Tour Divide 2022 – Day 3 – Fernie to Whitefish

Date: 12-06-22

Mileage: 118.78 miles

Cumulative mileage: 284.63 miles

Climbing: 4754 feet

Cumulative climbing: 17841 feet

Elapsed time: 14hrs 59min

Riding time: 10hrs 25min

We left Red Tree Lodge and headed into downtown Fernie in search of food and bike shops. The previous day had shown us how hard it was going to be and suitably humbled by the Canadian geography we decided that it was time to go down a chainring size from 32 teeth to 30. 

Straight Line Bicycles were open extra hours for Tour Divide riders and we rolled in, explained what we wanted, and they whisked our bikes away and told us to go and get food. I was excited to revisit Big Bang Bagels, that I went to in 2016 with Tom. Three bacon and cheese bagels were purchased, one for breakfast and two for the road. We headed back over to Straight Line and had a really nice chat with the owner. I’d lost my favourite gloves on Koko the day before so I picked out a new pair and before long our bikes were returned to us ready to go. Amazingly they were also charging no labour for Tour Divide riders, so it was parts only, woohoo! Seriously though, many thanks to those guys and all they do for riders.

We headed out of town on Cokato Road, after last night’s decision we were still happy with the Fernie Alternate and had decided definitely that was the right choice. Just out of town there was a fellow rider, sat by the side of the trail, smoking a fat spliff. He said he was “getting himself ready for the next section”, I guess you have to do this stuff your own way! 

A bit further on we came across another rider, Jan, who had decided to do the same thing as us. We had a great time getting to know her, and exchanging stories. She was a super experienced rider and open water swimmer who had done both of those activities all over the world, though her stories were very amusing as they seemed to follow the format: I was riding in this country, there was a local animal loose, it collided with one of the riders! We were slightly nervous as this seemed to happen a lot, so our eyes were kept peeled on either side of the trail in case it happened to us too!

It was great as we seemed to be at a similar pace, so we stuck together and enjoyed a day in each other’s company, swapping stories and riding together. The opportunity for cold drinks and ice cream appeared in the form of the Grasmere General Store and we filled our bellies and cooled down for a bit. The border with the USA was soon in front of us and we crossed without much in the way of questioning and made our way down the next stretch to Eureka. It was about four in the afternoon and not much was open, but we found one place that was open, Front Porch Deweys Burger and Fish Co. I partook in a Montana delicacy, frybread. Basically it was a pizza, but the base was deep fried, crunchy!

It was at this point the local sheriff walked in. Because Jan was racing rather than touring her dot was on the race tracker map and the Sheriff had seen the tracker and had popped in for a chat. At this exact moment both Chris and Jan’s Garmins both flashed up a warning for flooding and severe weather. The Sheriff asked us whether we’d seen the forecast and where we were about to go. We explained the next part of the route and she strongly suggested that we didn’t go as the forecast was for rain at the lower elevations and a big dump of snow, maybe as much as five feet higher up. The thought of only getting about a third of the way up the first pass, camping, getting up in the pouring rain, and then having to tackle two passes that would then be deep in snow sounded like no fun for us, or for Jan.  As Eureka is a bit of a one street town with not a lot in the way of facilities we decided to throw caution to the wind and hit the highway for Whitefish. It just seemed like a better place to be holed up if we were going to be stuck indoors for a day. Just to frame it though for UK riders it was like riding all day, having dinner, then deciding to ride from London back to Brighton.

It still didn’t stop it feeling like anything other than a rubbish decision though. We wanted to stay safe, we wanted to get as far as we could, the road just felt like the most sensible, and safe, option. Also as it had turned out when we chatted to other riders in the queue for the border quite a few others had decided to do exactly what we did and take the alternate route. Someone else we spoke to who had done the Galton Pass section said it was pretty horrific, especially the wall. She’d slipped near the top and almost slipped all the way back down to the bottom. She’d also had to push her bike through eight miles of snow.

After a quick discussion with Chris, I revealed that I was 9.73 out of 10 on the tiredness scale, which did worry him a bit. As ever there was a headwind too, so unfortunately for him Jan and I took a ride on the Crutlefish express, thank goodness he seemed to be feeling alright. It was once again typical Tour Divide, nothing to do except get your head down and keep pedalling. About ten miles out of Whitefish we knew there was the Whitefish Bike Retreat, the decision was made to pedal up the hill and see if we could get a spot for the night. It turned out to be about three miles off the highway and just as it was getting dark as we wound our way down their driveway. Despite the fact the lights were on in one building no one was answering the door or the phone and it left us with no option but to turn around and head back to the highway and the last bit into town. We rolled in at about 23:30, and after a couple of false starts found the Best Western. We checked in super quickly and headed over the road to a 24 hour supermarket, which closed at midnight, and it turned out they shut it early. Balls. 

Also then checking the Facebook group back in the hotel room there was an update from Paul Anson, who we met on day one with the damaged rotator cuff, he had further bad luck. In his own words he said the following:

“Tour Divide is all about stories. On Friday turned back because I had severe pain in my rotator cuff (a pre-existing issue) on the single track by spray lake, got to the physio, she did great. Restarted from Canmore on Saturday up to Round Prairie a good 100 mile I was strong. Yesterday got over Koko ok, I was going great feeling positive, then about 20 miles out from Fernie the bear spray on my handlebars went off. I could see in the gravel where I slammed on blinded  then swerved into a rock. Thankfully(!) hitting  that rock stopping me going into the river.  Evacuated by helicopter, in hospital with 7 broken ribs. Tip is don’t put your bear spray on your handle bars! Hospital staff confirm they do just go off from time to time. I’m not the first. What a trip. Just as I was feeling positive…after Friday. Best wishes to you all.”

So, as we’d said to ourselves many times, the Tour Divide giveth, and the Tour Divide taketh away. You’ve got to decide where your personal safety line lies, and do your best to stay on the right side of it.