The Ends of the Earth

West Yellowstone to Big Sky, Montana. Thursday, July 13, 2024.

I surprised myself in my college, which was all about science and technology, by falling hard for Shakespeare, particularly Shakespearean tragedy. We studied the four major tragedies and discussed how each of their heroes had a fatal flaw. Macbeth had ambition; Othello, jealousy; Lear, insecurity/egotism; and Hamlet, indecisiveness.

In my last post, I described how I went round and round about whether to take the Transamerica Trail home, or continue my journey to the parking lots of previously-hiked highpoints. Eric had ribbed me for similar indecisiveness at the Borah turn off. I finally said OK, let’s make a decision: the parking lots. And I sealed the deal with a couple of expensive hotel reservations.

I needed to top off the air pressure in my tires, so I stopped at the local bike shop, Freeheel and Wheel. I asked for advice about cycling routes, and they brought me up short. My planned route, up US 191 through Big Sky to Bozeman, was a nonstarter. Terrible shoulders, heavy traffic, lots of construction, they strongly recommended against it.

Huh. The reservations were nonrefundable. The alternative routes were hopelessly hilly and out-of-the-way. I was tossed back into indecisiveness. What do I do? Blow off the reservations? Take the Transamerica Trail home after all? I dithered on the sidewalk and finally decided, screw it. I’m skilled at cycling in traffic, I have a neon yellow vest, powerful headlight, reflectors everywhere, and a comically obnoxious rear flasher. I can do this. It’s not clear if Hamlet ultimately made the right decision, or if I did.

My nervousness on heading up 191 was soon dispelled by the beauty of the route. The climb up over Bighorn Pass, my highest so far, was doable, and the shoulders, though generally terrible, were wide when I needed them. Yellowstone Park spills into Montana a bit, and I entered it at a nontraditional place. The entrance signs are typically more elaborate, and always crowded with people taking photos.

Usually the trailheads are choked with cars, but the one for Fawn Pass was deserted.

I walked 30 feet on an actual Yellowstone hiking trail and had a snack under a tree. Only one gentleman came by, carrying a thick paperback, he walked to a bridge and sat there reading it. So serene.

From there, it was downhill all the way to my expensive motel at Big Sky. I kept my earbuds out, listening and looking for passing traffic, and kept checking whether blind curves or oncoming traffic made it unsafe for cars to pass me. I was prepared to run into the shoulder gravel if necessary, but it never was. It was only slightly hairy.

I crossed briefly into Wyoming, which closed a loop of sorts, I had touched Wyoming on the first leg of this bike ride, to Denver. So now I have biked to Wyoming from both coasts.

I had crossed the Madison and was following the Gallatin river, these were two of the rivers that formed the Missouri, which combined with the Mississippi is the 4th longest river in the world. The Madison drained Old Faithful and the other geysers. Flying down the hill right next to the Gallatin river was almost like white water rafting. The canyon it carved was beautiful, but I could only stop at the turnouts, which didn’t afford good photographs. It was just a stunning ride.

Another great barbecue, pulled pork this time, then in early to my motel. I had always wanted to see Big Sky, the largest ski resort in Montana. It was founded by Chet Huntley, the iconic news anchorman; all of you boomers out there remember the Huntley-Brinkley report and their classic sign off , “Goodnight, Chet. Goodnight, David, And Goodnight For NBC News.” Unfortunately, Huntley died at 62 of lung cancer, a month before the resort opened. The Big Sky was also a classic novel I read about the opening of the American West.

The bike shop guys warned me that this next leg, to Bozeman, was the most treacherous. I’m leaving at the crack of dawn, and will take every precaution. Wish me luck.

Distance 48 miles, 1,781 total. Time 6 hours with stops. Elevation gain 1,245 feet

©️ 2024 Scott Luria

Ashton, Idaho to West Yellowstone, Montana. Wednesday, June 12, 2024.

