Where's Vickie 2010, Volume 4

Along Lake Koocanusa

Lots of these rock walls along Lake Koocanusa

Loading bikes for all of us bailing on the ride to Whitefish

The only moose I've seen so far...

Another excuse for margaritas!

I wish it was me in the picture, but it's Lynn. What a perfect biking picture!

Me with Lake Koocanusa

Kootenai Falls

Lake Koocanusa

Site of the great glacial ice dam... see below for more info

Christine, Vickie, Rebecca and Kit in Sand Point

I couldn't resist this perfect daisy lying on the pavement after rain in Whitefish

Day 10 - June 29th - Sand Point, Idaho
Rest Day!
77 and sunshine - perfect biking weather!

No biking today. Spent the day wandering around this pleasant little tourist town, and napping. I bought a new camera -- 12 mega pixels with a 5x zoom, for less than half the price of my defunct 6-year-old with 8 mp and 3x zoom. It doesn’t have a view finder, but the guy at the camera store says even Canon, the last hold out, doesn’t make view finder cameras any more, and the LCD screen seems reasonably visible even in bright sunlight.

At one store today, I asked the saleswoman if Lake Pend Oreille was a natural lake or dammed. She looked at me strangely and said “ you mean lake Pend-O-Relly?”. I’ve asked another couple of locals and they are unfamiliar with this pronunciation. As to whether it’s a natural lake or not…. Yes, it’s a natural, glacier-formed lake, but made somewhat larger by a damn downstream. This is the largest lake in the northwest, and at 1150 feet, #13 on the list of the world deepest.(holy cow, did you know that Lake Baikal is 5369 feet deep???)

A 98 mile day coming up tomorrow, so I’m off to bed.

Day 11 - June 30th - Libbey, MT
98 miles, 3160 feet cumulative elevation gain
80 and sunshine - perfect biking weather!

Another day where I was barely functional at the end, so I am writing this a day later. And since I am once again barely functional, not sure how descriptive I can be about yesterday.

We went through the Cabinet mountains today. Through, thank god, rather than over. Big, steep, tree-covered mountains all around, but after leaving Lake Pend Oreille, we followed along the beautiful Kootenai river valley all day. The Kootenai is a surprisingly big river.

Not far out of Libbey today we passed the site of the huge ice dam that blocked ancient Lake Missoula. This dam was over 200 stories tall and covered, the sign said, as far as the eye could see. Then occasionally, every few thousand years, it gave way, letting all that water pour out, which is what formed large parts of the landscape in eastern Washington. The area there is sometimes called the “channeled scablands” which makes it sound awful, but it’s really quite beautiful. See from the air, it looks like someone dumped a washtub of water into a Childs sandbox. It’s really quite remarkable, and so hard to even imagine such a cataclysm of water. For more on this quite fascinating story, see
www.glaciallakemissoula.org/story.html

I saw a bear! Just a little black bear, munching on something alongside the road.

Near the end of the day I stopped to see Kootenai falls, well worth a visit. Not a big falls, but a beautiful series of smaller ones, surrounded by rocky shores begging to be sat on in the sunshine. I wish I’d been able to spend a half day there.

Day 12 - July 1st - Eureka, MT
67 miles, 3400 ft cumulative elevation gain
70 and sunshine - perfect biking weather!

We started out in a 48 degree cloudy chill this morning, but by lunchtime were back in the sunshine. This was a very difficult day, perhaps more so than yesterday, through the Purcell mountains. Who knew there were so many mountains???? And now the Rockies are in sight.

Most of the day we were again along the Kootenai River and it’s dammed counterpart, Lake Koocanusa…. A tortured combination of Kootenai, Canada, and USA. Personally I wish they’d just called it Lake Kootenai.

This was some of the most fabulous scenery so far on the trip. We rode on high bluffs above the lake, with sheer rock walls to the right and lake to the left. Visited briefly with a bevy of rock climbers, some of whom were hanging from said walls.

I swear gravity works differently here. Yesterday, and especially today, I found myself having to granny down into my lowest gears on roads that looked flat, or even downhill. Yesterday at the end of the day even though we were riding UP the Kootenai river, we coasted DOWN hill. But the worst was just before getting into Eureka today: it looks like downhill; the town, I swear, is down in a pretty green valley. But you have to pump like hell to get to it.

This is a HARD trip. Strenuous. Tiring. Arduous. Demanding. Exhausting.. I think I’m still having a good time, but I’m too tired to know for sure…..

Day 13 - July 2nd - Whitefish, MT
0 miles, 0 ft cumulative elevation gain
45-70 rain, sun, rain, sun - perfect biking weather!

I rode in the van today, along with nearly half of the group. After riding more than 160 seriously hilly miles in two days, I had trouble getting to sleep last night due to aching thighs, aching feet, aching hands, aching shoulders. I would’ve been another 60 hilly miles today, and the rain this morning was the last straw.

It was SOOOOO nice not to have to rush around getting ready this morning. I got to have 2 leisurely cups of good (aka, NOT Farmer Brothers at the motel ) coffee.

We were in the Whitefish in time for lunch. Many of us bought “Going to the Sun” (which we will be riding up on July 5th ) jerseys at the local bike shop. There’s an art fair going on downtown, which I spent an hour or two at and bought a lovely fused glass plate (being shipped home). Whitefish has a very nice downtown with lots of interesting little tourist-trade places, art galleries, outdoor clothing stores, and the like. And many espresso places… in fact, there’s one in the parking lot of our motel! Good coffee again tomorrow morning!