Pictures and Stories About Bicycle Tour Adventures
Butte, Divide Creek, Wise River, Elkhorn Hot Springs, Polaris,
Bannack State Park, to Grant, Montana; June, 2012;
Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest in the
Pioneer Mountain Range of the Rocky Mountains;
Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (GDMBR - Segment)
Day 3 - Wise River to Elkhorn Hot Springs
By Way of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (GDMBR)
Above Left: 0545 hours, breakfast, oatmeal, outdoors, no cooking in the room; restaurant opens at 0800 Hours.
Above Right: We're on the road again, MT Hwy-73 (National Scenic Byway), it's a treat to the senses.
Above Left: We're looking west at a ranch entryway. They have a nice totem pole; the wind is back; we're heading south.
Above Right: Enjoying the view. We're riding to Elkhorn Hot Springs and it will be hard road all the way (but we still have to climb a few thousand feet by way of Crystal Park).
Above Left: Share the Road (back shot).
Above Right: Heavy Duty Rock Slide (Wise River).
Above Left: Horse Loading Ramp.
Above Right: Someone owns an Arc Welder.
Above Left: We catch a Doe crossing a field.
Above Right: Wise River.
Above Left: Woodland Fence; that clear 5 foot (1.6 meter) swath under the trees results from cattle grazing.
Above Right: Wise River.
Above Left: We're about 12 miles down the road now and we drop into Pattengail Campground to use the facilities. We are the only people here.
Above Right: The storyboard at Pattengail Campground.
Above Left: The camp's Bear Warning/Alert. We never saw a bear on this trip, we never even saw Bear Scat. Apparently we would just miss a bear at the Boulder Creek Campground about 4 miles down the road, according to hikers on the roadside that we met. Fine with us.
Above Right: Solar Collector.
Above Left: Terry and the Bee next to Wise Creek, Montana, on the GDMBR.
Above Right: Deer.
Above: Generous delta of the Wise River and Lacy Creek area.
Above Left: Deer (head only, dead center).
Above Right: Deer - There was a spotted fawn underneath the mommy. I kept pedaling because I knew that if we stopped to get a good picture, the mommy would take off running.
Above Left: New Grass growing on a forest floor that had a fire a few years back.
Above Right: Southbound on Montana Hwy-73 (before the big climb to Crystal Park).
Above Left: 9 Miles to Crystal Park, Elkhorn is probably just 3 miles further.
Above Right: Wise River (getting smaller as we head uphill).
Above Left: Grand Vista Rec Site.
Above Right: Little Joe CG.
Above: We're at Forest Road 484 on Hwy-73; we decide to have a mid-morning picnic up the hill from here, overlooking this intersection. We were surprised at the amount of people that would stop at the intersection, see the bike (next to the Stop sign), then see us and wave, some even rolled down their windows to wish us a pleasant journey (or words to that effect). It was sort of Cool. This location happens to be about 100 yards/meters before the big climb for Crystal Park.
Above Left: Thus begins the long ascent. About half way up, a guy stops on his way downhill on a Harley-Davidson Ultra Glide (it was a nice setup). We had about a ten minute conversation with him and his wife. They were just out riding and on vacation for a week, he was from Montana. It is not unusaul to get a hand wave from touring motorcyclists when we are on remote hard roads. He told us about a fire near Colorado Springs - Sadly, we'd learn later that some people that we knew of had lost their homes.
Above Right: An interesting little spring and green delta on the hillside. The temperature is significantly cooler, like in the low 70sF/low 20sC and it feels like it may rain but it never does.
Above Left: We're arriving at Mano Park on Mano Creek in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest.
Above Right: Another view of Mano Park (on the GDMBR). We're probably at about 6200'/1900m.
Above: Elk Herd, as soon as they saw us they disappeared; Mano Creek in the foreground; a field of Blue Camas (more Camas pictures below); the big rocks in the fields were deposited by Glacier.
Above Left: Ranger's Old Cabin.
Above Right: Field of Blue Camas.
