I camped over 4,300 feet for the first time last night and it was chilly when I got up. I made breakfast and coffee, packed up, and pushed off. Not more than a quarter mile up the road I heard rocks falling from a rock wall just ahead of me on the side of the road. I thought hrm that’s weird, and then I heard more rocks coming down. I looked up and there was a small group of bighorn sheep, that I’d just read about on the information sign just outside the campground. Apparently the population is around 5,000 in Montana, which is significantly more than the 100s in the nascent reintroduction in California. Still, I felt really lucky to see them. I hung around for a little bit watching them in their morning routine.

The morning was a 2,300 foot climb, I took Gibbons Pass, a single lane dirt road alternative which had no cars and was fun. This pass crosses the continental divide, so from here the rivers are flowing to the Atlantic. I must cross over it again because I’m going down the west side of the Rockies in Colorado, but still a fun milestone.

From the pass the road descends into Big Hole, which apparently was a term used by french trappers for a large meadow surrounded by mountains. And boy is it an appropriate name, if anything “big” undersells it, it is a huge plain surrounded by tall snow peaked mountains to the south, forming the continental divide, and other ranges along the other sides. It’s probably around 60 miles long, I spent a lot of the afternoon cycling down the length of it south.

One thing I haven’t mentioned but has been a constant background to the road side signs and parks along the way is that the route from Oregon has largely followed the Nez Perce trail, and the Lewis and Clark trail. The Nez Perce where a group of natives that refused to sign a treaty with the US government and as they tried to flee to Canada were pursued by US troops with multiple battles along the way. In Big Hole I visited the National Monument dedicated to the battle there. Lewis and Clark are generally believed to be the first white European settlers to explore the America west and the trail they followed overlaps a lot with the trail I have been following. A lot of the historical site highway markers are dedicated to one or other of these two groups.

In the late afternoon I climbed over Big Hole Pass and I’m staying at a campsite the next valley over, back in high desert surrounded by sagebrush. I should only be about 2 days from Yellowstone now, and I think the end of Montana. Today Montana has been a land of vast open space and fluffy clouds, and very remote, I haven’t really had cell reception all day.