Montana – buff3ysbicyclingblog

Into the relatively wide open spaces of Montana.

Missoula is a funky little craft beer lovin’ city with loads of cycling credibility so I perch myself at the bar of a brewery in the centre of town to enjoy some cool and refreshing IPAs. Montana is proving to be a good place to find a nice beer and lashings of lovely huckleberry smoothies. At last out of the column of trees that was Canada I stretch out and surge out across the prairie. Wisdom further south marks a cultural change to something more akin to ‘the West’; well, my image of it anyway. I avoid the gun show that is in town for two days (a sad affair in the community hall charging $5 to get in) and ride on for Jackson (Rosa’s Cafe), then over a small pass and and a roll of 20km down into Dillon, a brewery town boasting a university.

South of Dillon I decide to cut across the north of the Blacktail Mountains on a quiet dirt road towards Yellowstone National Park and after an afternoon’s riding without a lot of water, find a bridge with a pretty rank river that can at least provide some water for boiling. Curtis who is riding towards Denver at a rate of knots arrives with just enough time to set camp before a storm that has been threatening to arrive for most of the afternoon hits with full force. These things are building up during hot summer days and this one soon turns into an electrical storm the likes of which this boy has not seen for some time. The pre-storm winds take on biblical proportions and I’m soon hunkered down in the tent hanging on for grim death, watching the lightning flashes through the flimsy sheeting as they all too gradually flash across the sky. Having Curtis there at least increased the chances of the lightning barbecuing someone who was not your worthy correspondent – thanks Curtis.

Then it is across the border into Idaho momentarily and a lovely little lodge/bar/cabin property called Squirrel Creek along the Ashton road just west of the Teton National Park. Am hoping back onto the ‘great-divide biking route again now so on sighting the bike-friendly sign (refer photo) your correspondent cruises in for an afternoon of gas-bagging and imbibing with the owners and some guy who just seemed to be there to drink beer. Then off into Wyoming and the Yellowstone and Teton National Parks.