Above: Field of Blue Camas and White American Bistort; Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (GDMBR), Mano Park,
Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest, Montana; June, 2012.
Above: Terry Struck in a Field of Blue Camas and White American Bistort; Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (GDMBR), Mano Park, Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest, Montana; June, 2012.
Above: Close-ups of Blue Camas.
Above Left: Dennis Struck in Mano Park on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (GDMBR), Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest, Montana; June, 2012.
Above Right: Lupine Picnic Area.
Above: Ancient Glacier Moraine Field.
Above: Volcanic Development/History.
Above Left: Moose Waters - We really expected to see a Moose, but we never saw a Moose in this National Forest.
Above Right: Deer.
Above Left: Heading East momentarily; Comet Mtn, 10,212'/3,112m.
Above Right: Camas field, plus wood pole fence.
Above: Fellow Travelers who are performing the South to North GDMBR Race. We had a delightful but brief discussion and learned of some trail conditions. They advised us to not stay the night at Elkhorn Hot Springs. We were already committed and the shuttle vehicle was there - 20/20 hindsight says that we should have listened, ... more later.
Above Left: We have lunch at Crystal Park. We met a family with a little boy (4-5 years old) who brought a bucket and a little shovel. His objective was to dig up a crystal.
Above Right: 6 miles to Elkhorn Hot Springs; maybe 1.5 miles to 'Comet Pass'. We will ride on Hwy 287 tomorrow, on the way to Bannack State Park.
Above: Comet Pass side views.
Above Left: Comet Pass.
Above Right: Maverick Mountain Ski Area (beyond Elkhorn).
Above Left: National Scenic Byway.
Above Right: Elkhorn Hot Springs (we're turning right).
Above Left: Terry, the Bee, and the Elkhorn Hot Springs Pool.
Above Right: Our Cabin for the night (big mistake, read more, no plumbing, it does have electricity, these are not issues to us).
Above Left: Outhouse (while stinky, it does have clean seats, this is NOT an issue).
Above Right: Two beds, they are really old and really saggy, this is an issue. The center of the mattress has a big black hole and all gravity sinks to the center of the mattress universe. I could mentally picture Steven Hawkins diagramming this image with an Event Horizon graph and a deep Gravity Well. We have NOT got to the bad part yet, read the last entry.
Above Left: Dennis and Terry Struck go for a swim in the Hot Spring. It felt great and it did NOT have a Sulfer smell.
Above Right: Open to Nature, Year Around.
Above Left: The Pool Management Building (notice the centered moon).
Above Right: That's Terry, she's part fish and she was on her College Swim Team.
Above Left: This is our table and our sit down dinner; just boil water and let sit for 10-15 minutes, Beef Stroganoff on Noodles.
Above Right: This is our gear.
A Disturbing Critter in the House STORY:
I woke up to some rustling sound during the night. I just sat bolt upright on instinct. As I collected my wits, I realized that we had a critter inside the cabin, likely a mouse but maybe as big as a chipmunk. I turned on the light and checked the cabin; nothing was found. This went on for two or three iterations, with maybe an hour sleep in between each of the wakeups. Each time I secured our belongings a little better. At 0300 I woke again to a rustling sound, this time I was afraid that maybe I had trapped a critter inside one of our plastic storage boxes, so we got up, turned on the lights and we systematically unloaded every box and checked all contents and reloaded the plastic storage boxes and secured the cover/lid.
At 0400 I awoke again and I realized, finally, that the critter noise was coming from our Cabin's Trash Receptacle. The critter, still probably a field mouse, was rummaging through our empty re-hydrated food packages that we had put into the cabin's trash bin. Well, we never saw or found the noise making critter, but we could not go back to sleep, so we packed up the bike and started cycling at about 0600 Hrs in the cold early morning. I was not a happy camper.
My recommendation is DO NOT STAY IN THE ELKHORN HOT SPRINGS CABIN(S).
They are NOT worthy of the mental or physical discomfort that they cause.
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