Wednesday June 21, 2023, 57 miles (92 km) - Total so far: 719 miles (1,157 km)
Today’s route turned out to be just shy of 60 miles from Lochsa Lodge over Lolo Pass and into Missoula. I got a little bit of a late start around 9am. The first seven miles were relatively flat until the climb up to Lolo Pass at about mile 13. At the pass there is a nice visitor center where I stopped in for a complimentary hot chocolate. I met Frederik, a climate physics student at Sorbonne University in Paris who was in his gap year and was approaching the tail end of his tour across America. He asked me to guess how much his bike and gear weighed, as he had it weighed at the Adventure Cycling Association which is based in Missoula. I guessed 85 pounds - turns out he was hauling 114 pounds. He told me that he was the “power lifter” of cycling! We will weigh our bikes in Missoula as see how a good a job we did in keeping our weight down and distributing it between us.
The climb didn’t feel too bad - a very manageable grade. I just Googled it and found the following recap:
This climb averages 5.3%. The steepest quarter mile of this climb is 6.3% and steepest continuous mile is 6.1%. 0 miles of the climb is at or above 10% grade. The gradient on this climb is broken down as follows: 1.3 miles (27.7%) at 0-5% grade; 3.3 miles (72.4%) at 5-10% grade.
After the quick descent from the Pass, it was a steady downward ascent into Missoula. As you approached Missoula there was a nice bike trail called the Bitterroot Trail that got you off HW93 which was very busy. The trail ran about 8 miles long and took me right into town.
I stopped for lunch shortly after the descent and hiked down a short trail to enjoy my lunch along the water.
I got into Missoula around 4pm, checked into the Quality Inn Downtown and got an early dinner at
Road to Lolo Pass
Visitor Center at Lolo Pass
Lunch by the creek
“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.”
Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories
Roadside elk!
Views riding into Missoula
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