I woke up with the birds again, pre-dawn, and got up to clouds in the sky. Today’s ride started by continuing up the John Day River to the town of John Day, Prairie City, and then climbing the first of three passes, Dixie Pass.

The scenery continued to evolve from the previous day, the valley got wider and the mountains flatter, until the Strawberry Mountain range became visible to the south, with still a little snow on the peaks. The climb up to Dixie Pass the mountain range became more prominent I the distance, and the dry landscape was replaced by lush forest of the Malheur National Forest.

One of the things about bicycle touring is that all those roadside vista points, and historical markers that I would never stop at when driving, when riding a bicycle they provide a welcome break from pedaling, often uphill. On the way up Dixie Pass I stopped at the Sumpter Valley Interpretative Trail and read about the railway line that was built between Baker and Prairie City to transport wood and other commodities, and it ended up tying a thread through the rest of the day; later I passed through the ghost town of Whitney which was based around the railway, and abandoned when the railway was discarded, and the train depot just outside of Sumpter.

After Dixie Pass there was many miles of riding through forest, over two more passes. One thing that struck me about the forests was how the forest floor was a canopy of green grass. After the final pass, Sumpter Pass, I followed the Powder River all the way down to Baker City, it left the forest and went back to desert landscape. with wide irrigated farmland in the valleys.

Tonight I’m staying in Baker City, which is the largest town before the Idaho border. The main street has many original buildings from the late 1800s and early 1900s. Baker City is the end of Section 2, tomorrow I start Section 3, which crosses into Idaho and ends I Missoula, Montana. Either tomorrow, or probably the next day I’ll leave Oregon.

The temperature was forecast to be much lower today so I had a slower start and left a little later in the morning than the past few days. The ride today left Baker City crossing the Oregon Trail through wide open desert, and then dropped down to follow the Powder River.

Leaving Baker City the Blue Mountains tower over the wide open valley. The air is cooler, the sun is out, and the wind is still very gusty and strong. Powder River cuts a green ribbon through the otherwise desolate desert surrounding, the road runs in the valley directly adjacent to the mellow river and after crossing the ridge between Baker City and the river I mostly coast down for miles without pedalling.

Before we reach the dammed reservoir the valley opens up to more irrigated farmland with splashes of green, and the road crosses over Eagle Creek to a wide open valley with a small town.

There’s only one climb today, crossing up and over to Pine Valley and a town called Halfway. Towering over Halfway is a granite mountain range, the Wallowas, the only granite mountain range in Oregon.

From Halfway the road follows Pine Creek all the way to its confluence with Snake River in Hells Canyon. My campsite is here in Hells Canyon, and Snake River separates Oregon from Idaho, I can see Idaho on the other side of the river. The reward for the past two swelteringly hot days was a comparatively mild day for the ride to Hells Canyon, which went through open desert with no shade whatsoever.

Tonight will be my last night in Oregon, tomorrow I follow Snake River upstream for a way and then cross over the river and state border, and by the time I find somewhere to sleep I’ll be well into Idaho.

This morning’s ride started out by following Snake River upstream, first on the Oregon side, and then crossing over to the Idaho side. I set my clocks forwards an hour to Idaho time and said goodbye to Oregon. The road then climbed out of the deep canyon, with a 7 mile and 2,000 foot ascent, and then down the other side into a large flat valley through which Weiser River flows.

The route hooked around to the south and curved back north, climbing back up into forested mountains.

The mapped route followed the highway up, but unlike the Oregon highways this one had practically no shoulder. Running adjacent to the road is the Weiser River Trail, an old railway track that has been converted into a bicycle trail. I had jumped on it for a brief section earlier and decided I preferred the paved road to the gravel trail, but after doing a couple more miles on the road I quickly changed my mind, and I’m glad I did. The river trail was graded so smoothly, and flowing through the forested trees proved much more shade than the road.

I had my eye on camping near the town of New Meadows, so that I could finish the second climb today. New Meadows turned out to be aptly named, it sits I the middle of a gigantic meadow, many miles long, I cycled 4 miles along the edge of it to the campsite and that isn’t the full length. It’s surrounded by low forested peaks.

The other thing that’s stuck me so far about Idaho is the cloud patterns have changed. It might just be the weather, but they are a lot different to Oregon. The wind is still blowing strong tonight, it probably doesn’t help camping in a huge meadow. So far Idaho has been distinctly different to Oregon, and the highway excepted the route has gone through some really pretty scenery.

Alto today I met a couple more cyclists, this morning I chatted briefly with a west bounder, from Holland, and this evening there’s a pair of gentlemen doing a section going east staying at the same campground. Time to retreat to my tent and out of the wind.

As I guessed it might, I woke up this morning to a mist hanging over the meadow and moisture on anything outside; the fly to my tent was soaking. The atmosphere was magical though.

Today’s ride took me first down the headwaters of the Salmon River down to the main channel. The morning was very chilly, I put my fleece gloves on and I was still cold. I coasted down almost 60 miles following the river channel, first from the meadow into forest, and as it got drier and drier the vegetation gave way to golden wheatgrass.

