Day 14-Lolo Hot Springs, MT to Powell Junction, ID-20.44 miles

Another pass done…today we scaled Lolo Pass, elevation 5255 ft. We left Lolo Hot Springs today at about 9:00 after a late breakfast at the local café. We meant to get an earlier start, however the café didn’t open until 8:00. This worked out well because when we woke up around 6:00, it was raining, so we got a little more sleep. From our campground, it was only 7 miles to the top of Lolo pass. We biked to within 4 miles of the pass, then the mountain stage really started. SpokeWrench scaled the mountain 12 min., 38 seconds ahead of ClarkWheel…a bit of time to pass. We went into the visitor’s center at the Montana-Idaho border; it was very interesting. Turns out that the visitor’s center was WiFi, so we took the opportunity to update the blogs, but we had connection problems. We were forced to hardwire through their router…this made the connection slow, so we didn’t update any pictures or send out the email. Descending Lolo pass was fun. We were told that westbound was the best way to go up the pass, as it was the more gradual route. Going down the west side, we were told, was very steep. That was correct, as we braked to stay under the speed limit. Maybe that is why the cars didn’t pass us. I looked in my mirror as cars approached us, then fell back as we surpassed their speed. Near the bottom, they finally caught up and passed, as the grade was getting less steep and we slowed down. Once we were done with most of the downhill, we approached the town of Powell, basically owned by one family. They own a gas station with prices 20 cents higher than most (not that that matters to us)…a small store…a great restaurant…as well as some cabins for rent. After inquiring about the price of a cabin, which seemed right to us, we rented one for the night. Short mileage is good somedays after a challenging ride.

-spokewrench

Student question: Today we passed through the DeVoto Memorial Cedar Grove , an stand of ancient cedar trees. Some of the trees have been growing for a thousand years before the birth of Christ. How can someone determine the age of a tree?