August 26, 2017 - Jumping Creek to Great Falls, MT

Day 4 Yellowstone to Glacier Bike Tour

It was COLD when we woke up this morning! Our outside thermometer was registering 35 degrees at 6:45 am. I made Tobey turn on the furnace to warm the RV up when I got back from walking Penny! He bundled up with a long sleeve shirt under his jacket and wore his long riding pants starting out. Phil took off about 10 minutes before Tobey, but Tobey was on his way about 8:00 am.

The first ten miles of the ride was uphill – they gained about 1393 feet from our campground to the Kings Hill Summit.  They took a well-deserved rest before the descent started!Seven miles past the summit we came to the Memorial Falls trailhead and stopped there. It was about 1/4 mile hike up to the falls on a pretty good trail. The falls was small, but picturesque.

After the big climb, we passed through the small historic town of Niehart. I took the small one block detour to see the “historic district”. It was a mining center years ago, but the only thing I could see that might represent the history was this old building and an old truck! Going through the small town of Monarch, I spotted what I first thought was a miniature pony. As I got closer, I realized it was a Great Dane! When Tobey caught up to me for a break, he said as he was going by on his bike, there was a young boy about 12 years old in the yard with the dog. The boy was saying, “Don’t chase that bike, don’t chase him, don’t …” and the dog was off and running! Tobey thought it might follow him a little way and go back, but it kept running next to him with the boy in hot pursuit! Tobey turned around and headed back to the boy and the dog followed! The boy was relieved and held on to his collar as Phil went by!!!

We made a brief stop near Sluice Boxes State Park. There are some interesting signs describing the area in height of the silver mining days in the 1800s. This is a view down on the valley by the park.

They took another break near Amington Junction where Hwy 87 and 200 join Highway 89, before the final 24 miles into Great Falls. The ride today was 78.6 miles and over they day they had lots of hills. Total elevation gain was over 3400 feet then a loss of over 6000 feet!

We are staying at Dick’s RV Park in Great Falls for two nights We plan sightseeing on our bikes tomorrow before the guys take off on Monday for the next leg of the journey to Glacier.