What started out as a disaster turned out to be quite an adventure. Everything I hoped for, I found. It started out bad though as I arrived at the Lee Creek Campground ready for my ride into Idaho. As I suited up, I noticed that I forgot my gloves. Any summer day this would not be a problem but the temperatures at 10Am were 35 degrees, no way would I go road biking without gloves. Therefore, I threw a fit and headed home.
As I headed home the Excedrin I had taken before I left home due to a headache started to kick in and I was enjoying a spring drive in my Beetle. But alias, how would I afford the gas. I worried that when I got home I would have to stay because I had no more money for gas. I decided to use my credit card for gas and headed back out for my ride. By noon, I was climbing Lolo Pass on my road bike.
I crested the pass and started to descend. All the sanding during the winter rendered the road a marbled mess. I descended with extreme caution and at time feared for my life. It was exuberayting and I hope that my tires would not puncture due to one of those little sharp rocks.
After the decent into Idaho my first rest stop to get water was at a big cedar forest. I could not help but to take some pictures of these giants. About 20 minutes later down the road, I heard a ping. I looked down and knew that at once I broke a spoke. I did some real handy work to fashion another one and got the wheel back in working order. I headed back to the car from Papoose Creek (20 miles in).
I had been thinking how hard the climb back out into Montana would be but as I approached the pass I realized that I overestimated the climb. It was not easy but I did motor up it in 35 minutes from the chain up area. The rest was downhill and I screamed back to the car. In the process of descending, I noticed a waterfall.
Once back at the car I grabbed my tripod and headed over the Waterfall that I noticed coming back. The waterfall is called Snowshoe Falls and I spent some meditative time there sitting on a large boulder photographing the falls. The pics will be online soon. So there you have it, I made it back and seemed to avoid all those logging trucks.
In all the road bike ride on Rte12 was 41.38 miles in which it took me 3 hours to ride. I did a total of 2,428 feet of vertical climbing on an average grade of 5 topping out at 5,250.97 feet.
Boneshakerbike 
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