only to have my freewheel slip on me again. I spun the pedals as quickly as I could, finally creating enough friction to get the freewheel the catch, but I was quickly beginning to realize that coasting or stopping was going to be risky from there on out.

I pedaled hard and mulled my options. I thought about the possibility of zip-tying the cassette to the spokes and riding the bike as a fixed gear, but I still had at least 110 miles to ride to Rawlins, and I seriously doubted a repair like that would last the distance without tearing apart the wheel. I thought about turning around right there, because 30 miles of uncertainty was better than 110, but it also meant going backward to a town that had no services to help me. If I continued forward, I had exactly two bailout points where there was a 14 to 20-mile spur to the nearest town off route. I finally decided my best option was to continue forward as long as I could, and only stop near these bailout points. From there, I could try the zip tie thing, or I could simply walk out.

This turned out to be more difficult than I thought. I could eat my Spam and disgusting pastries from the bike, but I needed to stop to change over my maps or switch my water. I had to rely on my GPS for directions and ration my fluid. Then there was the issue of emptying my own bladder. On top of all that, I was 12 days into the trip and hadn’t noticed how dependent my legs had become on short breaks. After about 20 miles they ached with the thick fire of lactic acid. I tried standing to relieve them, but mostly they just wanted to stop. And I couldn’t even rest on the downhills - if anything, my legs had to work harder to keep me from coasting (huge props to Deanna on her fixed gear, by the way. I never thought descending could be harder than climbing.) Before my first stop, my water was empty, my bladder was so full I was seeing yellow, my legs were on fire and I had no idea whether GPS was really taking me in the right direction. But seeing that intersection on the horizon made me ecstatically happy. And after a 10-minute break, I spun my loose freewheel until it caught again, which made me even happier.

I repeated the process to the Jeffery City cutoff, where I had to make the final decision whether to bail or continue toward Rawlins. It was at least 60 more miles to town, and I would be fully committed to making it there knowing I would see little to no traffic for several dozen miles. I pressed forward, repeating my mantra of no coast, no stop, and letting the stress of becoming stranded and the burn in my muscles take my mind off my now only slightly achy knees. The sagebrush-dotted landscape rolled out behind me, baked in afternoon sun and starkly beautiful in its desolation, and I unfortunately thought little about appreciating it. I just wanted to get to Rawlins - Mecca to me, funny as it is now to think of that grim little Interstate town in that way. I just pedaled and pedaled as if my life depended on it, which, in my mind, it did.

From there, the trip to Rawlins went by really fast. I made it to town just after 5 p.m. - 140 miles in 12 hours, one of my fastest average speeds of the entire trip. I was able to squeeze into the bike shop before they closed. The owner said she didn’t think she had the parts to help me - disc brake pads, a freewheel, a new hub, or even a new 29” wheel of any sort. She said her mechanic would be in the shop at 10 a.m. the next day and he could possibly help me. I hemmed and hawed and called around for advice. I didn’t want another day of freewheel-induced stress, and I certainly didn’t want to become stranded, but I also didn’t want to burn up as many as 18 perfectly good hours sitting around Rawlins for a solution that may not even be a solution. But I finally decided to wait. I knew I would never forgive myself if I really did become stranded on the Colorado border and quit the race because I was too impatient to wait for a bike mechanic. I told myself the rest would do me some good and lots of fresh grocery store food would help my system flush out the Spam and dust pastries.

The next morning, 10 a.m. came and went. The bike shop owner let me in the back of the shop, where I deep-cleaned my drive train and cables and went to work on the front brake. The caliper had been sticking and I had pretty much stopped using my brake because one side of the pads had worn to metal. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get the new brake pads - my only spare set - inside. Finally, near 11 a.m., the bike mechanic showed up. He turned out to be an 18-year-old kid with sleep still crusted to his eyes. He fiddled around with my brake caliper and admitted he rarely dealt with disc brakes. We worked on it together until he finally just announced he was going to break a piece off one of the arms. I clenched my teeth as he snapped a piece of metal clean off and jammed the brake pads in. After that, they seemed to catch. It seemed sketchy, but I hadn’t had front brakes before, either, so anything would be an improvement.

Next he went to work on the freewheel - sure enough, no parts. He said he could take apart the hub, clean and grease it up in about 25 minutes. I went to Subway, stuffed a chicken sandwich through my stress and prayed. By noon I had a mostly complete if still unreliable bike, bags stuffed to the brim with food and a burning desire to get out of Rawlins.

