Sula to Jackson, MT

Via Hwy 93 to top of Lost Trail pass, Hwy 43 to Wisdom then Hwy 278 to Jackson. 58.2 miles.

It was another beautiful ride today, but it turned out to be very hard. We began the day climbing out of Sula toward the top of Chief Joseph Pass on the Continental Divide, an elevation gain of almost 2,700 feet. While we were still in the first few miles (where the grade was pretty gentle) we met a couple of cyclists coming down the pass. Scott and Erik began their trip in Washington state and then rode down the coast into Oregon, across Nevada and Utah into Colorado.* At the time we met them they were on their way to northern Montana (Glacier National Park). From there they planned to go up into Canada, across to British Columbia and then back down to Washington to complete their loop tour. They said they rode at night across some of the Nevada desert to avoid the heat. They laughed at all the stuff we were carrying and joked that perhaps we were carrying the cooler "to store our performance-enhancing drugs."

Shortly after we said goodbye to each other, the climb up to the summit of the pass became very steep (an average grade of 7%) and, much to our dismay, remained as steep all the way to the top - a distance of nearly 10 miles. We were able to spin it in our lowest gear (4 mph) but had to take breaks about every mile and one-half. It ended up taking us 4 hours to reach the summit, by which time we were thoroughly tired. Yet we still had three-quarters of the distance to our day's destination (Jackson) ahead of us.

We dropped down from the pass into the town of Wisdom, were we had some ice cream and tried to re-energize ourselves for the remaining 18 mile leg into Jackson. As we were about to depart Wisdom, our fellow tandem riders (Williams family) rolled in. They had gotten a lift to the top of the pass in a pickup truck because Mike's knee is still very tender. They then stopped for several hours at the Big Hole battlefield national monument (commemorating an Indian Wars battle in 1877), and had now breezed into town looking for a place to eat lunch. They were obviously having a great time, while we were just trying to remain upright. After we rather masterfully restrained our instant jealousy, we wished them well and headed off to Jackson. We were very tired but felt like we could grind out the miles without bonking.**

We were mostly right. A few miles before Jackson, a strong weather front blew through. The cross wind gusts were easily 50 mph, making steering very difficult and reducing our progress to a crawl. It ended up taking us an over an hour to ride the last few miles into town. We finally limped in at 6 pm, completing a 9 hour ride day.

To cap things off, we soon learned that the same storm had knocked out all power in town. So our motel, the restaurant and both bars in town were dark. (The cook did manage to cook some things with the gas range and beer remained available, so it wasn't a complete disaster.)

As we were finishing dinner we saw the Williams' roll in. It turns out that they also were caught in the wind storm but decided to hunker down by the side of the road to wait for it to clear off. We were
glad to see them but too tired to socialize much, so we hit the sack.***

*I also forgot to mention the doctor-cyclist who we met yesterday on the way into Sula. He could only get away from the office for 3 weeks at a time, so he would take off on his bike for short tours. The interesting thing about him was how little stuff he carried. Although he was clearly an ultra light weight weenie, he had cooking gear, water filtration equipment and enough food to survive on his own for several days. Yet the total amount of his stuff would nearly fit into just one of our pannier bags.
**Bonking is a cycling term for the condition also termed "running out of gas," "hitting the wall," and similar descriptors.

***The power came back on just before we crawled into bed.
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