(Backup) Fernie to Whitefish

Wow it’s been a busy few days and the kms have just flown by! We left Fernie with a bit of trepidation as we had heard there was peanut butter mud and bikes breaking through this section after some rough weather over the weekend. The first part of the ride went out through the back of town on sealed roads and was a lovely ride and wah to see another part of the city. It was pretty fast riding for the first 20kms or so on the seal then we got to the gravel and were pleasantly surprised by the conditions- it was perfect riding for 99% of the time. There were logging trucks working and they made a great track for us to ride on. We got to butts cabin for lunch and found a fellow TD rider who had just pulled out of the race due to bum issues - it was raw and he had taped it with gaffer tape in Fernie then got to butts cabin the previous day and decided that he couldn’t go on! After that rather horrific story we all reapplied the chamois cream again !! 

The afternoons ride took us over cabin pass and back down to wigwam camp ground - a pretty basic camp ground in the middle of nowhere next to a river. We were all pretty happy about camping but did start to see rather a lot of bear scat (poo) the closer we got ! 

We made a great wee camp fire, set up tents, ate some dinner , removed all food and smelly items- like tooth paste etc and hung it all in a tree - Mckayla nailed the throw first time so score one to us! 

Had a rather restless nights sleep thanks to a rather over active imagination and was pretty happy when the   Alarm went off at 5am to get up and start a new day ! 

The next day took us up the infamous “wall” and all I can really say is that it was bloody hard work and I may have had a wee meltdown ! We climbed from the campsite for about 20kms before hitting about a km of single track then the “wall” before getting back to normal track, we passed over Galton pass at about 1800m before dropping back down the other side and it seemed another world as we were only 4 kms from the US border.

We crossed over the border and had our finger prints and photos taken and were told we needed to be gone from the US by 9th Sept! It was all rather serious and we didn’t make any jokes as they were not in to that at all! 

We biked down to Eureka 16kms south of the border and stayed with a warm showers host ( people open up there homes to bike packers) which was a nice experience. Our hosts Latimer and Keri were a school teacher and physician assistant and had been in Eureka for 2yrs. They are keen cyclists and hikers and put our minds at ease about the next days ride through red meadow.

Today’s journey took us 146kms up over two passes - whitefish pass then red meadow pass. It was an awesome days riding - great conditions with a variety of scenery and a real satisfaction to get to Whitefish in 12 hrs.

We counted deer as we started out the day and got up to 47 in the first 30kms of the ride ! 

The whitefish pass was a gentle climb and when we came out the other side fully expected to be in the middle on nowhere but turned out to be in cabin central passing at least 100 cabins / beautiful houses tucked into the bush, it was quite surreal.

We turned back in towards the red meadow pass and left behind civilisation again and ran into some local wildlife officers- we asked them what they were up to today and their response was “ hunting grizzly” wish we never asked!!!

We didn’t see any bears but we made a lot of noise and there were four of us ( we met two kiwi blokes doing the divide) so safety in numbers we had been told!

The ride up the second pass was again nice riding though a little steeper in places and we hit snow on the trail right near the top but a beautiful view over the lake and valley was well worth it !

We flew back down the pass and into Whitefish in time to get the bikes a quick once over at the local bike shop - shout out to glacier cycles they were awesome!!! 

And tomorrow brings another day on the divide but today we were definitely “living the dream” !