Riding Montana’s Great Divide

Adventure Cycling’s Cycle the Divide – Montana trip was a great introduction to riding on one of the world’s best long distance routes, the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (GDMBR) from Banff to Mexico.  I’ve backpacked and skied and climbed peaks in every state along the divide and have wanted to learn about and ride about the route ever since I heard about it.

This trip is a great introduction, with a fully supported riding style and a great section of the Montana route to experience.  Adventure Cycling also offers trips on the Canadian, Wyoming and Colorado sections in a self-supported or van-supported mode (smaller groups).  For this fully supported event, we had 30+ riders and a staff of 9, including cooks and a mechanic.

Deciding whether to bring bear spray and getting into the Montana spirit were good focus areas while exploring Whitefish.

The Strava heat map below gives a good summary of the route, including the side trip to the overnight on Flathead Lake, the stop in Seeley Lake and the final out and back up to the divide from Lincoln.

Since bicycling is not allowed offroad in National Parks and Wilderness Areas, this section of the route runs to the west of Glacier NP and the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area.

We met at a campground on southern side of Whitefish (day 1) and the first riding day (day 2) was mostly on paved roads leading south and east out of town, finishing at a campground on Flathead Lake outside of Bigfork.  It was a good chance to loosen up the legs and start making new riding friends.

Day 3 was our first real offroad riding, with a big climb and a smaller one heading south into the Swan River valley.  The climbing wasn’t too steep, but it was sustained along gravel forest roads for 61 miles.

It was a hot day and we recovered from the climbing at our destination in Condon with Huckleberry shakes and local beer at the camp general store.

Day 4 provided the most epic views and riding of the trip, riding up thru Grizzly basin around Richmond Peak and down into Seeley Lake.  The top of the route was single track and featured spectacular views of the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

The Adventure Cycling team had a timely water and snack stop at the bottom of the single track, giving us sustenance for the mostly downhill roads to Seeley Lake.  As you see in one of the pictures above, some of the single track was thru the remnants of a previous fire.  Sadly, the Seeley Lake area was heavily hit by the fires in 2017 in the weeks after our ride and even more of this area will now be recovering for years to come.

We spent two nights in Seeley Lake and enjoyed our off day with some local dining, more huckleberry shakes and canoeing on the river flowing into the lake.

Our great catered meals continued and we had two nights of interpretive programs about Montana’s mountain man history and bears!

Day 6 was nice to be back on the bike and climbing into the woods again.  John and I were out front and saw a large black bear in the early morning light, leaving a dust cloud as it ran from the road on seeing us!  We started with an initial climb, then dropped down into our first broad rural ranching valley and the famous town of Ovando.

Leaving Ovando, we had miles of ranch country with looming mountains to the N and E, knowing we were headed to the big climb of the day.  Once on the climb, we had great views back down into the valley.

Over the climb, we had miles of downhill into the town of Lincoln, where the July Montana heat came back in force.  The long dry summer and heat was present our entire trip and within days of us finishing, massive forest fires broke out for two months in the area.

Lincoln is infamous as being the nearest town to Ted Kaczynski’s cabin (the Unabomber).  It was on the road from Missoula to Helena, but well out in the ranching and logging country.  We found our way to a local pub, where the public phone was a throw back to a previous era.

Day 7 was an out and back up to the continental divide, with some steep uphill near the top and great single track on the way down.

After a bus ride back to Whitefish, we had final goodbyes and thank you’s for the Adventure Cycling crew.  It was a short but great trip and several of us are already planning future rides together.  I really like the Great Divide trail and look forward to riding more sections of it in the future!

Thanks again to Bob and the Adventure Cycling crew!