One thing I didn’t realize is that Idaho doesn’t have one time zone for the whole state; when I crossed the Salmon River I switched back to Pacific Time, the same as California and Oregon. So I only spent one night in Mountain Time and tonight I’ve set my watch back again. Once I get to Montana I will be decisively on Mountain Time.

The Salmon River drains into the Snake River, where I came from 2 days ago, and Hells Canyon recreation area covers both Snake and Salmon Rivers, so today I was back in Hells Canyon again too. When the road gets to White Bird, a very little town, it climbs up and out of the river gorge to Grangetown, an almost 3,000 foot climb, which took me a couple of hours. The main highway has been reroute to a straighter and steeper grade, the old highway Is basically unused and that’s the one the bike route takes, which was really nice as I was crawling up the grade not having to worry about cars.

At the top it flattened out into a wide area of farmland again, but after passing through Grangetown, and stopping to pick up some groceries and ice cream, the trail drops back down into a forest and river again. Tonight I’m camped just on the banks of a fork of the Clearwater River. The next two days I’ll be following the Clearwater River up to its headwater and over Lolo Pass, which will drop me into Missoula, Montana. I hope to do it in 2 days, cycle as far up the pass as I can tomorrow, and drop down the next day.

The weather forecast is for scattered showers, hopefully they are scattered and light, I don’t prefer the idea of bicycling in the rain. It is forecast to maybe start overnight, but at least it looks dry by tomorrow night.

So far Idaho has been cycling between valleys and following rivers up and down, I don’t know where they grow all the potatoes, the scenery I’ve seen has been rugged and very beautiful, with only a little bit of farmland and a lot of cows.

I woke up very early to flashes of lightning, with some small claps of thunder. It only showered briefly and while it was raining I made breakfast in my tent, breakfast in bed!

It didn’t last long, and I was soon packed up and on my way. The clouds were low and it was drizzling for my morning riding.

In fact the only thing changeable about the day was the weather; I cycled for pretty much 100 miles following a river up a steep sided canyon that was covered in thick trees. I can see why they named the river Clearwater, it was very wide and so gentle that the water was very clear.

The drizzle faded off in the morning and I could see low clouds hanging onto some of the peaks around me, until after lunch the clouds again descended and another hour or so of drizzle.

This evening I’m staying in a campsite in the trees beside the river I’ve been following all day. The climbing today was mostly gentle, I only gained about 2,000 feet over that entire distance, but tomorrow the final climb to Lolo Pass is almost as much height again in only 13 miles, at which point I’ll cross into Montana and hopefully coast downhill to Missoula.

After the clouds cleared last night I thought the rain was over, but at 3 in the morning I was awoken by drops pattering on my tent. The rain lasted around an hour, and I got up as soon as it stopped, greeted again to low clouds in the sky. I packed up a wet tent and pointed my bike towards Lolo Pass.

Leaving at 5:30 am really helped with the traffic, I mostly had the road to myself all the way to the pass which was really nice. As I got to the pass I entered the clouds, and the final mile or so visibility was really low.

From the pass it is all downhill to Lolo and then mostly flat to Missoula. The ridgeline at the pass is the state border, so at the pass I set my clocks forwards one hour, back again to Mountain Time, and entered Montana.

The valley quickly opened up on the descent, after being stuck in a green tunnel yesterday it made a change. Lolo Peak stood prominent to the south with a snow covered summit. From Lolo to Missoula there was a dedicated bike route the entire length which was really nice because the road was very busy, and there were quite a few local cyclists out and about.

Adventure Cycling Association, who publishes the Trans America route has their headquarters in Missoula and invites people in when they pass through. On the wall they put a polaroid of people who pass through, color coded by direction, so I stopped to have my photo taken and nab a free ice cream sandwich.

The rest of the day in Missoula was spent running errands in town, and I’ll spend tonight in town. It’s a cute small city surrounded by mountains on every side. Today the weather was imposing and I had to seek shelter from short sharp showers twice while out and about.

Missoula is the end of section 3, which puts me 974 miles into the trip, after tomorrow I’ll be over 1,000. It seemed so daunting at the start, and even still looking at how much farther I have to go it still seems daunting, but its taken me through some amazing parts of the country so far. The next section ends at Yellowstone west entrance, I can’t wait, the few people I’ve talked to going west bound have all told me the Grand Teton is a highlight and one of the most striking mountain ranges they’ve ever seen, so I’m really looking forwards to that.

I set off a little later this morning from Missoula, it was the first night back in Mountain Time so the clock time was later, but I woke up to rain showers which I wanted to pass. As I cycled out of Missoula it showered on me a couple more times before the rain clouds finally blew away to the mountains.

