Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire On the road again.

Birdwatcher is this how it ends? how about the tales from visiting with big Jim? and the trip home?

I'm still blown away that I can look at a bicycle and decide which route I wanna take to cross North America

Back to the trip.

Jim's place weren't all that far away, an easy day, no rush.

First thing of interest I seen when underway that morning was this marker for Fort Assiniboin, built in 1879 to counter any incursions by Sitting Bull's Lakotas in exile in Canada. In hindsight this sounds sorta ludicrous but perhaps a testimony to the profound effect Custer's defeat on the Little Big Horn just three years earlier had on the national psyche.



Wasn't much to see, just a few red brick buildings way in the background.



...and a local issue..... dunno what to make of it....

r

Seen three of these on the descent to the Milk River Valley, State-run waterfowl production areas, looked like all at different elevations along the slope . I dunno if they were natural and how that related to the water table.



One last turn and then.... AT LAST.... HE FRIGGIN' LEGENDARY HI-LINE..... see them hills in the background? That was on the Hi-Line. Hey, if it weren't for visiting Jim I coulda turned around right there.....




...but if I had I woulda prob'ly spent the rest of my life blissfully unaware of an unfolding tragedy......

Awesome trip!

Almost done, and no really spectacular photos, turns out no one goes to the Hi Line for the scenery.

Route 2 runs along east and west along the Milk River Valley at this point, so it was a surprise to be faced with an immediate climb over a tall riverside bluff to get to Havre itself. IIRC the bluff was two or three hundred yards wide, enough for a fairgrounds and shopping mall. The mall lay between the highway and the river, and immediately in back is the site of a buffalo jump from back in the days.



I've seen a couple of buffalo jump sites up here now, it weren't rocket science, all you needed was a high enough dropoff with a relatively level approach from the top side. Without looking it up I'm pretty sure most of this area was created by volcanic deposition of ash and such, makes for an easily eroded level plain. For example any number of sites on the plains above the Missouri Breaks like the photos I posted earlier on this thread would probably have worked as a buffalo jump.

In the Havre one they would have had to steer the buffalo herd out on that wide bluff and keep them running north instead of downhill to the east or west. I will say the Havre Buffalo Jump was the tallest drop-off I saw labelled as such. I saw another one on the drive to the Bear Paws Battlefield that might not have even been 100ft tall. Just had to be big enough to immobilize a fallen buffalo I'd guess.

The Havre Buffalo Jump weren't open yet, and advertised "Native America Guides" which indicated a price of admission, and there are Native American Guides and Native American Guides of course, not all of whom know much about what they are talking about. There is a strong Indian presence up on the Hi-Line (Blackfoot, Rocky Boys and Fort Berthold Rezzes??) as reflected in the hyperbole of some of the historical markers, like this one for the Bear Paws Battllefield....



I had been repeatedly running into traces of the Nez Perce on this trip all the way since Yellowstone.

No one argues that the Nez Perce got the short end of the stick, and both the record of their flight and their skill in battle turned out to be remarkable. I suppose the language in the marker ain't any more extravagant than any number of markers about White guys in other places. I do wish tho somebody would mention Poker Joe, one of those important bit players in history that often get overlooked.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poker_Joe

Now THAT guy could probably tell some stories, and if they had followed his advice the whole time all 700+ fugitives would almost certainly have escaped to Canada. Presumably Joe was also a good poker player, maybe he might have majored in Math or Statistics if he were around today.

I didn't get a photo looking down off of the buffalo jump, its right behind the parking lot in back and they have it fenced off (maybe so it don't become a Mustang, Jeep or Tacoma jump) but looking down the east side of the bluff towards Havre you can get an idea of the elevation...



On the way down it did occur to me that I didn't have a photo of my bike and a Hi-Line marker like I shoulda done against the HIghway 2 sign in the first-look photo earlier, but I found this one on my way down the hill.

A couple of details in this photo that were of some import to me at the time: You may note the original front tire, an $80 700x35mm Schwalbe Mondial hanging from the left pannier, I was running these tires with their fairly aggressive treads in anticipation of long stretches of dirt road, which never happened until the last miles to Jim's place. In place of the Mondial I was running my emergency backup Continental Gatorskin, a considerably narrower street slick with no tread at all but which is relatively lightweight and compact if carried as a spare.

