I'm back!

Somewhere in Nebraska...

Sorry for the lack of updates, but let me give you a quick heads up for those of you that don't already know.  A week or two into the trip I realized I wasn't going to make it back to Philly by the 17th of November (a semi-arbitrary 'deadline' based on trying to be back before Thanksgiving, when I started up work again, and before the chance of snowstorms increased).  I decided instead of missing work, Thanksgiving, and facing an ever increasing chance of snow or bad weather, I'd make the date rather than the destination my final goal.  After doing some research (bus vs train vs plane all while taking into account getting 100+ pounds worth of bike and gear back as well), I booked a series of MegaBus rides back to Philadelphia leaving Tuesday, November 15 from Omaha, NE via Chicago, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh and arriving in Philadelphia Thursday around noontime.  My last week or so of riding through Wyoming and Nebraska were excellent with temperatures above freezing most nights and daytime highs mainly in the 50s and 60s - I even got a little sunburned!  An excellent bookend to my trip and I made it home safe and sound with little hassle.  Overall my trip was a success and was quite fun - I traveled through a bunch of states that I've never been in, saw some pretty neat things, and met some great people along the way.  I don't consider cutting out the eastern half of the US a 'failure' - it just provides another trip opportunity sometime in the future!

Anyways, I will get my my reports up for the rest of my trip but I'm not sure when exactly.  When I returned home my Internet connection no longer works (and still doesn't) and there aren't any other open wi-fi connections nearby that I can access from my home so I have to walk or drive someplace to get online.  Without a photographic memory, the only way I can really piece together each day of riding really well and write up a good blog post is if I can look at my Garmin GPS route online (to get the names of the start and end points, the towns I passed through, the lakes and rivers I passed over or next to, the highways I was on, etc) and compare it to the photos that I took.  This past weekend when I got home the weather was gorgeous so I was riding my road bike quite a bit and this week I've been quite busy so I haven't had the opportunity to spend several hours someplace with a reliable internet connection where I can sit down in peace and quiet and type them up and upload the photos.  Hopefully this weekend?  Stayed tuned - I haven't forgotten about my readers!  Plus the sooner I finish typing them up, the less details that I'll forget and that will allow for a better 'diary' of my travels to look back on later...

Corn dunes!

Day 17 (Sunday, 11-6-2011): Falls Campground to Route 26 rest stop

Mr. Freeze in a forest of Candy and Indian Corn.

Day 17 got off to a late start as I am still adjusting to the clock getting pushed back an hour. I didn't actually leave until close to 10AM and lo and behold, even after hearing snow plows go by several times that morning, the road still was not plowed all the way down to the pavement. I guess they don't use salt around here either. I was starting to dread a long day of biking on packed down, slick snow and ice without snow tires as well as 'wasting' a perfectly good day of mainly downhill riding when after about a mile and a half, the roads were miracously clear of any sort of snow or ice. Even the land to both sides of the road only had a dusting of snow.

Day 16 (Saturday, 11-5-2011): Falls Campground Snow/Rest Day

I did indeed decide to take the day off give the weather and the forecast of snow/rain. It was flurrying when I got up and flurried off and on throughout most of the day but never really snowed very hard – most of the two to three inches in the campground had come that night.
I walked back out to the road to check the condition of the plowing as I heard some snowplows come through and was disappointed to find that while plowed, it wasn't down to the blacktop and it wasn't salted either. The rest of the day I finished watching the TV shows that I had on my computer, read some, plotted out a general route to Nebraska on the map the park ranger who I had talked to the previous day gave me, and sorted through and edited photos from the previous week.

It was pretty cold the entire day (I don't think it broke 20 degrees according to my Garmin whenever I turned it on) and for some reason my feet wouldn't warm up, even inside a winter down sleeping bag.