Jill+Canada=Luv

I was dreading making the solo drive from Salt Lake City to Alaska, but I have to admit that for the most part I have really been enjoying it. There have been times when I have "bonked" and had to stop and walk around for a while to gear back into driver mode. I've had to make quite a few of these stops. I've been overly cautious because I am terrified of falling asleep at the wheel, and the constant pressure on the gas pedal just sears my already tender Achilles tendon (that's right, 2,700 miles with no cruise control, no air conditioning and no power steering. No stereo either! Ha! Thank goodness for iPod.) But the little old beater of a car and this battered body made it all the way to Whitehorse! Just 108 more driving miles left! Hooray!

The drive turned out to be a positive thing because it meant I made two great stops in Banff and Whitehorse, two of my favorite places in the world. I've enjoyed relaxing meals and rides with friends, and I think these activities will help me bridge the gap between the single-minded focus of the Great Divide and the vague void that is my real life ahead.

And even though it's not the same from the seat of a car, the highway is incredibly scenic. My memories of the AlCan were filled wide pavement cutting through rolling black spruce forests. I forgot that after you meander along the high prairie, you still have to cut through the northern Rockies. That part of the drive is winding, slow and mired in summer construction, but spectacular nonetheless. And I hate having to rush through it, but life doesn't always move as slow as you'd like it to.

And Canada has been good to me. I pulled my Karate Monkey off my car rack this morning, brushed the flattened mosquitoes off her fork, chipped large chunks of New Mexico mud off her frame, pumped up her cigarette-paper-thin tires, adjusted the creaky brakes, lubed the dusty chain, and went out for my first ride(s) since I left the Mexican border. Whitehorse singletrack, like the Banff mountains, is good for the soul. My friends and I did two rides - one before lunch and one before dinner - for about three and a half hours of mountain biking. I struggled more than I thought I would - I couldn't power up the steep stuff, and I felt pretty wiped out by hour three despite a week off the bike. But when I finally hit my downhill stride, I could almost feel myself physically connecting with the flow of past to future. Part of me thought I would leave the Divide and hate my bike forever, or at least for more than a week. Churning up northern dust again proved that this relationship is consuming and difficult, but I might as well enjoy it because it's definitely long-term.

Now if I could only figure out a way to make my relationship with Canada last. Are there any rich, single Canadian men out there looking for a prospective partner? Must like cats and winter. Please inquire within. :-)

P.S. I will start posting more Tour Divide pictures soon.

The drive so far

Wow. Alaska is far away. And endurance driving is hard. But Canada is kinda pretty. Thus the urge to come on my blog and post pictures.

I'm actually online right now because both my debit and credit cards were put on hold today. Impeccable timing. I love the way credit card companies freeze your accounts only at the times it's most inconvenient for you. I guess purchases in Silver City, New Mexico, one day and Jasper, Alberta, just a few short days later may look a little suspicious. I don't know. I do know I was throwing around the last of my cash today on $4/gallon gas while stressing that I was going to be completely broke before I made it to the Yukon. Yeah, driving is way harder than biking. At least cyclists can beg for food.

I drove 800 miles today in 16 nearly nonstop hours (narrow, winding roads and a gutless car make a 50 mph average the best I can do). I did take the time to do a tiny little hike near the icecap this morning. This is near the crux of the Continental Divide, where droplets of water bound for the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic oceans go their separate ways. The Continental Triangle.

Thunderstorms moved in during the afternoon as I made my way into northern British Columbia, where gray daylight lingered until 11 p.m. I drove right through to dark. I was completely stressed about the storms all afternoon, even as I tried to remind myself that I was inside a car on pavement and they weren't going to hurt me. I'm having a hard time removing myself from "Divide" mode. I still pretty much only think about road conditions and weather, and I respond to fatigue with junk food. I was nearly wiped out in Dawson Creek, so I ate a huge bag of M&Ms and washed it down with coffee. I felt better until Fort Saint John, and then I started craving giant brownie. Luckily, I was mired in credit card problems at that point, so I missed out on the 600 sugar calories that I no longer need.