Another sunny day on US 20, another brisk tailwind. I passed a sign that reiterated what I discussed yesterday

and got a prettier picture of them rising over Henry’s Fork

The day began with a sharp hill, 6% grade, but I can manage if I stop every mile or so to rest. At one stop was a turnout where a large semi truck was idling, the driver had set out safety triangles to warn passing traffic. While I was catching my breath, I saw the drivers, an attractive younger couple, looking quite perplexed. I went over if I could help in anyway (yeah, I’m sure my tiny tool kit was just what they needed) but they only spoke Ukrainian. They were trying in vain to contact their Ukrainian dispatcher, but had no cell service. I had two bars, and managed to download Google Translate and engage them in a slight conversation. It was weird to see my words translated into Cyrillic text. They asked if I had a hose clamp. I told him I would try to inform the police that they were in distress. I did reach the Idaho State Police dispatcher, and he said he would send a patrol car over. My attempt at being a road angel, after having been blessed with so many trail angels.

Further on I passed a long line of cars and trucks, over 200, that were stopped by a flagman. They were striping the road. They let me ride on the blocked off portion of the road while all the other cars slowly passed me. It was a weird feeling.

At a quick stop I met Cindi and Curt, a retired couple motorcycling around the country. They had left from Tennessee and made it here after a couple of thousand-mile days (yikes), and their agenda was not unlike mine, trying to visit obscure out-of-the-way places. We marveled that our bikes had similar belt drive systems. I was surprised to hear their cycles only got 40 miles to the gallon, worse than our Prius.

The next climb was Targhee Pass, not much to look at, but quite momentous.

I was leaving Idaho for the last time, crossing back into Montana, and for the first time crossing the continental divide. In a month and a half I had traversed the Pacific drainage completely, and now was on the Atlantic side of the divide. I’d be crossing that divide many more times this trip, but this felt significant.

Finally, I descended to West Yellowstone, a classic national park “gateway town.” It is the only part of Yellowstone I had never seen, actually it’s just outside the border, as gateway towns always are, free of Park service restrictions. Inside the park, commercial establishments are rare, muted, and carefully regulated to only one or two concessionaires. Outside the park, anything goes. National parks may be America’s Best Idea, but gateway towns can be America at its worst.

Some gateway towns are tasteful, such as Estes Park in Colorado and Jackson, just south of the Tetons. Some are only borderline shlocky, like North Conway and Niagara Falls. And some are completely over the top, like Gatlinburg, Tennessee, the gateway town to the Smoky Mountains. That one is a piece of work, and worth a digression.

Gatlinburg was the end of a long bike ride Eric and I had done in 1995 down the Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway. I described it thusly to my sister:

You know that scene in The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy opens the door to her house, and through the drab doorway you look out into colorful Oz. Well, the end of our trip was like that, although possibly I have the metaphor backwards. After 600+ miles of cycling through a tunnel of green, we crossed the boundary out of Smoky Park and entered the most concentrated example of decadent excess I’ve ever seen. Free at last from the shackles of the Department of the Interior, the developers went wild.  Crammed into a 3 mile strip were casinos, trendy boutiques, fast food joints, cable cars, speedways, observation towers, water parks, and no less than five “wedding chapels”. Looming over it all was Dollywood, a huge theme park inspired by the Well-Endowed One herself. Brassy babes in fur-trimmed miniskirts were walking their afghans, jaunty dudes were honking their souped-up Rolls Royces, and everyone was looking at us astride our mounts, grimy, grizzled and blinking in the glare of it all, like we were from Mars.

Bill Bryson did a better job, in A Walk in the Woods.

I feared West Yellowstone would be the same, serving as the principal entrance to the oldest, largest, most famous national park in America, but it was not the case. Just many blocks of the usual tourist fare—pricey, slightly seedy, but nothing over the top. I had fun spotting relic of my childhood image of “Jellystone Park.”

There was at least one diamond in the rough, Firehole Barbecue, that served up the best brisket I can remember, giving Dinosaur Barbecue in Syracuse a run for its money. Among the charming staff were Harley, daughter of the proprietor, and her friend Logan.

I am continuing to listen to my audiobook, The Dying Grass (60 hours long) and it was eerie to think that at the same scene of all this excess, 147 years ago, Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce were being chased by General Howard as they tried to escape to Canada.

I am back on the Transamerica trail again, but still not seeing any cycle tourists. Still too early in the season, although I’m sure they’ll catch up to me. Today I face another dilemma, Hamlet histrionics as my friend Eric calls them. Do I continue doing these highpoint parking lots, which involve a lot of dicey sections, or do I just head home on the Transamerica? After lots of inward soliloquies, I decided to keep doing the parking lots. Jane wants me to be done with this, I can’t blame her.