The entire day I cycled up Bitterroot valley, with Bitterroot River flowing down the middle and Bitterroot Mountain Range towering over me on one side and Sapphire Mountain Range on the other. In 80 miles of riding only the last 8 or so was shared with traffic, and by that point the road is more remote and the traffic is lighter. From Missoula to Hamilton there’s a dedicated bikeway for 45 miles, while it’s not shared with cars it does parallel the 4 lane highway so I put my headphones in and listened to podcasts to drain out the traffic noise.

From Hamilton I took the Old Darby Road alternate, which is a well compacted gravel road with pretty much no traffic, and from Darby there are wide shoulders on the road until it finally starts getting into the headwaters of the Bitterroot. Tonight I’m sleeping next to a fork of the Bitterroot River, and tomorrow I’ll climb up and cross over the pass to the other side.

Montana has much faster speed limits than I’m used to, many of the roads have been 70 mph, even in the mountain sections. In California these would be no faster than 55. Montana also has different speed limits for day and night, the 70 mph sections are posted 65 mph at night.

As of today I’ve been cycling for exactly 2 weeks, and my wheels haven’t stopped rolling since I left Astoria. I’ve done almost exactly 1,050 trail miles, almost exactly a quarter of the total distance. So far every day has taken me through varied and beautiful scenery, quaint little towns, 3 states, and 2 timezones, I’ve met interesting people along the way, and really in every way it has exceeded my expectations. I’m not sure I’ll be half distance in another 2 weeks, but I should be close.

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.

It’s the 4th of July! I woke up today to freezing temperatures with a light frost instead of dew on my tent and bike, it gets cold at night in the high desert. I packed up and tried to warm my hands back up on my coffee cup.

Today started out crossing over a pass from Bannack to Dillon, where I was able to get back online and stock up at Safeway. From Dillon I took the alternate route to Twin Bridges, instead of following the highway it takes an older highway that runs parallel to I-15 so is only used by local traffic, and then takes a dirt road that follows Big Hole River pretty much all the way to Twin Bridges. Twin Bridges is at the confluence of three rivers, including the Big Hole River and the Ruby River which I’ll follow upstream tomorrow.

The alternate route, while a little longer, was definitely the more scenic option. The highway took me right up to the base of the mountains, which must be in a rain shadow because they’re very dry. Big Hole River snakes along the base of the mountains at the edge of the plain and passes through farmland and nature preserves. I again saw a herd of bighorn sheep, grazing in an irrigated field and darting up the rock walls beside me as I approached. I also saw a large golden eagle sitting on a rock watching the river, which also took flight as I approached.

Once I rejoined the main highway it was only a couple miles into Twin Bridges, where they have a biker specific facility that I’m staying at tonight.

Tomorrow I should approach West Yellowstone and spend my last night in Montana. I’m not sure where I’ll be able to stay tomorrow, while there’s a lot of campsites it’s July 4th weekend and none of them outside of the park appear to have hiker/biker sites, so we’ll have to see what’s available when I get there.

I tried to get an early early start this morning to get as near up to West Yellowstone as I could to set me up for tomorrow when I enter Yellowstone. The queues to get in can get very long so I want to get to the gate as early as I can.

Today’s riding first took me up Ruby Valley, following the Ruby River. The river is misnamed, what they found was actually garnet rather than ruby. The route then follows Alder Gulch up through Nevada City and Virginia City. Both cities are old mining towns, gold was discovered in the stream and over a period of years the entire stream was dredged for gold, a huge amount of gold was extracted, billions of dollars in today’s money, and it partly funded Harvard University. Nevada City is a ghost town that’s maintained by the state, and Virginia City is an active tourist town with old mining city buildings, and an abandoned train line that ran all the way up Ruby Valley.

From Virginia City it’s a steep climb over a pass to Ennis, which sits on the Madison River, which flows out of Yellowstone. The road from Ennis down to West Yellowstone is very long and very straight and very exposed, it sits in a huge valley that the Madison flows through, with mountains rising on either side. Eventually it gets to the bottom of the mountain range and curves east to follow the Madison into the mountains.

As the road climbs into the mountains it passes Earthquake Lake which is really interesting, it is a natural lake formed in 1959 when an earthquake hit overnight and caused a huge landslide that blocked the path of the Madison River. The river then proceeded to back up and caused a large lake to form behind the blockage. What makes it an even more interesting story is that it was an August evening and the valley was packed with campers, a campsite was actually submerged by the rising water and the campers had to escape by climbing up to higher ground. As I cycled round the ghostly trees stood out, as they had been killed by the rising waters.

Tonight I gambled that a national forest campsite would let me squeeze in, I knew that it would be next to impossible to find a walk up campsite, I have the worst timing being a holiday weekend. Infact the campsite host and other people at the campsite were very generous, and a couple from Colorado let me pitch a tent on the edge of their site, they did the Trans-America 40 odd years ago.

Tomorrow I will get up again as early as I can, I’m a little over 20 miles from the Yellowstone entrance and I want to get there as early as I can, I plan to spend a night in Yellowstone and try to do as much of the southern loop as I can before continuing south to Grand Teton National Park.