Written by Dave

Day 24 – June 21 – 74 Miles, 2,680 feet climbing (Dillon to Ennis)

I had the best night sleep of the entire trip so far last night. It may have made me a little cheery and anxious to get going this morning. Or at least my tent mate gave me that impression. Pretty soon tent life will be normal life, right Nanc?

We broke camp at 7:20, heading straight to The Sweetwater Bakery. We were first in and the crew working there was quite efficient. The Fox News media team followed us in, including a big mobile camera truck. At first I thought they were looking to get the scoop on Chris and his new Grey Jersey but no, they just wanted coffee. We hit the road at about 8:30 after some running repairs to Pete’s 31 year old front panniers.

We made good time heading towards Twin Bridges. The road had a great shoulder for about the first 10 miles, after that, not so much. We had a slight tailwind and were heading slightly downhill. We made two stops on the way, the first at Beaverhead Rock (I can kind of see it is I blur my eyes). Our second stop was for my first flat tire of the trip. For the flat change we made good time with all five of us being there and everyone pitching in. If only all my flats could be so well serviced (the flat was caused by a staple).

We still made good time reaching Twin Bridges where we stopped at the town park snacks and a bio break. They have a nice bicycle shelter set-up in the park for overnight stays as well. We didn’t dawdle as we all knew we had a long climb near end of the day. It was supposed to be uphill from there forward but after 8 miles of slight uphill to Sheridan, we had a nice downhill run to Alder where we stopped at a pub for cold drinks. The pub was a little rough but it was for sale, along with the accompanying restaurant and RV park. We did not inquire on the price as nearly everything needed a good coat of paint and various other repairs.

From Alder it was 20 miles to the top of the pass but the first 15 were barely up. The biggest challenge of the first 15 miles actually turned out to be a massive road construction project. There was a stop light but no flagger. The construction had to be close to 8 miles long, the first 5 we rode without the aid of the follow car and several follow cars came at us. It was all pretty much chaos and really, we should have just rolled through the stop signal and rode, it would not have mattered, the construction crews completely ignored us for better or worse.

Near the end of the construction, we reached Nevada City which was quickly followed by Virginia City. Just like the Nevada namesakes, they are old silver and gold boom towns that today are mostly just old building maintained for tourists to have a look. We only stopped for a couple quick photos and kept rolling. This was the active construction area and there was dust and oil everywhere. No sarsaparilla drinks for Pete today.

After we escaped the construction and Virginia City, we had 3.8 of steep climb up to the top of M287 Pass up to 7,000 feet. We spread out pretty good on the climb but Chris still claimed maximum points in the Grey (Silver) Jersey competition.  At the top of the pass, there was once again no summit sign. The downhill off the pass was incredibly scenic with distant mountain views out towards Yellowstone. We don’t know the names of any of the mountains yet but we probably get a better idea tomorrow as we ride through and over them.

In Ennis we stopped for dinner supplies but also all (except for Chris) grabbed milkshakes. I think we are getting close to the edge of the heat dome in the east. We were at 82 today while climbing and didn’t really have to rug up for the decent. We are spending tonight sat the Ennis RV park – not a bad park and we got the last tent site. We had to book this one in advance so the we are getting close to the “Yellowstone effect.” Tomorrow we ride to West Yellowstone – we are going to shoot for an early start and we’re hoping for minimal traffic.