Distance 55 miles, 1,733 total. Time 9 hours with stops. Elevation gain 2,456 feet

©️ 2024 Scott Luria

Idaho Falls to Ashton, Idaho. Tuesday, June 11, 2024

OK, I’m not proud of this. After yesterday‘s wonderful–but–grueling day, I just decided to just let the wind blow me up US 20, rather than taking a longer bike route, which would’ve shown me more of the back roads. Much of it was a limited-access highway, but those are legal for bicycles in Idaho and 10 other states. Although traffic was heavy, there was an excellent shoulder all the way, I just had to be careful about off-ramps and on-ramps. The result is not many interesting stories or pictures.

There was one picture I was hoping to get. I have never seen the back side of the Tetons. The front side, the view from Jackson Hole, is legendary and changed my life. I remember the day, August 20, 1970–we were on the stereotypical “family trip out west” with a pop-up camper in tow. Up until that day, I was indifferent about mountains. I had been forced to hike a few in summer camp and came to dread the experience. This was mitigated somewhat when Glenn T. Seaborg took me on my first hike up Old Rag Mountain in Shenandoah National Park, but I was still unconvinced.

On that day, we crested Togwotee Pass, and got our first eye popping view of the Tetons.

And in that instant, I was hooked on mountains. I looked up the geology:

Between six and nine million years ago, stretching and thinning of the earth’s crust caused movement along the Teton fault. The west block along the fault line rose to form the Teton Range, creating the youngest mountain range in the Rocky Mountains. The fault’s east block fell to form the valley called Jackson Hole. This simultaneous rising and falling created a range that sprang 7,000 feet above the valley floor with no foothills. There are higher mountains in the Rockies, but none as spectacular.

I was obsessed. I had to climb the highest one, the Grand Teton. Seven years later, just before medical school, I signed up with the Exum guide service and did just that. You spent two days learning the basics of rock climbing and rappelling, then hiked up to a camp at the base of the Grand, and did the actual rock climb early the next morning. As is the tradition for western peaks, you were on the summit by 7 AM. I have great slides of that trip, and will look into getting them transferred to this blog. I remember the simultaneous thrill and disappointment of being on the summit. This was the second highest peak in Wyoming; Gannett Peak in the Wind River Range, was 34 feet higher. It would be 40 years before I summitted that one, after three failed attempts. More on that later.

Anyway, I always wondered how the Tetons would look from the other side, the side that didn’t have that benefit of the sudden rise. This was the best picture I could get today—less dramatic than I hoped, not much contrast between the gray peaks 40 miles away and the dull blue sky. Not bad, but a little underwhelming.

This was the view that inspired early French trappers to give the range its name, Les Trois Tetons, the three breasts. I guess they’d been away from home a while.

Anyway, that’s all I have to report. Hope to make West Yellowstone tomorrow.

Addendum: I just edited this post to change backside to back side. Otherwise, my post about Tetons and backsides sounds like T & A.

Distance 54 miles, 1,678 total. Time 7 hours with stops. Elevation gain 743 feet

©️ 2024 Scott Luria

Arco to Idaho Falls, Idaho Monday, June 10, 2024.

Dedicated followers of this blog may remember my delight on finding “Easter eggs”—unexpected bits of wonderfulness. From the free upgrade to a penthouse suite in Chicago, to a private tour of Bob Dylan’s boyhood home in Hibbing, to all the wonderful friends, family, and Warmshowers hosts I’ve stayed with along the way, I’ve been blessed to have many of these. But the one today may have taken the cake.

I’ll get to that in a minute. The day started off great anyway, I left US 93 after 10 days and got onto an iconic highway, US 20, the longest road in the nation. It starts in Kenmore Square, Boston, right next to Fenway Park and just a half mile from my alma mater, and ends after 3,365 miles on the Oregon coast in Newport. The map indicated it had a decent shoulder the whole way, although there was quite a bit of truck traffic I always felt protected by a rumble strip.

After 20 miles, I faced a decision. A 4-mile detour would take me to EBR-1, the world’s first nuclear power plant. How could I pass that up?

