Day 15 July 13

Breakfast at Lincoln is interesting. We meet another divide rider by the name of Chip. He is traveling solo and recently lost his map of the divide somewhere in Whitefish. We are astonished that he made it so far and later he tells is that he has been following the smiley face stickers tagged on every turn and sign throughout the route by team smile. We leave Chip with directions to Helena and good luck on his travels. The ride is tough. We make it through the first divide crossing (6800ft). It is windy at the top as I wait for Uncle Jeff. We descend and quickly we begin the next divide crossing (6500ft) and the third crossing (5994ft) after that. We decide to skip Helena and ride south on the Remini Alternate (16 miles shorter, no resupply). The alternate is a long hill for 7 miles and then shoots up steeply the rest of the way to the reservoir. We had planned to camp at the reservoir but it is protected by a fence and we cannot get to the water. We push on climbing another five miles and arrive at the gate of Park Lake. It's closed with a sign that reads "no admittance due to high winds and potential for falling trees" we disregard the sign and go in. There isn't another campground for 15 miles and it is getting cold and dark. Park Lake campground is a mess. Trees have been cut all overthe place due to pine beetles. There is a super strong wind so no fire and no Mac and cheese for dinner. We snack on all the bars we have. We set the tents hunkered in next to boulders forming a bunker from the wind. The camp site looks like an area civil war soldiers would hide in the winter. The wind howls and gusts as we head to bed.

Miles 68.33
Average 8.6
Time 7:56:19
Total 653.94