Butte to Wise River, Montana

After yesterday’s rain and hail, today I brought both my rain jacket and rain pants along on the bike. Lesson learned. We coasted all the way to the campground this morning to eat our fill of breakfast. It was chillier today. Then, we cycled down the side street to merge into morning traffic before getting off on a hike and bike trail for a bit, then, a country highway and finally onto Interstate 90 for one exit (5 miles). Most of the vehicles blowing by at 80 mph moved over to the left lane. It was still nerve wracking.

Our first snack stop was a brand new Copperway Regional Trailhead. We were impressed by the freshly paved bike trail heading off past the vault toilets. (Vault toilets are simply outhouses in parks. If it has both toilet paper and hand sanitizer, it is a pretty nice vault toilet!)

Then, we headed back onto the highway until we could turn off onto a quieter country road just after Opportunity. At this point, we could see what must have been some tip of mining going on. We saw a large smoke stack standing against the horizon. Google maps lists this as Anaconda Smoke Stack State Park, which used to be a copper mine. The stack is the smelter, which was in operation until 1980.

It was getting hot; and, this was the road we were going to take to cross the Continental Divide. Located in the Rocky Mountains, all rivers west of the Continental Divide flow into the Pacific Ocean; and, all rivers east flow east. While this wasn’t technically listed as a mountain pass, crossing the Continental Divide counted as such in my tally. We kept pedaling, slow and steady, up the long and gradual climb. It did start to cool off as we got higher, but, we were still quite warm from the uphilll effort.

At the crest, there was no sign announcing that we’d crossed the Continental Divide; however, we enjoyed the downhill coast to the lunch stop, a lodge in the woods. It was a venue for events like weddings. Yet, none of us had any cellphone service. Can’t imagine getting lost trying to get in and out of there. While eating lunch, I saw my first sterling jay! It is a beautiful blue and bigger than a blue jay.

Before heading out from lunch, we put on our rain clothes for the chilly descent and due to the threat of rain. We were generating lots of breeze flying downhill. But, by the time we reached the bottom, we were hot and sweaty again. We ripped off rain coats and pants along the side of the road, in the middle of a horde of mosquitos. Those mosquitos clung on for miles, as we got back on our bicycles as quickly as possible.

Now, we were cycling along the Hole River, where we saw several people out fishing. Still no phone reception, even when we got to Wise River, which has a post office, so, it must be a town. Yet, all it seemed to be was one building that was a restaurant, bar, campground, casino and hotel. We had to go into the bar or stand very close to the building to even get WiFi. At least we had an indoor place to hang out; and, I learned a new card game this evening.