It sure didn’t look like a nuke, no cooling towers, just a boxy structure sitting alone on a vast desert plain.

Our tour guide was enthusiastic but in over her head, a communications major from BYU on a summer internship, she struggled to explain nuclear physics. It’s been 50 years, but I took four semesters of chemistry at MIT, decided to keep my mouth shut.

Perhaps a wise decision, she appeared to have the ability to decapitate tourists.

She was good at explaining the origin of the SCRAM button, the instant shutdown mechanism, if you zoom in you can read the story.

Actually, I guess you can’t. In the original nuclear reactor at the University of Chicago, a cadmium control rod was suspended by a rope. In the event of an emergency, a strong young student standing by would swing an axe, cut the rope, and drop the control rod into the core, shutting it down. He was the Safety Control Rod Axe Man, or SCRAM.

It was fun to do the touristy stuff, but the highlight of the visit for me was the photo of my friend’s dad, Glenn T. Seaborg, receiving an award from President LBJ.

I guess I had arrived there just in time, as I was leaving, multiple busloads of foreign tourists arrived, and our guide had her hands full.

Outside, I talked with two lab employees, Liza Raley and Taylor Wilhelm, who were much more knowledgeable, and also pointed out some of the local geography.

Among the failed prototypes of the lab were two nuclear powered airplane engines, the hope was that the planes could fly for much longer periods without refueling, but they were so heavy the project never got off the ground, so to speak.

A few miles down the road I stopped at a guardrail, so I could prop up my bicycle, reapply sunscreen, and grab a quick snack. This gave me the opportunity to photograph some of the geographic features that Liza and Taylor had pointed out.

I later discovered that this last photo actually showed my upcoming Easter egg. An extreme close-up shows a car waiting by the highway.

The car appeared to be waiting to turn left, but didn’t move as I approached. I waved for him to go ahead, but instead a man and woman got out of the car and waved back.

I couldn’t believe it. It was Ben and Christine Gericke, that lovely couple from Namibia and South Africa I had ridden with for a couple of days in Indiana, three years ago. Their narrative begins in the middle of this post and continues for the next two. https://scottluria.org/2021/05/13/four-bike-paths-and-a-fiasco/

They were the only people I ever rode with. I encounter bike tourists fairly often, but they’re generally going in the other direction or on a diverging path. Although I choose to tour alone, just riding with them for a couple of days made me realize how much I missed having traveling companions. Chris had given me a little souvenir when we parted, a tiny bottle of Fireball whiskey, and I have preserved it to this day.

They went on to complete their coast to coast Rail Trail bike trek, but not before having a couple of accidents—Ben had head injury and Chris sustained grievous wound to her leg. They had since moved to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and had regretted that they were going to be traveling in Scotland when I was passing through.

Well my progress has been so slow that they had returned from Scotland, and decided to surprise me. I was nowhere near their home, but they were reading my daily posts, and that map of my future route I had included. They don’t have iPhones, so could not track me in real time, but they managed to figure out where I was likely to be, and have been waiting at that intersection for quite some time.

I was so surprised and delighted I almost burst into tears. We had been keeping in touch all this time, and they had given me many encouraging messages. They said they were heading down this way anyway, en route to a rafting trip on the Grand Canyon, but I charted the route from Coeur d’Alene to Arizona, and I could see they had taken a significant detour. They shared their ice, lots of healthy snacks, and we caught up, talking for almost an hour. I just couldn’t believe anybody could be so thoughtful.

I still had 45 miles to go, and was mindful of potential wind shifts and that “don’t count your chickens” lesson I had learned a few days ago, but I didn’t care, that visit was so worth it, it felt like I was riding on air.

Other than passing those buttes, US 20 was pretty featureless, and sure enough the wind shifted to a 90° crosswind, not slowing me down exactly but not helping, and always threatening to blow me into traffic. The sun was unrelenting. I searched in vain for a place to rest and refuel, finally found what looked like an abandoned barn, where I could get some shade and sit on a hay bale. While I was there, a couple of pickups drove by slowly, I was aware I was trespassing, but nobody bothered me. Further on, I passed a lava field called Hell’s Half Acre, but didn’t stop. I pulled into my motel in Idaho Falls after a 12 hour day and my highest mileage so far, but all I have is happy memories.

