With the extra days off over labor day I decided to go on a quick trip. I've been threatening to go ride my bike into the forest and not come back for awhile now and finally did something about it. I do have frame bags and a big handlebar roll and a lightweight tent and stuff to try bikepacking but yeah nah I stuck a big saddle bag on my gravel bike with a change of clothes and booked a hotel room in wallace, id.
I have been drawing lines on maps and planning routes in the region between missoula and idaho a lot recently so while I have some other ideas for 2-3 day trips from home I decided to give this one a try. From home it was going to be about 130mi each way but I got a little bit of a late start monday and drove about 30mi west of town and parked at a friend's house. This didn't really subtract anything from the trip as it's a pretty boring ride out there that I do all the time.
So yeah starting point in the ninemile valley, which runs mostly west and north.
There's one main way out of there at the end, over siegal pass, and some other possible routes that i've drawn out but haven't really tried. The line I had put me right in st regis, mt, along I90 where the clark fork river takes a turn and goes over to meet the flathead river. The valley gets narrower and steeper and then you're really climbing
I came from down there
I'm going down there
The climb up was really loose and rocky and difficult in places and I was a little concerned about the trip down the other side. I also have some pretty flimsy challenge getaway tires on the bike right now so definitely needed to be careful. But the road was super, super smooth dirt
It kind of looked like hardly any cars ever drive on it.
Where am I going?
Where am I?
Anyway after a really nice ride down amazingly smooth dirt roads I notice a sign that says "road closed 1.5 miles." Surely that doesn't apply to me. Get to a gate and a ranch that says "stop" and road closed but there's also not anything saying no tresspassing and there's a hunter's sign in box so I go by and ride through the ranch and it seems fine. Come out the other side and stop in st regis and refill my bottles.
Then it's old rail bed all the way to wallace on the route of the olympian and the northern pacific route up and over lookout pass. The hiawatha trail is a really popular biking thing and you can rent bikes and get shuttled on it so you're only going downhill, through old tunnels and over bridges and stuff. So I was expecting a little more out of the route but it was really just a long long time on straight and almost flat road
I did cross one bridge which seemed a little bit sketchy. The railings and wood on the edges were kind of falling apart and it was really high up.
Anyway getting closer to the pass was more interesting but the one tunnel it goes through is closed due to safety reasons and there's a steep bypass around it
At lookout pass I stopped for some more water and stuff and then it was all downhill to wallace
Wallace, ID
First stop was the hotel but as I rolled up a van full of people was unloading and checking in so I went to the brewery. Then got checked in, and they even had rags for cleaning bikes and didn't say anything when i rolled mine through the lobby and to my room. And they had a pool and hot tub. So yeah, wallace inn seems like a good choice if you're there. Had some dinner in town, got some snacks and stuff at the store, sat in the hot tub for a bit, then went to bed fairly early.
My route home was different from my route there, going over cooper pass and into thompson falls, downstream of where the flathead and clark fork meet. The road goes out a super narrow valley filled with old mines and it was fairly interesting, but also... not nice. Dilapidated shacks and campers everywhere and broken falling apart shit and old mines and mine waste.
There was a construction project putting in a new culvert for the creek in burke that i had to wait a bit to get through
Then dirt and up more
Something like 3000ft of climbing to start my morning and then a really steep descent down the other side that had me concerned about the brakes. you want fresh fluid and pads for that one for sure.
Then pavement for awhile into thompson falls. I've ridden this road a few times and the climb up and over thompson pass is really neat. You can get to wallace all on pavement but the route i took is a lot more direct. From thompson falls I had to ride 25mi on hwy 200 to plains but being tuesday at like noon after labor day traffic was pretty light. Good thing because there's little to no shoulder for some of it, and the rumble strips are kind of dead center where there is a shoulder which gives you a very narrow strip of smooth pavement
Then I got to plains and crossed the river and took a back road bypassing highway for awhile.
Then it was a couple more miles on 200, then a turn onto 135, which goes along the clark fork and would put me back in st regis if was going that far. But I wasn't, and after 3mi I took a left turn to go up to siegel pass and back into the ninemile
how far is it to the top?
almost there?
siegel pass, came from down there
almost crashed on the descent when i got into the loose stuff on the edge and had my front tire slide a bit. Almost to the end but actually still far from anywhere and without reception. would have been a real bad spot to hurt myself. i should probably get an inreach or something.
anyway made it down, are we fucking there yet?
about 7-8 more mi from there. Anyway, made it back to car. good route, fun trip. pretty hard. Little over 100mi and like 7k feet a day. monday almost entirely dirt and gravel, tuesday almost half pavement.