I listened to every single Tour Divide call-in via old MTBcast episodes today and Friday to pass the long drive. That's probably not helping me reintegrate back into civilization, but many of them were good for laughs (and groans of painful understanding.) Those many hours of variations of "I hurt my (fill in crucial body part)" and "it rained all day" (to which I contributed fully) is probably the reason why my brain isn't working. I forgot my social security number when I was on the phone with my bank today, and had to call my parents to get it. The misadventures in driving continue. I'm hoping to reach Whitehorse tomorrow. After that, it's just a quick jog and a ferry ride south to a place I haven't seen in three months - my home town.

Victory tour

Life has been hectic since I left the Divide. I'm currently in the middle of making the long commute between Salt Lake City and Juneau, Alaska. I had hoped to take the ferry, but I couldn't really plan my trip before I finished the ride, and the next boat was booked. I don't have the time to wait another week. So I have to make the 2,700-mile trip by myself in a 1996 Geo Prism. There's something about it that's very Divide-esque. It's even the same distance. Endurance driving.

I'm even visiting many of the same places I passed through on the Great Divide. So far, this trip hasn't flowed nearly as well as a typical day on the bike. I left my grandparents' house in Roy, Utah, on Friday just before noon and did a bit of a killer day to Lethbridge, Alberta, to give myself time to visit my friends and enjoy one semi-day of rest in Banff. I stopped in Idaho Falls to visit former coworkers, but no one was around at the office. Then I made my first gas stop in Lima, Montana, and the little store where I once bought cheese curds (those were such a rare find on the Divide and so delicious) was all out of fountain Diet Pepsi. I took a wrong turn in Butte and ended up driving 10 miles on I-90, which is actually quite funny because the Great Divide route comes right down I-15. You think I would have wondered why nothing looked familiar. I blew through Basin and Helena. The sun was still up when I passed through Great Falls, so I decided to continue north, only to discover that the only hotel before the border (a casino) was all booked up. My car was searched at the border - the first time I've been searched in several dozen Canadian border crossings. I arrived in Lethbridge after midnight, completely hammered, only to see huge crowds of people lining the street like they were waiting for some kind of parade, and every hotel in town had their "No Vacancy" signs lit. It was so foreign to me. I never had trouble finding beds on the Divide. I continued to the next town - I think it was Macleod - and crashed out in my car in the parking lot of a gas station. I slept only a couple hours before continuing on to Banff, wondering why life off the bike was so hard.

It's been good, too. On Thursday I was able to get in one last hike with my dad to Lake Blanche - about 2,700 feet of elevation gain and seven miles - not bad for three days off the Divide. I'm still noticing that I have no high throttle when I need to power up something steep, even on foot. I compare it to my Geo, who on every hill just doesn't have enough oomph to keep the speed steady and begins slowing to a put-put-put. The Divide has turned me into an old car, but I still feel healthy and seem to have all the ability I need to power myself where I need to go. I hope my Geo can do the same.

I'm sad to be leaving Utah. It's such a beautiful state and most of my friends and family live there. But Alaska beckons, as does my need to start bringing in income after three months of hemorrhaging my savings.

One nice thing about my failure to find a hotel room last night is that I made it to Banff really early today. I enjoyed a leisurely walk and an ice cream cone among the throngs of tourists that visit Banff on a Saturday in July. I went to see the Spray River trailhead (beginning of the GDMBR). It's strange to be back here. It feels like no time at all has passed since I rolled out on June 12, but in many ways it feels like eons have passed.

Keith and Leslie, who declared their place my "home" for the time being since I am currently homeless, led me on my victory tour through Banff - on a tandem cruiser, of course, through a current of tourists.

We rolled by the Ski Stop, a bike shop in Banff that threw a barbecue for the Tour Divide the night before the race. I guess as a TD finisher, I get to enjoy partial celebrity status. The owner, Jason, gave me a jersey, and supposedly this picture is going to end up hanging somewhere in the store.

I'm heading out tomorrow for more endurance driving. Keith is going to accompany for about 60 miles before I drop him off for a road bike ride, and then it's back to listening to every single Tour Divide call-in on my iPod. North to the future!

Idaho

The state of Idaho is short and sweet on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route - 72 miles and no major climbs. The fast guys probably pound it out before breakfast. The first stop I made in the state was at an RV park just below Red Rock Pass. A photographer flagged me down and offered me a root beer. I asked him if I could borrow the hose at the little camp store. The mud of southern Montana had become so caked on my derailleurs and cables that my shifters had become useless. My "singlespeed" gear that I was stuck with was pretty low and I was spun out on the downhill stretch. The 20 minutes I spent cleaning my bike at the RV park revealed how heinous that mud really was. Even a high-pressure hose wouldn't remove it. I had to use rocks to chip away at the adobe bricks coating my drivetrain.