Day 15 (Friday, 11-4-2011): Wyoming border to Falls Campground

Teton Pass looking down to Jackson

Wow – what a way to start the day. A good, hour and fifteen minute long climb to 8431' at the top of Teton Pass with a max gradient of 10%! These climbs keep getting higher and harder! The descents keep getting better too... I hit a max of 48.1mph in about as aero of a position as I could get on a full loaded touring bike. I descended down into Jackson Hole, the valley made famous by the yearly world economic forum that takes place here in a resort (I guess skiers would say it's made famous by it's world class ski slopes but I can't vouch for that having only been downhill skiing once). The city of Jackson itself was definitely a bit of a tourist and resort town and was pretty bustling.

Day 14 (Thursday 11-3-2011): St. Anthony to Wyoming border

Day 14 started off with an excellent homecooked breakfast of eggs, bacon, and pancakes. As I had run out of chain lube, I borrowed some of Jack's to fix my squeaky chain and also lubricated the rear derailleur cable housing that was causing my shifter cable to stick horribly, thus causing poor upshifting. Jack himself was getting ready to go mountain biking with some friends on some nearby trails later that morning.

Day 13 (Wednesday, 11-2-2011): Gilmore Summit to St. Anthony, ID

-0.3 degrees Fahrenheit

Gilmore Summit

Day 13 started out with some pretty cold temperatures – negative 0.3 degrees Fahrenheit was the lowest that my Garmin saw that morning as I was packing up. Both temperatures and elevation was getting more extreme as the trip progressed!  Good thing I picked up that better winter gear yesterday and brought the heavier, warmer down sleeping bag!

Day 12 (Tuesday 11-1-2011): North Bend, ID to Gilmore Summit, ID

Oh boy, another day of climbing after the brief evening descent into North Fork last night.  Luckily it was a gradual climb throughout the day, and for the first time, I had a tail wind most of the day so the going was pretty fast.  I had checked the weather the other day in Florence for where I thought I would be tonight and I saw overnight lows in the mid teens. Given how cold I was on the 30 degree descent down from Lost Pass I figured it would be a good idea to 'upgrade' both my gloves (5 finger, thick, non-wind and non-water proof full finger gloves) and balaclava (thin, and having an opening for my entire face).

Day 11 (Monday, 10-31-2011): Florence, MT to North Fork, ID

Even though it was dark out by the time I left, it wasn't a big deal as I was biking on a bike path for quite a ways that parallel highway 93.  After a ways the path ended when road construction began.  Unlike on the east coast where construction is usually done on one half of a road, shunting traffic into two narrow lanes of traffic on one 'normal' lane, out west they seem to like to work on the whole road at once.  For several miles the entire major highway was torn up and was just hard packed dirt and gravel.  Same thing with the bike path but worse so I ended up biking on the road for the most part.

Day 10 (Sunday, 10-30-2011): Route 12 to Florence, MT

The start of day 10 had me going over Lolo Pass over the Bitterroot Range. The steep part wasn't too bad and didn't require getting out of the saddle if you choose not to.  It was still a few miles long at a good 5% or more and took well over half an hour to get over the top. The elevation topped out at 5233' (the highest point I'd been so far) and there was snow along the sides of the road near the top – the first snow of the season that I have witnessed up close and personal.

Day 9 (Saturday, 10-29, 2011): Kooskia, ID to Route 12

Well I didn't get going until around 10 today, and repeatedly searching for my sunglasses throughout my stuff and the house did not speed things along any. After giving up looking for them, I headed out along Route 12. I knew I wasn't going to make it to Lolo or Missoula today given my start time, but that was okay as I hadn't contacted a Warmshowers host there. I was actually making pretty good time as it was a very gradual uphill with no 'kickers' what-so-ever.

Day 8 (Friday, 10-28-2011): Kooskia, ID

I slept in until nine something, and with seeing a forecast of rain tonight and having 130 miles to make it through the Rockies to civilization on the other side I figured I'd take the day off. After a week straight of long days in the saddle (not very impressive mileage if you look at it like a serious roadie, but some serious hours each day though) it's probably a good idea to rest up and hit tomorrow fresh for close to 75 miles and 7500 feet of climbing before a long gradual descent to either Lolo or Missoula, MT.