Thank you, thank you, Ben and Chris. Have a wonderful time on that rafting trip!

Distance 71 miles, 1,624 total. Time 12 hours with stops. Elevation gain 1,414 feet

©️ 2024 Scott Luria

MacKay to Arco, Idaho. Sunday, June 9, 2024.

Easy day today, after yesterday’s suffer-fest. Downhill all the way, smooth shoulders, gentle tailwind, only 27 miles. A big storm and wind shift was brewing, but not until 10 AM, so I left early. Took advantage of the time zone difference to call Brian, Jane, and sister Anne; their conversations sustained me for the entire ride, and were easy since there was no traffic or wind noise. Would that every day could be like this!

Arco (no relation to the oil company) is known as the Atomic City.

It’s located in a stretch of desert so vast and self-contained that it was a safe place to conduct nuclear experiments, and the world‘s first nuclear reactor, EBR-1, was just a few miles from here. Borah is part of the Lost River Range, the river so-named because it flows nowhere, just seeps into an aquifer. This also reduces risk from nuclear contamination. Its population less than 1000, but it has a lot going on.

Incongruously rising from the desert is the sail of the USS Hawkbill, a nuclear powered submarine that was captained by a local resident; when it was decommissioned he arranged to have the sail transferred here.

Known as the Devil Ship because of its hull number, 666, it is a centerpiece of the Idaho Science Center, a cute collection of buildings. The docent was an engaging submarine veteran named Harvey, a cornucopia of information about the area.

One of the photos on the wall was familiar. Glenn T Seaborg, who won the Nobel prize for discovering (synthesizing actually) plutonium, later discovered many other trans-uranium elements, including Americium, Californium, and Berkelium. An element is named in his honor, Seaborgium. He is BFF Eric Seaborg’s father, and I knew him. An outdoor enthusiast, he took me on many hikes, and showed me his Nobel prize. Solid gold, it weighed a ton. In the 60s, he was chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, and is shown with LBJ decommissioning the EBR-1 plant.

Behind the science center is Number Hill, where every graduating high school class since 1920 has painted their graduating year. This part of the west is big on defacing local mountains, I guess.

The storm arrived as predicted, but I was snug in my cheap motel, catching up on naps, planning the route, blogging, and watching the Celtics beat Dallas in the NBA finals. Can’t get much better than this.

Distance 27 miles, 1,553 total. Time 2 hours with stops. Elevation gain 26 feet (whee!)

©️ 2024 Scott Luria

Challis to MacKay, Idaho. Saturday, June 8, 2024

This was to be the biggest day in quite a while. Climbing over another high mountain pass, and then heading up to the trailhead of Borah Peak, highpoint of Idaho.

The climb up to Willow Creek Summit was not as steep as some have been, but unrelenting for 25 miles. As you can see, the shoulders were minimal (mostly gravel), and at one point it went through a narrow and dark slot canyon with limited sight distances. More of a hazard when you’re crawling uphill, and struggling to keep from weaving back-and-forth.

After four hours, I reached the first summit

and swooped down to the beginning of the second climb, a steeper 3 mile side road to the trailhead. Here, I faced a dilemma. My mapping software had indicated this would be paved, but it was gnarly gravel. Also, I had miscalculated the amount of water I would need, on that first climb I consumed more than I had intended. I only had a liter left, for a big climb and 27 more miles to my destination. If I skipped this detour, it would only be 21 miles, mostly downhill. Tempting.

But skip the detour? Getting to the trailhead was the main reason for this 250 mile loop southward, otherwise I could have taken a huge shortcut.

It had taken me a full week to get from Missoula to this point. I was not going to quit now, with just 3 miles to go. I am not throwing away my shot.

Near the intersection was a cluster of motorhomes and trailers, perhaps I could get water there. It turned out to be a construction site, not active during the weekend, and the trailers were all deserted.

The one on the left had a large red cistern, sort of a rain barrel.

I called out and knocked on the door, no answer. The cistern was about 1/4 full, I could just barely immerse my empty water bottles and fill them. The water looked clear, tasted of plastic, but it was better than nothing. And I did have that water filter Jane gave me for my birthday, never used.

