Riding The mountain States along the Continental Divide

The Continental Divide Trail follows the Rocky Mountains from Canada to Mexico for over 3’000 miles, going from mountains to deserts and zigzagging over the Continental Divide 27 times – mostly on dirt roads! We decided to follow the trail through the mountain states of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado – and then head west from there direction Grand Canyon & Las Vegas.

Crossing the border from Canada into the US was easy going. After a few questions about where we were going and if we had enough money for our journey we were kindly waved through and arrived in Idaho! A few miles down the road we stopped at a grocery store and started talking to a guy interested in our foreign number plates and our loaded up dirt bikes. It turned out that Chris had recently moved up here and bought a farm with his family – he invited us to stay on his farm for the night! What a friendly welcome to the USA! So we spent our day helping out on the farm, building an outdoor shower for their new cabin, fencing in sheep and paddle boarding on the Klondike River, followed by a dinner of ribs from the cows off their farm, cooked by Meg – Chris’s wonderful wife. We were able to sleep in the new cabin and after a hearty breakfast (including eggs from the farm) we said our goodbyes and hit the road again. Many thanks to the Smith’s for this lovely stay – it was so great to have met you!

It was time to start the Continental Divide! But we didn’t get very far. The smoke had followed us into the States – Montana was covered in it and there where fires in Seeley Lake and the roads around there where closed. so we had to take a detour over the Glacier National Park and the famous “Going-to-the-sun” road. After camping out at an amazing spot by the river we were finally able to get on the trail at Lincoln. We rode through amazing country side passing through forests and farms along an easy gravel road. The next day our plan was to tackle Lava Mountain – we had read many tales online about this being the hardest part of the trail. It started out like a nice mountain bike like trail and we were whizzing along – until it got more and more gnarly. Flo crashed through the terrain like a pro and had to rescue Kate a few times, until she also got the hang of it. We finished the 15 miles with lots of adrenaline rushing through our bodies! From there on every other road just seemed like peanuts! I must say, this is Kate writing this text. Flo thinks it was all just pretty easy going We camped out in the middle of a field surrounded by cows. To keep out the bulls (and maybe bears) we built a fortress out of branches around the tent to get a good nights sleep after the exhausting day.

The next day Flo hadn’t had enough of the heard stuff, so he went off to tackled Fleecer Drop – renowned (by the internet) to be one of the steepest parts of the trail to ride. According to the video footage (including Flo cursing) it seemed it was very steep – but Flo made it down without dropping the Bike! From there on the road lead us through very scenic landscapes over ranches and open fields with the mountains of Montana in the background. The next morning we passed through Lima – no, not yet in Peru – and had breakfast at Jan’s Cafe – a typical American dinner with Jan, a lady with extensions and huge fake eyelashes who looked more like she belonged in a night club than serving morning coffee. The ride that day took us over an endless straight open space with lovely mountain views to Island Park. Next up is to find a nice spot to watch the Solar Eclipse!