Riding high on Lolo

After a week of cycling the hot and dry breadth of Oregon, our next day off was in another western Victorian-era town, Baker City. The recommended budget motel had a diner attached, which provided a complementary breakfast. Sceptical that we’d only get a cup of coffee and piece of toast, we wandered over to cash in our breakfast coupons.

The Oregon Trail Diner was a living work of art, the colour scheme and decor looked untouched since the sixties. Deep green vinyl booths, the walls adorned with the stuffed heads of local fauna, and that speckled polished concrete one doesn’t see anymore. And this wasn’t the kitch themed eatery one sees vying for the tourist dollar. The beautiful hairless staff even looked like they’d been selected from a Fitzroy modeling agency. This was pure Americana. So much so, we’d felt like we’d walked onto the set of ‘Mad Men’.

We ended up eating at the Oregon Trail Diner three times, just so the experience had correctly absorbed into our memories.

A few big climbs awaited us after Baker City, the first leaving the ‘town’ of ‘White Bird’. The old highway snaked up the hill, there must have been 16 switchbacks on that 10 mile climb, but it took 2 and a half hours. It was a little testing, but they didn’t call it Hell’s Canyon for nothing.

A few days later We climbed Lolo Pass, our last mountain in Oregon, on a chilly morning and discovered Idaho on the other side. Jack was surprised to find two Moose looking him in the eye on the way downhill. “Moose are biiiiiig”
was all he could say for a while.

Later, we sat and ate ice cream and mars bars in front of the Lolo Hot Springs general store. A kindly fellow approached us to say he had been sitting on the same step two years
earlier, doing the same bicycle route. He was so happy to have met us and only disappointed that we already had our sodas since he always had an esky full of cold drinks in his car boot for thirsty cyclists. People here continue to surprise us with their spontaneous generosity.

Our path through Idaho followed much of the historic Lolo trail, the ancient Indian route north across the high ridgetops of the Bitterroot Ranges.

It was traversed by the famous Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery in 1805 and 1806. The Lolo Trail also commemorates the legends and
history of the Nez Perce Indians, as well as later fur traders and settlers. For the Nez Perce, the Lolo Trail was a route they traveled every year to hunt buffalo and trade with the Plains tribes to the east. For the Salish Indians it was the route for salmon fishing and
trading with Plateau and Coastal tribes. In 1877, the Nez Perce used this route to flee the relentless persecution of the US Cavalry, before finally surrendering on the battlefield in Montana.

Stories of Indians being hounded from reservation to reservation are all too common in these parts, but it’s refreshing to see such stories told so candidly on roadside history boards.

Some more dancing back and forth over the Idaho/Montana border finally came to an end and we rolled into bicycle friendly Missoula. A small university City with 9 bicycle stores and the Adventure Cyling Association national office.

This fine organisition deserves its own entry, so stay tuned…