I didn’t want to drink it until I had to. I found a place to remove my panniers and hide them out of sight, and proceeded up the gnarly road 100 pounds lighter. Dehydrated and bonking (the food I had needed water to wash it down), I had to stop multiple times.

The campground at the trailhead was deserted and swarming with mosquitoes; no water, just outhouses. But I recognized my departure point; another highpoint climbed from the ocean! 37 highpoints total, 21 climbed from the sea.

Here is where I digress, to talk about my original hike. It was on the same trip in 1994 when I climbed Rainier, I was scheduled for a conference in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. I flew into Spokane and drove nonstop to the trailhead, doing in eight hours what took me two weeks on a bicycle. I had just turned 40, which seemed old at the time, but I was comparatively young and strong.

Borah is a class 3 hike. Class 1 is a hike that might be long and steep, but you can do it with your hands in your pockets. Class 2 requires scrambling, using your hands as well as your feet. Class 4 is rock climbing, requiring rope and equipment. Class 3 is somewhere in between—you don’t need a climbing rope, but you might wish you had one. The best example is the chimney section of the Knife Edge on Katahdin in Maine.

As the sign explains, the trail is unremittingly steep, climbing 5,100 feet in less than 3.5 miles. The class 3 section is Chicken Out Ridge, many people balk here. At one point you have to put your foot down to a ledge you can’t see, it takes a leap of faith. After that, however, it’s just a steep uphill slog. And for me, coming down a steep trail is worse than going up.

I did it alone on 8/8/94, and then with friends Eric and Brian on 8/8/04, when I was 50. I certainly see no need to do it a third time.

The other interesting thing about Borah Peak is the earthquake that happened there 41 years ago. Only two people were killed, by falling masonry in Challis. 6.9 on the Richter scale. You can still see the scar the fault line left along the base of the mountain.

OK, back to now. I got out Jane‘s filter for that cistern water, and was horrified to see that it didn’t work. But no, you had to saturate the filter of water first, then by squeezing hard, you could get a trickle of filtered water. It didn’t taste great, but it let me eat my power bars and get some strength back. Heading down, I came across a beautiful stream I hadn’t noticed before, and filtered two more liters of water right on the spot, drinking it all right there, throwing out the plastic water. Cool, clear, and delicious.

It was all downhill from there, that’s the thing about highpoints. Still, it was 20 more miles and I didn’t arrive till almost 9, just getting into a restaurant before it closed.

The father of the proprietor was there, a nice gentleman named Gordon, and it turned out he owned the ranch right at the corner where I was having my water dilemma. He said he would’ve been happy to give me all the water I needed. He spotted me then, and was very interested in my story and my blog. I don’t remember seeing a ranch at that corner; I had passed a number of them, but they were all down long driveways. I never dreamed of imposing on one of them. Silly. I forgotten how nice people are in Idaho, and honestly everywhere along my trip.

Distance 62 miles, 1,526 total. Time 12 hours with stops. Elevation gain 3,997 feet

©️ 2024 Scott Luria

Challis, Idaho. Friday, June 7, 2024.

The weather and my state of exhaustion weren’t conducive to making the big ride today, so I’m taking another rest day. Ah, the joys of retirement. I caught up on my sleep, got supplies, confirmed logistics, and watched a great movie that I wanted to share with you.

For weeks I’ve been following the poignant odyssey of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce, chased across the northwest and the newly founded Yellowstone National Park by Oliver Otis Howard, an otherwise fairly heroic Civil War general. On the plus side, he founded Howard University, possibly the nation’s foremost HBCU, and the Freedman’s Bureau, an important component of Reconstruction. He later settled in my hometown, a number of institutions in Burlington are named for him, and he is buried in our local cemetery.

On the negative side, he bought the brunt of Stonewall Jackson’s brilliant flanking maneuver at the battle of Chancellorsville, considered one of the most lopsided victories in history; Jackson was fatally wounded in the battle, which was the basis for The Red Badge of Courage. He was also one of the chief perpetrators of Sherman’s march to the sea. And of course, his role in the Chief Joseph story is problematic. When Joseph was finally caught, 40 miles from the Canadian border and safety, he pronounced his famous line, “I will fight no more forever.”