I was somewhat apprehensive about running that slick on the gravel roads to Jim's but it turned out at the speeds I ride it wasn't a problem, what WAS good was the treaded wider Mondial in back, I didn't spin out and lose traction all the time like I do with a slick in back.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2gQTqtX]

More or less flat going out of Havre, the shoulder along Hwy 2 was an uneven quantity, maybe depending on the contractor who applied the latest layer of asphalt. Of note is that Hwy 2 comprises a major part of the Northern Tier Transcontinental Bicycle Trail, prob'ly ridden by hundreds of cross-country cyclists every year, it is also a major traffic artery in the State of Montana, The Rt 2 part must suck both for the cyclists and the motorists and truckers that gotta deal with 'em.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2gQUecc]







.

Well, I've now been to the Hi-Line and Havre and Jim's vicariously through your photos.

Thanks,

Geno

TIme to finish up. I have no photos of Jim's place or of us, we simply forgot to take one. Spent the whole time talking, like TImbermaster (who brung me a sleeping bag several pages back ) said, pretty much our genial conversation ran along the lines of the 'Fire. Plus I got to meet his great family. Jim is among the more fortunate of us here on the 'Fire.

I got there in the afternoon, early the next morning my buddy left Great Falls and covered in just two or three hours what took me three days, and we drove back to his place.

Bike is already getting packed up and shipped out, here in Great Falls we are driving out Glacier in a couple of days, then back to the grindstone fer me, except I don't really work for a living

Last photo I have of the bicycle part of the trip: The road to Jim's place, looking north.....



Last photo of the bicycle itself; a purpose-built touring bike, designed to carry a significant load comfortably at moderate speeds all day long. That bike just devours the miles

2,000 miles TX to NY in '14, 1,500 miles England/Scotland/Ireland/France in '16, and most recently 1,250 miles of Texas/Wyoming/Montana since late June. All of that and I STILL have problems running around the block. Which is an indication of what a good bicycle can do for ya.




I had been crossing paths with the Nez Perce Trail ever since Yellowstone on this trip, so after my friend picked me and the bike up, we went out of our way to see the Bear Paw Battlefield. Naivete runs like a thread through the Nez Perce saga. From the accounts, at first they thought if they cleared out of Idaho to Montana they would be left alone, and after they had whupped the soldiers sent against them like four times they thought they had left pursuit behind for a while, and so more'n 700 of them stopped to camp in this hollow, let down their guard, and hunted buffalo just one long day's travel from refuge in Canada. It was here that General Miles and 520 men, including elements of the 2nd and 7th Cavalry, caught them by surprise, outnumbering the approximately 200 combat effectives in the the Indian camp by more that 2:1, perhaps closer to 3:1 after some of the Indians made their escape.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bear_Paw





The other thread that ran through this whole saga was that the Indians were good shots, something of a puzzle given the motley nature of their firearms at the beginning of the conflict, them becoming better armed with U- issue carbines and rifles captured or picked up on the battlefields along the way. Actually, if you get past Frontier Pop History and read into it closely, Indians had been good shots for at least 170 years prior to 1877. As it was the 110 men of the 7th Cavalry suffered 40% casualties in their opening attack, picked off by methodical fire at the hands of Nez Perce marksmen and the battle devolved into a five-day siege. Two hundred of the Nez Perce accompanied by some of the warriors made their escape at the onset, a company of Cavalry was sent in pursuit, but as happened repeatedly in this campaign were driven back by well-aimed rifle fire.


Well, there it went; another bicycle expedition. God willing, I can do another one in 2021.

I am glad you decided to go out there after all.

Exactly, reads just like a confederate monument. subtext, "it tweren't fair, I know we could lick 'em in fair fight, if we just had a do over"

If you do it, or something similar, next year there better be pics and stories like this year.

Make it far NE California on the Oregon Trail and I'll see to it we make a space on the floor, back deck, or out in the sagebrush for you. We even have a spare bed if you'd use it.

We'll visit Captain Jack's Stronghold and the area where the Modoc War was.

Geno

Hey, thanks fer the invite, ya never know....

I do need a "do over" as this trip was interrupted helping a friend drive home.

I did this whole 29 day trip for about $2,000 over what my usual expenses woulda been had I sat out another summer at home, said extra expense earned in advance in the spring on breeding bird surveys. Sure beat the heck out of sitting at home.

I am blown away by the fact that I have so many good friends, here and elsewhere.

One destination left; me and my buddy are driving out to Glacier this weekend, then I fly home, the bike is already on its way.

You WILL be doing Going to the Sun road I hope? Now that would be one heck of a bike ride.

Enjoy Glacier, it's a very cool place. Beware of Griz!

Geno

Hope you have a safe flight home Mike!

It’s hotter than hell. 107 here today.

Cool!!