Day 25: Ennis

Distance: 72 avg: 12.5

Today was a fun day. I was able to spend a good amount of time on the road, and also exploring the land around me. The area I’m in now was originally settled as gold rush mining. There are very colorful tales of gold miners, highwaymen, and crooked sheriffs. Those days died out when the gold ran out, and now the colorful tales are about fishing.

Twin Bridges was a great stop. The people were very nice and Norm’s coffee was awesome.

Today’s Twilight Zone moment is brought to you by Nevada City. Biking along reading the signs about all the old mining towns, and it turns out that in the 40s some couple recreated a ghost town on the site of Nevada City. Nevada City was one of the biggest ghost towns, and this couple went all out, buying up old shacks and trains.

Next was Virginia City, but fuck that, what I want to talk about is the mountain pass after it. Holy wow oh my god. On the way up I thought, ‘I’m on mile 60, it can’t be this steep. I’m just being a baby.’ uh uh. It’s steep. The criminally insane roller coaster/highway designers of Montana must have had their meth supply cut off.

You know that feeling when you come over that first hill on a roller coaster? You’re going like 2 mph and you’re just waiting to be hurtled 30mph into the abyss and lay a couple pellets in your pants. See, that’s fun, Montana!

What’s not fun is when you are already GOING 30 mph and you see a drop like that. Actually it kinda is. I think the following things went through my head:

Wow, that’s steep.
Omg, am I heading towards a cliff?
This is going to be awesome!
I should be seeing ground now…
I can see the hill! Woohoo, man this is intense!
Oh wait that was just a mirage…ok… There’s the ground.
Dammit, chris, just unclench and enjoy this badass hill!
Ok, hill badass, crosswinds are not.
I wonder if I can be identified by my fillings…

And that was how I got to the town of Ennis! Also, the view down the mountain was truly stunning. I think these campfire fumes are making me write funny. 🙂