This is a made-for-TV movie from 1975–somewhat dated, but really well done. It features a very young Sam Elliott as Captain Wood. If you have the kind of free time I do, I think you’ll enjoy it. And hey, the price is right. I hope embedding this video is not too problematic.

Salmon to Challis, Idaho. Thursday, June 6, 2024.

You’d think I would know better, after all these decades of touring.

Today was going to be such a pleasant ride. 60 miles and 2,300 feet of climbing, sure, but following the Salmon River and with a nice tail wind all day.

I took my time leaving this morning. Chatted with Brandon, my Warmshowers host. Called the family of a friend, whose aunt had died. Tarried at lunch talking with the waitresses and patrons. I had plenty of time.

But then, with something as capricious as a wind shift, everything changed. Suddenly, the tailwind had turned to a headwind, focused by the walls of the canyon. I still had 35 miles to go, and 15–20 mph headwinds the whole way. No major hills, but a headwind is like a constant hill. I’d splurged on a deluxe hamburger salad for lunch, forgetting that hamburgers always make me feel logy. Used every one of my five bottles of water. For the last stretch to the motel, I was taking rests every mile, and barely crawling. Didn’t get in till 8:30.

The “easy” day turned out to be one of the most challenging of the trip. I should’ve known better. I try not to make these posts just a recitation of the days events, try to throw in some interesting photos or historical/cultural context. No time for that today. Apologies. Big day tomorrow.

Distance 60 miles, 1,464 total. Time 10 hours with stops. Elevation gain 2,279 feet

©️ 2024 Scott Luria

Sula, Montana to Salmon, Idaho. Wednesday, June 5, 2024.

I went to college surrounded by engineers. I was even going to be an electrical engineer myself, until I changed to biology. In the early 70s, engineers were a dime a dozen, so the field did not seem particularly glamorous. It wasn’t until I graduated that I realized just how special they can be. Simply put, they take science and apply it to real life situations.

My roommate was going to be a civil engineer, a field I didn’t understand. What was he going to do, move earth around? I remember a joke going around (please skip the next four paragraphs if you’ve heard this one)

Three engineers were having a discussion: what kind of an engineer was God?

The mechanical engineer marveled at the design of the human body. All those muscles, bones, joints, tendons, and how they all function in a coordinated, elegant manner. Clearly God was a mechanical engineer.

The electrical engineer countered that there is nothing more intricate than the human brain. Even the fanciest super computer can’t hope to approach the bandwidth, the learning, the adaptability. God was obviously an electrical engineer.

The civil engineer said “You’re both nuts. Who else, who else would run a sewer line right down the middle of a major recreational area?”

So maybe civil engineering, like Rodney Dangerfield, didn’t get no respect. Well, I sure respected it today. US 93 was built in 1934. I followed it as it climbed 2,600 feet through a tortured landscape. Around every bend I would see canyons, crags, impossibly steep slopes, snow capped mountains and wonder how are we going to get through that? Yet through a series of switchbacks, trestles, and graded banks the road kept going, smooth, never greater than 6% grade. It was just amazing. Built almost a century ago, it had been repaved and repaired, but the basic design was preserved intact. Wow.

My imperfect body struggled over this perfect highway. I can’t count the number of times I stopped to rest. Luckily, the traffic wasn’t bad, and there was always a decent shoulder. My dropper post made it easier to get going again. Despite two Frappuccinos as rocket fuel, it took me almost 5 hours to climb those 13 miles, topping out at Lost Trail Pass, 7,021 feet, the highest I’ve ridden my bike on this trip. The splendor was all around me, but nothing I could capture in a photograph, my only pic was a selfie at the pass, where I crossed back into Idaho.

After that, it was Easy Street. Still quite a bit of snow at the pass, but in the valley it was over 80°. I even had a tailwind. The narrative of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce’s heartbreaking odyssey accompanied me by audiobook as I followed the Salmon River to its eponymous town. Stayed in my most rustic Warm Showers accommodation to date, an old trailer that had been rehabbed. But hey, it was comfortable and Brandon let me take a shower in the main house.

Distance 62 miles, 1,404 total. Time 10 hours with stops. Elevation gain 3,271 feet

©️ 2024 Scott Luria

Hamilton to Sula, Montana Tuesday, June 4, 2024.

