Colin:
We started breaking camp early, but it took longer than normal with the cold (in the 30s) and our first dew of the trip.
After chatting with the campground hostess we set off with high spirits and Butte as our goal. 108 miles according to google, which we had to rely on for the day. This seemed long but very doable.
A mile out of the site our road turned from pavement to dirt and gravel and began to wind behind a mountain or two.
A few miles in the road began both to climb and to deteriorate at an alarming rate. After 10 miles, and a couple of thousand feet of climbing, all while bouncing over rocks and roots we reached the top.
Then the road suddenly got worse as massive ruts had formed and larger rocks than can really be called gravel occupied our path. Thinking " weve come this far and its just going back down to the road" kept us on the road and proved laughably optimistic. There were a few totally un-bikeable sections and even the other parts werent terribly comfortable.
But we pushed on, eventually making our way past a small ghost town up in the holler and back to the frontage road of I-90 where we had lunch. In the space of time in which we could generally expect to cover 40 to 50 miles, we had gone 20 and were more tired to boot.
But we were back on pavement and it would surely be smooth sailing from there.
And it was, for all of 26 miles until we were once again steered onto a dirt road. We had made good time and were still hopeful of reaching Butte even as we went back onto the dirt.
The first couple of miles were fun and comfortable, goading us onwards until the Old Stage Coach Road's true nature revealed itself with more steep climbs, jarring rocks and ruts that had been carved by heavy trucks in deep mud and then baked solid in the hot sun (literally foot deep ruts). This was not as bad as the mornings road but when piled on top wasnt much fun.
The 15 mile road had some impressive views of the mountains but these were largely lost on us in our slog.
We only reached pavement again around 4:30 and were spent enough that we headed straight into Deer Lodge to find a campsite, only stopping at an A&W for some ice cream.
It was a tough day but we'll make Butte tomorrow and are both feeling pretty good, especially with those particular stretches of road behind us.
68 miles total.
734 miles total.
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