DISTANCE TRAVELED: 37.76 Miles
AVERAGE SPEED: 10.77 MPH

          After six and a half hours of sleep, I got up at 5:30 AM to make breakfast for everyone. Fortunately, breakfast was easy since all that it involved was putting out cereal, granola bars, juice, and all the fixings for lunch such as peanut butter and jelly, bread, fruit and power bars. I am done with cooking for another 6 days! At 8:00, the vans came and we packed up our gear so it could be loaded into the van. We drove 2 hours to get to our revised start point at the Port of Trail Creek on the American/Canadian border. (Picture2) Unfortunately, the port of entry has been closed for about four years, since so few people travel through this area. To our surprise however, about three minutes after we arrived, a border patrol officer arrived to make sure that no drug trade or illegal crossing took place! Fortunately, he arrived since we would not have been able to take a complete group picture without his help. (Picture3) Finally, we began our first mile of the trip at 10:45. We rode along up and down the dirt roads we had driven to get to our start point. (Picture4,Picture5) Riding though dense forests with occasional clearings, the mountain ranges in Glacier were incredible. Although the roads were in good condition, the trailer fishtailed left and right whenever speeds began to exceed 25 miles per hour. We reached Polebridge around 2:30 where we were to camp for the night. Just 300 yards from the town it began to rain, so luckily we had enough energy to get under an overhang before we got too wet. While waiting for the rain to stop I bought a fresh cherry turnover that was the best I have ever tasted. Finally, the rain let up and it was time to see where we were to camp for the night. Although Polebridge consists of only about 10 buildings, it had a hostel, which provided us with showers and a place to cook. Although we did not sleep inside, it was a great place to get cleaned up. Since we had not had enough riding for the day, four other people and I left behind our bags and took a 14-mile trip up to Bowman Lake in Glacier National Park. The uphill was steep and fairly long. The trip to the lake was well worth the effort though. The clouds cleared just as we got to it, revealing snow-capped mountains, which descended directly down into the long lake. The water was crystal-clear, and it was freezing cold due to it being glacial runoff. Marnie learned how to skip a rock and after a few pictures, (Picture6) it was time for the descent. We began with an initial short incline followed by a long steep decline. As we flew down the trail, we rounded numerous hairpin turns where we left 6-foot long skid marks from our back wheel sliding around the washboard dirt road. As soon as we got to the hostel, I set up my tent, which will be my home for the next 73 days. Everything was set up and it was just in time since dinner was ready. The meal of macaroni and cheese along with a variety of juice drinks filled everyone up with lots to spare. We all sat around talking until a map meeting where we discussed the next day's trip. After this short event, it was time to fix my rear derailleur. At first, Brian thought it would be a 15 minute job to adjust a few screws. It turned out to take two hours! We discovered that the cable had numerous kinks in it that greatly hurt the shifting performance. We took apart the shifter, replaced the cable, lubed it up, and re-threaded it into the derailleur. When this was done, it took about two more minutes until it worked perfectly. I took advantage of the showers and found out that we had to light a gas lantern to light up the shower room! The shower did not have the most force I have ever felt but it did the job. Finally, it was 10:00 and getting dark so I climbed into my tent, sat in my therma-rest chair and wrote for an hour until 11:00.