Tuesday, June 22, 2010

This photo shows what the road going down from Cooper's pass was like. The road going up was much steeper and had bigger multi-colored rocks all over the road. But on the way down we were pretty tired, and it was snowing, and it was dark. With these conditions we had to bike down very slowly, which means constant application of the brakes. This constant braking caused our hands to start cramping and our brake pads to start heating up and smelling. Additionally going downhill in 40 degree weather caused us to chill. Therefore we had to alternate riding with walking our bikes, which kept us warm, kept our brakes cool, and our hands from fatiguing.
This is the sign we found on the beginning of the Cooper's Pass Road on the other side. AT ~11pm we were cold, wet, tired and still had 15 miles to go into Thompson Falls. As we began our last leg we began to appease our minds with thoughts of warm food and hopefully warm hotels. But with ~8miles to go we hit a stroke of luck and found a open bar right on the side of the road, the Snake Pit. We were overjoyed. As we entered we told each other to play it cool as we didn't know how welcome four wet bikers would be in a random Montana bar in the middle of nowhere.

But much to our delight the bar was our safe haven. As we entered we were warmly greeted by the patrons, the bartender and the owner Wayne. All were impressed by our sketchy pass crossing and soon Wayne offered us a trailer to stay in for the night. All of our needs were taken care of and we ordered a few (i'm not telling how much) drinks at the bar and had some great conversations about cap and trade, war, cancer, herbology, and Life.

We made it to the trailer.


Awesome bed spread.




No comments:

Post a Comment