We slept well in our hotel room in Wallace. It was a good night to be inside because it started raining early and continued to rain through the morning. It is one thing to sleep in a tent in the rain and entirely another thing to pack up a tent and all your gear  in the rain. Our hotel room helped us avoid this.

Vance and Page woke up early in Missoula and drove to Wallace to pick us up at the hotel at 9 AM in order to make the shuttle timing work. It is a little less fun to be on a schedule, but we had arranged with someone to help shuttle Vance’s truck to a safe location and needed to accommodate them driver’s schedule. We loaded our bike with theirs and drove to Lookout Pass (ski area) where we started our ride. The shuttle worked out perfectly and we were able to position the truck in a good place for us to recover on Saturday evening.

We introduced Vance and Page to Pete-style navigation by getting off route right at the beginning of our ride and had to go off-road over a rough 4-wheel drive road and up a steep embankment to get on route. It was great having four people to push the bike when we went up the embankment. Had it just been Natalie and I we might have had to unload the bike first.

The ride from then on was a beautiful mostly downhill trek on dirt roads. It was a bit cold but not a problem.  We rode a short segment of the Route of the Olympian out to the tunnel and trestle as an out-and·back and then started the Route of the Hiawatha. This time we spent more time reading the various signs along the trail and learning the history of the old rail line and the people who operated it. The railroad is an amazing engineering feat, but perhaps the most amazing aspect of it is the ingenuity and perseverance of the people who not only constructed it but kept it operational for so long.

Tonight we are in a hotel in Avery – the same one we stayed in last week. Last week we needed the shower because we were hot and sweaty. Tonight we needed it because we were a bit chilled (except for Vance – he is a human heater).

It has been great to ride with Vance and Page. We’ve done these adventures for several years now and could only share them with people through this travel journal. Now we get to share the experience first hand. It creates a few small logistical needs, but it’s overwhelmingly worth it to have people we love and enjoy with us.

Today we rode a little over 40 miles, mostly downhill. It was an enjoyable ride and both bikes worked well. Tomorrow is a bit longer and also involves a shuttle, as we head back to Heyburn State Park and are trying to skip the highway portion of the ride that had us on a small shoulder with logging trucks.

Here is a link to photos from the day.