We spent the night at the Sawtell Mountain Resort, and the next day I headed out in steady rain alone to hit the rail trail. John, who was in full-on tour mode, didn't feel like greeting the cold, wet morning with a slow grind on a soft railbed. He hinted that he'd probably meet up with me later, but maybe not. I thought that was it - I was on my own again, the way I had been in Canada. But a week later, the solitude felt different. This time, I had enough experience behind me to understand the magnitude of the remote, lengthy time alone that I faced.

John had warned me that the railbed was was a mixture of sand and soft volcanic ash, and that it would be washboarded and *really* slow. He told me to prepare for 30 miles of grinding away at 4-5 mph. So I approached the trail in "snowbike" mode, mentally bracing myself for the kind of deep slog that only snow and sand can deliver. It's a Zen place where life moves in slow motion and the mind slips into a white state of nothingness to cope with what otherwise can be infuriating monotony. Because I approached the rail trail with this mindset, I was startled to discover that this section of the route even looked like the Susitna Valley of Alaska - with a narrow trail cutting a perfectly straight line across swamps and through stands of evergreens beneath a slate gray sky. A fatigued imagination sparks faster than a fresh one, and it wasn't long before I was deep into an Iditarod fantasy, crunching my way over a vast expanse of white wilderness.

The reality of the rail trail, however, was that the buckets of rain that had fallen over the past few days had actually nicely packed down the ash and sand, and I was able to move as fast over the railbed as I could any gravel road, but with less effort, because it was perfectly flat. I finally woke up enough to snap myself out of my slog mindset and start pushing the big gears toward the Warm River. Pretty soon I was winding down a beautiful canyon in a setting that was definitely Idaho.

Above the Warm River Campground, I reached the familiar territory of eastern Idaho - rolling farmland set against the snow-capped Tetons. It made me smile because this part of the route was my closest point to home. I lived in Idaho Falls for a year, and still consider Salt Lake City my "home," even if I do live in Alaska for the long term. But being this close to "home" also triggered the thought that this spot would be the best place to quit the race - a mere four-hour drive for my parents to come rescue me from a strenuous life of solitude under the harsh elements. I shook that thought off quickly. I was having a good day, and decisions are always easier to make on good days.

John caught up to me near the Ashton-Flagg Ranch Road. He had decided to hammer the rail trail and put in one more day of Tour Divide fun. We were greeted by a sign that read "Impassable to Vehicles." The deepening fear of mud pumped cold blood through my veins.

Montana

Montana is a big state on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route - 695 miles. Very few of those miles are flat. Montana is one climb after the other, and it quickly feeds you a salty dose of reality. Gunning for an average of 100 miles a day really is going to mean 10-16 hours of solid riding, day after day after day. And what that means for your body and mind, you're still very unsure.

I was chowing down a huge sandwich and several cookies at the Eureka Subway when John Nobile walked up to me looking rather dejected. I didn't recognize him at first because I had only met him briefly at the race start, and, knowing he was aiming to break his own course record, really didn't expect to ever see him again. Plus, cyclists put on their helmets and shorts and they pretty much all look the same. Anyway, after several minutes of awkward questions that revealed that I didn't know who he was when I really should have, he told me he was feeling sick and had blown his knee in Canada and his race was over.

As I finished my lunch, we talked about the route and he decided to put in one more day. I told him I was aiming for Whitefish and he said I could at least make it to Columbia Falls. We decided to ride together to town, and over the course of the day he discovered that the world of the mid-pack Tour Divider, with its leisurely lunch stops, friendly chats with locals and remote blogging over coffee, was actually pretty enjoyable. He decided to stick around a little longer at "tour" pace (i.e. my race pace) and see if he could recover his knee enough to start hammering toward the front.

It worked out pretty well for me - like having a Great Divide coach, along with the added benefit of company during the hard times and friendship during the good. We made a somewhat strange team - him with his "go go go into the night" mentality, me with my "let's stop and stare at this pretty waterfall even if the rain is bearing down on us" mentality. But it worked oddly well. Balance and flow.

We hit our first stretch of snow at Red Meadow Lake. Snow and bears are fairly prevalent in Montana and widely feared by Divide racers, but in my opinion the mud and dogs of New Mexico are much more scary.

