Day 31, Alder to West Fork Camp & RV

Miles – 57

Ave Riding Speed – 10-24 mph

Hours Start to Finish – 6.75

Weather – Sunny and 75

I ended up changing my front tube out as it was losing air through the evening after pumping it up. After pulling the tube I found the leak/hole and chucked it. I rechecked the tube I changed out a couple days ago and still couldn’t find a leak and repacked that one. I reached for one of my new replacement tubes and threw it on. I still have five spares plus one. I did my best to pump up the new tire with my small pump. Probably has 50lbs in it versus the 75lbs I’d like.

Dinner last night was our doggy bag from the late lunch. For breakfast we had a banana, apple and a piece of beef jerky, with coffee, form the motel 4-cupper. Kim and I were out the door headed south on Hwy 287, with the intent of hitting the West Fork Camp to meet up with our son, Colton who lives in Bozeman and works at one of the resorts in the Big Sky area as a property manager.

The first riding task for the day was to climb a pass about 1,900 feet up over the first 15 miles. About 1,500 feet of it was to be the last 5 miles. We passed through the old mining town of Nevada City and Virginia City, that popped up in the 1860’s. In Virginia City we stopped for a break and a snack. We leaned our bikes against one of the period correct building on Main Street and Kim went in search of the snacks while I hung with our bikes. As I was leaning against the building overhang post, a guy was walking to his truck parked in front of me and I greeted him. I met Jack, who has lived in Virginia City for the last 20 years, 70 years old, retired, but works for the city a little.

Via Jack, I learned that a married couple, heirs to the General Mills and Ford fortune, reconstructed Nevada and Virginia cities to it’s period correct stature back in the 1940’s using the original plat map. The small towns, about 3-4 blocks long, were awesome to ride through. About that time Kim strolled up with an Ice Cream cone from the Virginia City Creamery. With that, we started our lean & push directly on the east end of town. It was steep. After 3-miles of walking we came around a corner and saw, what looked to be the top.  We couldn’t believe it, because our maps said we had 2-miles to go. To our great joy, it was the top. 

It was an 8-mile descent into Ennis, where we took a hard right and rode through downtown. RV traffic was backed up going both ways. We pulled over on the south end of town for a drink of water and kept moving. Our thinking was we’d hit Cameron, 11-miles south to pick something up to eat. Upon arriving in Cameron, the one-stop shop, was closed. We had a quick Cliff Bar and kept moving. Traffic had noticeably picked up with RV’s and boats are within an hour, driving distance, of what is the vacation mecca of 2021, Yellowstone National Park.

We rolled into our camping site for the weekend at 3pm. Chance, the owner, was very cool. We had planned ahead for Saturday and Sunday nights, as we originally thought we wouldn’t get here till then. When we made the reservations, they didn’t have any room on Friday anyways. Chance said to come on in and we’ll find a piece of grass for us for Friday.

We had been texting back and forth with Colton, who was coming down directly from work and thought he’d be there at 5:30pm. I told him to look for our tent in the field and we’d be looking for him. He rolled across the old metal bridge, crossing the Madison River, into the park at 5pm. Smiles and hugs all around. Colton picked up his own, new, propane camp stove and the groceries and refreshments for the weekend. After greets I asked Colton if he had a cold beer. He pulled one from the ice chest and handed it over. That was refreshing!

We got situated and Colton cooked up pan fried steak with potatoes, green peppers and onions for the maiden voyage of his new stove. First homemade meal since Salem, OR. Colton can cook and it was delicious! After cleaning up from dinner we sat around the picnic table, we scavenged from another camp site, and caught up. We were up long enough to see the big dipper overhead, in the clear night sky and crawled into bed.