Day 5

Woke up and it was cloudy again outside. We are in sparwood and are going to try for Butts Cabin today. We leave around 8:30 and ride on pavement into a headwind to Corbin. Uncle Jeff attempts to draft behind one of the massive mining trucks that fly by us. My legs are still too iced to start accelerating fast. Corbin is a desolate mining town that has destroyed and left one of the mountains leveled and blackened with coal. It is a sad sight to see and makes the area have a depressed dreary feel. We leave Corbin and begin climbing up to Flathead Pass. It is a stimulating and fun climb because of all the mud holes around and I make it a game of "lava" and try to avoid hitting the holes. We are nearing the summit when an ATV comes barreling down towards us and stops. It's an older man with his wife. Their names are Greg and Candy and they are out camping. I need to take a moment here and explain the supernatural nature of trail magic. Trail magic is the serendipitous occurrence of a fortunate event, item, or service from someone on the trail. Well, Today Greg decided to be our first encounter of trail magic. He walks over to his cooler pulls out a beer and gives it to Uncle Jeff. Then he walks to the cooler again and pulls out a length of sausage. Yum! Dinner tonight. A third time Greg walks back to the ATV and hands over his fire starter. We say good bye to Greg and depart with our goodies happy to have been given such a fortunate break. We continue climbing to the top of the pass and this stream of water begins flowing down to us. As we descend the stream gets wider and deeper and some parts force us to dismount and create a rock bridge to cross. At one crossing the water is flowing so much and it is so deep we didn't know how to cross. Well, until an ATV drives along and carts us across one at a time through the river (trail magic). We continue on and finally arrive at Butts Cabin a first come first serve cabin. It is completely empty and we lay claim to it and mark out our encampment by flying the yellow smile flag of team smile. We collect wood and set up camp for sometime until a truck with a camper on it pulls up. The couple are Dj and Dorothy and they are vacationing and looking for wildlife. We chat with them for awhile and warn them about the impassable river on trails ahead Dj takes out some venison and cheese and let's us have it. We take their picture and they leave. During the time we are chatting with Dj and Dorothy a motorcyclists pulls up and sets up camp. His name is Bruce and we spend a lot of the night by the fire talking. Bruce had come from cabin pass and dumped his motorcycle twice in the mud. We go to bed in our own nice warm cabin. Trail magic is amazing!

Miles: 62.63
Average: 11.7mph
Ride time: 5:20:43
Total: 136.15 miles