And, anyway, those snowy passes take you to misty clear lakes high in the mountains. How could you be grumpy about that?

But I had the advantage of having a great wardrobe for what turned out to be a cold and rainy year throughout. I had my vapor barrier socks to keep my feet warm and dry, two extra pairs of wool socks, full rain gear, a fleece jacket, hat and gloves. I managed to stay warm and relatively happy through the cold rain, while John, who in typical fast-guy fashion traveled light, had to rely on his fast-twitch muscles to get him out of some of the race's chillier situations. (Then I'd stumble into a town two hours later, dripping muddy water, to find him already showered and sipping tea.)

It was handy to have John around for Montana bear country. I think our total count was five bears - two grizzlies and three black bears. Whenever I saw one, I'd slam on the brakes while my heart raced. His reaction was to charge toward them while yelling. Lucky for him, they always ran away.

My favorite climb in Montana turned out to be Richmond Peak - steep gravel up, snowy slog down.

Actually, the real reason it was my favorite climb is because it was peppered by a gorgeous sunset. Moments like these, quiet moments of euphoria amid the labored breaths and sweat-soaked haze of a hard day's effort, are what make ultraendurance rides all worth it.

Then the next day, you wake up and do it all again. And suddenly you find yourself over the next pass, across the next valley, 100 miles down the route, breathing in new climates and soaking in new sunsets.

But there are always more clouds on the horizon.

Looking out from one pass to our next - the much-feared Lava Mountain trail where crazy hillbillies roam and Divide racers get hopelessly lost.

This was a particularly cool pass - Fleecer Ridge. You start up on your choice of eight steep singletrack cuts ...

Grind toward the summit of a high plateau ...

Roll over a faint track lined with wildflowers ...

And then nosedive off the boulder-studded face of a veritable cliff.

People with my technical skills call this "downhill hike-a-bike."

Montana is an easy state in some ways - there are a fair number of service stops at useful intervals, and lots of water. John and I tended to eat almost exclusively from gas stations during this stretch, and my diet soon consisted of four food groups: Snickers Bars, Sour Patch Kids, M&Ms and cheese. I was putting down 4,000-5,000 calories a day of mostly this stuff. You'd think I'd just drop dead of toxic shock, but for some reason I didn't.

Climbing the paved pass out of Wise River. I'll never claim to be a mountain bike snob. I'm really more of a bicycle tourist, and I always enjoyed the paved stretches of the route for their easy speed, smooth rolling and scenery that I actually had the handling freedom to stare at.

But I like touring dirt because of the places it can take me. Plus, the climbs are usually more challenging, the descents more fun, and the days more rewarding.

So many times when I was mired in mud, I'd promise myself I would never ride anything but pavement ever again. But I never actually believed it, even as I stood ankle deep in peanut butter sludge.

Cabin Creek Road. Many of these places in Montana felt so wild and remote, although even more extreme wildness and remoteness had yet to come.

The drop into Lima was a really fun descent. I accidentally riled up a group of four cows and continued to coast behind them as they sprinted wildly down the road for a quarter mile before finally veering off. I felt like I was driving a stampede.

The next day out of Lima was gray skies and solid rain. Our maps said "roads may be mucky when wet."

Mucky seems an unforgivably tame term. Impassable is a better one. There was one half-mile stretch of that horrible road where I couldn't even push my bike through the shallow canal off to the side. I simply had to hoist it as I trampled through the brush - because my feet stuck to the road as badly as my mud-cemented wheels did. Meanwhile, mosquitoes swarmed me as I pumped through the last remaining droplets of bug spray. Miserable, frustrating, temper-tantrum-inducing - these, also, are too-tame terms for such a situation.

The mud can quickly remind us that we have friends in high places.

This last day out of Montana was also the day I was pummeled by a violent thunderstorm. It caught me completely by surprise - ink-black clouds rolled over the mountain and showered me with lightning. One bolt hit so close that I heard no delay between the light and thunder - just a blinding flash of white in my peripheral vision surrounded by a deafening boom. I convinced myself I was within feet of being hit by lightning in this open valley with no shelter. My only solution was to lay into the pedals and sprint with everything I had, mud and all. With hot adrenaline coursing through my veins, I believe I hit some of my high speeds for the trip on that flat, muddy stretch of road.

We crossed into Idaho with nearly 1,000 miles of Great Divide riding behind us - wet, cold, muddy, sore and tired - but for some strange reason, still raring to go.