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Week 2
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Start :
Whitefish, Montana, USA
Finish :
Butte, Montana, USA
Dates :
August 23rd - 30th, 2022
Riding days :
6
Distance :
355 miles
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After your visit to Glacier National Park, it’s time to
continue the Great Divide. You depart Whitefish via a
series of right-angled paved roads which cross the flats
between Flathead River and the Swan Mountains. It’s
worth taking a break in Columbia Falls at Montana’s
Coffee Traders before you continue over the relatively
flat farm country. The agrarian flats and straight roads
end when you return into the
Flathead National Forest
with its winding gravel roads through groves of western
larch trees some up to 200 feet tall. This stage out of
Whitefish finishes at the placid
Swan Lake
surrounded by the Swan Mountains with peaks of 8,000 to
9,000 feet.
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More forests and wilderness follow until you reach
Seeley Lake.
Gravel roads are alternated with sections of single
tracks along the steep cliffs of the Mission and Swan
Mountain ranges. Cycling is more technical and sometimes
even walking might be necessary. This area is the
“Grizzly Basin” and although it is unlikely that a bear
will cross your path, you should keep a watchful eye and
let the bears know that you are visiting by singing a
song and making noise. The locals like to sing
“Yo bear”
as they pass to avoid surprising the residents!
Leaving the forest, the surroundings now open as you
approach Ovando,
a little community with only 50 residents and a few
century old buildings. Thousands of acres of open ranch
country surround you. Stroll the few streets of Ovando
and you walk into the past – an almost forgotten piece
of Montana’s history and culture.
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The Great Divide now leads you
towards the City of Helena,
the Capital of the State of Montana with some tricky
river crossings and sometimes very steep climbs through
the Helena National Forest.
But as you will see, it’s not always pristine nature in
these high woods; you will also see some intensive
logging and the remains of now defunct mines.
A rapid descent on a paved highway brings you into the
city which owes its existence to the gold discoveries in
the Last Chance Gulch by four prospectors in the summer
of 1864. The discovery of placer gold, quartz gold and
silver, as well as lead, created the overnight boom
town. Helena is nowadays one of United States smallest
state capitals with a population of just 28,000 and
other than Butte
one of the two “big” cities along The Great Divide.
Butte is a tough day’s cycling from Helena and is
slightly bigger with 34,000 inhabitants.
Read more in the BROCHURE..
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