Distance and Elevation

Distance:  1,352 miles
Elevation Gain:  60,048 feet
Elevation Loss:  57,259 feet
Elevation Max:  12,183 feet

I suspect all the Gain/Loss numbers are a little conservative (Elevation Max. comes from Rocky Mountain National Park website) because of Google Earth only taking samples at one mile intervals. Regardless, we'll be climbing from base camp to the summit of Mount Everest five times, Mount Rainier seven times and--sticking with Rainier--riding our bikes just shy of the top of Disappointment Cleaver on the dog route (though still way short of Everest bc).

--ph
Grand Depart:  90 Days!

Daunting: summit of Everest five times? Rainier seven?

Day by day. That's how I figure I'll approach it, assure myself every morning. I can do it... 30, 40, 60 miles a day, sure. No matter how steep and no matter how much weight. Plug along, plod along, push along, I'll get there. Might be slow. Might be reminiscent of coming out of the Grand Canyon sick sick sick and "just let me go my pace, Paul..." but I'll do it.

Just don't leave me to fend off the bears by myself!

And, bam, another Everest? Hard to believe.

Less than one month now!

--Alaine

Where are you going?

I absolutely love maps. Ever since I was a kid I could sit for stretches just absorbed by the details of geography, finding my place in the world (so cliché) and imagining new places to visit that would in turn begin and continue to define who I am (so true).

I am intimate with the time suck that is Google Earth/Maps and can sit for hours searching terrain--from the coast for hidden remote breaks to the peaks and their quiet alpine lakes. I've even spent a good chunk of time as a Google Maps contributor putting up many of the trails in the Chuckanuts. So it would only be natural for me to plot out our entire trip. And in doing so it helps to answer the question when people ask, "Where?"

Here is what it looks like from Google space with every day a different color-

And you, too, can view it on Google Earth.

--ph
Grand depart - 96 days!

Paul and his mapping! He makes it sound so simple, but in reality he spent many, many (many) hours--early mornings and late at night and any free time in between--to plot out our course with such exactitude.

After losing 75% of his work one night (accompanied by more woe and frustration and angst than you can imagine... "Paul, it'll be okay...!") he figured a simpler (and swifter) way to save his mapping. Whew!

We have the overall image that shows the entire route, color-coded by day, here, but he's also made each day's elevation profile, which I've included in our daily "trip narrative" so that we can be prepared each day. He also made a 10-hour (or something like that) google earth "movie"! We've watched, what, the first week so far? Amazing, the technology, but also P's commitment to research this trip so much. (Every time he gets quiet in the office, I ask what he's doing and it's usually either checking maps, or checking blogs of riders past, current, and future.)

Paul-- working so diligently to make this all a reality.

--Alaine

1:12,000

The other night we met up with two local GDMBR legends for drinks, stories and advice. Jenny and Josh did the whole route last year and posted about it here where I stumbled upon it about ten minutes after Alaine said, "Hey, do you wanna...." Who knew that two top blog Dividers were right here in town. Good hearted and energetic, they shared their experiences and tips and really helped us confirm some planed destinations, as well as revise others, and assuage a bit of the unknown. Four some odd hours flew by quickly and made me wish we were all heading for Whitefish the next day.

Including a person that Jenny and Josh know from the Co-op and a couple other locals that we know of, our little Ham-let, in all likelihood, has good GDMBR per capita representation ~ 1:12,000. (Of course this would mean Alaine and I will have to pony up and do more than just the middle half.)

--ph

The Great Divide bike route definitely seems to be coming up in conversation and awareness now that it's on our own minds. The fall '13 edition of the Mountaineers guidebook likely played a factor, but people also are recognizing the attraction of the roads and attitudes that intersect hardcore mountain biking and road touring. There's a lot of trail and gravel in between to explore!

--Alaine

Yes.

When "My Gal" mentioned biking from our home in Bellingham, Washington to Denver via the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route I was surprised because 1) she knew the words "Great Divide Mountain Bike Route", 2) it's a damn long ride, 3) though we live in a mini-Mecca for mountain biking, we're not mountain bikers. That said, we are adventurous types who focus on journeys instead of destinations and shy away from anything that resembles an itinerary. There could only be one answer. Yes.

Coming back to reality, that being the fact that we own road bikes, are tourers of the highway-byway variety, have jobs, a cat, a son, not to mention other plans for summer we decided to cut out the first 600 miles of introductory pavement and travel by train to the station in Whitefish, Montana--spitting distance from the GDMBR and the meat of our adventure.

Books and blogs have been read, maps have been purchased, bikes have been modified and our to-do list gets shorter. I don't do Facebook but I do want to have something for those that want to follow our adventure as well as something for us to look back on and everything that happens between here and there.

--ph
Grand depart 126d


I’ve always called Paul “my guy,” but I never realized he used “my gal” in reference to me. (The history of such vague relationship terminology stems from our not having been married some 23 of our current 24 years of being, how I’ve always referred to it, “solid.” So the words “husband” or “wife” are relatively foreign to us and don’t come easily to our lips.) I love being Paul’s gal! And the two of us taking all sorts of journeys together, guy and gal, well, that’s what our shared life has been about.

I have to add, though, that my mentioning of this particular journey was, in truth, inspired by a destination: In September 2013, we promised our friends Bill and Maggie—who used to live in Bellingham but have lived in Loveland, Colorado, for several years—that we’d finally come visit them. And we could incorporate a visit to my brother Callen (in Denver) to boot! But how to get there in an interesting way that also gave us opportunity to see and experience a part of the country we’d not explored before…that was what I was looking for. Since Bill is a cycling friend with whom we’d just done part of the Chuckanut Century (with avid cycling friends Ray and Kitty—just wanted to mention them!), seeking interesting biking options as part of getting there was forefront in my mind. Hence my comment to Paul along the lines of, “hey, there’s a some bike trail from north of Whitefish that passed through Colorado…”

What did I get myself into with that observation? Indeed, I am not a mountain biker: I prefer to stay firmly rooted on two feet along those switch-backy, rooty, rocky, hilly trails of Galbraith and Chuckanut so popular with local mountain bikers.

But Paul said “yes,” and it was autumn, so what better way to pass the dark and rainy months than think about a summer bike trip and embrace the idea of a new challenge? The fact that there was a hot-off-the-press updated publication of a trusted Mountaineers Books guide ("Cycling the Great Divide" by Michael McCoy) just added to the serendipity of our decision. Once we learned the date of two dear friends’ summer wedding (yay, Jon & Taylor!), our planning and info gathering began in earnest: the book, the Adventure Cycling Association website and maps, Amtrak’s Empire Builder timetable (after dispelling those first 600 miles from our doorstep), Denver-area rental car options back home, rider blogs, bike needs and, Paul’s obsession--Google maps.

--Alaine (just now getting up to speed on Paul’s travel diary)
4/27/2014 – “Grand depart” now ONLY TWO MONTHS AWAY!