Divide Day 1
With a push to get moving from my temporary housemates, I started Googling and calling around for a safe spot to park the 🚐 for ~3 weeks south enough to get out of fire/heavy smoke danger but north enough to keep as many miles of the route as possible. Turns out, there’s not much in middle of nowhere Montana! I finally got ahold of a hunting lodge that had an affordable “yeah sure” of a spot! I started up the van.
10pm: worried no one was awake since I confirmed I’d be there at 8:30, I went looking until I found a tiny back room full of men drinking. Walking hella close to me, they showed me where I should park and remarked “[I] must be an animal.” To attempt such a trip… never mind they’d had to at least see some of the hundreds of other Divide riders passing throughout the past two decades. I can’t say that I felt anything but on edge and intimidated, and had to remind myself I’d grown up working around rural folks and I had made the choice to park here and take the risks this journey necessitated + most people are just living their lives. Knowing I wasn’t an animal, in my brain I parted with 3 weeks of money knowing I could ride one hour, return to the van and disappear. I set one last trap for the 🐭with extra pb, got all my shit together, and set the 6:30 alarm. Luckily, there were 2 people from an online form that I could intersect, as of a couple days ago. 25 degrees, a nice sunrise and a Trump 2020 flag flapping on its pole heralded in my September 15th. I pushed off at 8:05am, saying a prayer the still empty trap get its mouse before it left any untouchable droppings or munched on the sheep’s wool beyond repair. I startled then admired a herd of pronghorns dance through a field and turned North to go as far as possible before retracing my steps (purely so I could say I rode the Divide without a caveat – COVID = no 🇨🇦)
An hour in I was peeing behind a bush loathing the thought of sleeping alone outside at night, a back spasm waiting to happen, and bear country. I didn’t see a way to make it even one day solo so 🤞🏼 I’d find that couple.
Taking my bike back on the road I asked the person slowing to a stop if they knew one of said humans. Knowing who they were because he’d spent the night with them he confirmed he absolutely wasn’t them and that they were well behind. I shook some sense into myself and asked if I could join him. A yes from Travis and my Divide ride was saved. My first ever roadside cooked meal, scrapes, dust, elation, terror, wonder and more later, we chose a grassy field to call it a night. Since he refused to part with his food for lack of bear fear I put up my bivy a good distance from his, leaving everything with scent and calories 1/4 a mi down the road. I settled in for the first starry, starry, night.
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Melissa Teeple 