Today would be the easiest of the next four days, no major climbs, just 36 miles; would’ve liked to go further, but that’s how the lodging worked out. There was a big challenge today, however, 7 miles of a scary twisty road, busier US 93 this time, with no shoulder.

At least I’d been forewarned. Montana has an excellent resource, a highway map tailored to bicyclists, indicating the width of shoulders, presence of rumble strips, and traffic density, along with big climbs.

In the map detail, you can see today’s route with Hamilton towards the top and Sula, most of the way to the bottom. If you look at the legend, you can see that most of the route has rumble strips and wide shoulders, but the neon green arrow points to a 7 mile stretch where there is no shoulder at all, and that gets 1404 vehicles and 105 trucks a day.

It helped to know that other people had done this, and that in fact it was part of the Transamerica Trail, so soon it will be the site of thousands of bicyclists. But I am ahead of the crowd and did not see another cyclist all day.

Most people would not even dream of tackling a road like this. Of all the potential ways you could get hit by a car, people seem to most fear being run down from behind. In fact, this is a tiny fraction of car/bicycle accidents, most of the collisions come from cars that are in front of you*.

One of the greatest lessons I got from MIT had nothing to do with biology. A traffic engineer, John Forester, had studied car/bicycle accidents for 40 years, and compiled his findings in a seminal book called Effective Cycling (MIT Press). It’s still in print.

Bicycling has been my primary mode of transportation my entire life. Between commuting and touring I have ridden over 200,000 miles, through many Vermont winters, and many cities—such as DC, Boston, New York, London, and Paris—and never had an accident, or even a close call. I credit this book with keeping me alive. Forester took his data and compiled many pages of strategies for dealing with just about every challenging traffic situation: storm drains, parked cars, exit ramps, left-hand turns, poor shoulders etc. They have become my mantra, second nature to me. They have kept me safe.

Forester’s central premise is that bicycles are vehicles, subject to the rules of the road, and entitled to their protections. Like any slow moving vehicle, they should stay to the right as much as they safely can, and faster cars should pass them in the adjacent lane.

The key phrase is “as much as they safely can”. For bicycle, that means about 2 feet out from the edge of the pavement or obstructions such as potholes or storm drains, or a car door’s length out from parked cars. I’m always looking ahead for these obstructions, and take that safety margin ahead of time, so that I don’t have to swerve suddenly into traffic.

Most states require vehicles to pass bicycles with 3–4 feet of clearance. It’s all about visibility. With my dynamo generator my headlight and taillight are on 24/7, my panniers and clothing are high-visibility, and I use that crazy bright flasher in dicey situations like today’s poor shoulders. Nevertheless, I assume that cars ahead of me don’t see me unless I establish eye contact, and behave accordingly.

All of this often means that I am “taking the lane” more than the typical bicyclist does, but because I behave predictably and always follow the rules of the road, I almost never get attitude from drivers. I can count on one hand the number of times per year I get honked or yelled at.

Whenever a friend or patient has an accident, or whenever there is a bicycle fatality in Vermont, I try to get all the details. With the exception of drunk or distracted drivers, I feel my strategies would have avoided that accident.

For today’s scary shoulderless 7 miles, I turned off my audiobook, changed my AirPods from “noise canceling” to “transparency” (actually amplifies, like a hearing aid) and had my eye on the rearview mirror almost constantly. When blind curves approached, I tried to position myself so that cars behind me could see me as far away as possible, then pulled over to my safety margin as they approached. I tried to think like a driver. I made it with no incident, no honking.

The only accommodation on the stretch was Camp Sula, campground and cabins. The general store was closed.

My campsite looked inviting, and had an electrical hook up

but I didn’t like the look of those clouds,

and I opted for a cozy cabin, heated and with linens, for only $30 more.

I need to get an early start tomorrow. The Bitterroot River, babbling just outside my window, lulled me to sleep. Yup, a river runs through it.

Distance 36 miles, 1,342 total. Time 6 hours with stops. Elevation gain 1,438 feet

©️ 2024 Scott Luria

* the most common accidents are the left cross, where an oncoming vehicle turns left into you, the right hook, where passing vehicle makes a right hand turn right in front of you, and the T-bone, where a vehicle on the side street doesn’t see you.