7/5/12 Bigfork to Cedar Creek 42 miles

We had a late start on July 5th. We didn't get to bed until 1am the night before(not good for early starts!)  We finished up laundry etc., and said goodbye to Loraine and Silas, who is hanging out with grandma for a few days.  He's helping her out mowing the grass, watering etc. and then heading back out to Bitterroot to go fishing.  

More pics here

Daren and I left Loraine's and Bigfork, heading for Cedar Creek Campground in the Swan Mountain range 10 miles south of Swan Lake on Hwy 83. We rode through a beautiful valley near the Swan River, then started our first big climb of 2000ft. It took about an hour and a half at 3-5 miles an hour!  It was beautiful but pretty warm.  We crested the ridge and had a nearly 2000ft descent. FUN!  We thought we were making pretty good progress, but started getting a little concerned when we started running over a lot of brush from downed trees that had been removed from a blowdown. Eventually we found ourselves going under then climbing over at least 15 downed trees that had not been cleared with no end in sight!  Daren decided to scout on foot the road ahead to see if there was any end to this madness.  In the meantime, the mosquitos found me.  The report was "no end in sight"!!  We had to turn around and head back to a junction road that took us to Hwy 83.  Boo!  All in all, a ten mile detour:( Hwy 83 was kind of scary, cars whizzing by us at 70 miles an hour.  We rode that for about 12 miles until we finally made it to our campsite 2hrs and 10 miles further than we planned.

But, waiting for us, was Sarah with ice cold water and dinner just about ready!  What a welcoming!

Shortly after we arrived, two heavily geared cyclists pulled into the same camping area.  They were towing trailers, and had just come 63 miles from Columbia Falls.

One of the guys, Paul, is riding the whole Divide, and his friend Russ is with him until Denver.  Really nice guys from Minnesota, both retired.  We offered Paul a beer and Russ was busy setting up their camp.  We climbed into the luxury of our motorhome feeling a little lame but glad to have such a nice vehicle to crash in and such a great friend to help us on the way to our dream.