Jackson --> Darby (7/13/10)

Getting an earlier than usual start to hopefully beat out the evil wind that has been the bane of our afternoon riding.  We headed out into the bitter cold of a Montana morning ~34 degrees.  We rode as quickly as our frozen legs would move us to Wisdom to get a hot breakfast and coffee.  After getting warmed up helped lift the spirits and the riding attitude, so we headed on into a bit warmer temperatures and talked over taking a "short cut" called the Gibbons Alternate.  We thought this off route alternate should be quite, peaceful and prettier than we had been seeing (all highway riding).

Getting to the turn off the road was packed dirt and gravel, we thought this would be a snap, maybe not as fast as the road but not too bad.  Oh how wrong we were!  Riding along we came to the first fork, Zack read the eastbound directions and sent us the wrong way, about 4 miles out of the way on a terrible road that climbed to 7200 ft. (the original route only went to 7k and the alternate was only to 6700).  So next we doubled back, down the poopie road and got back on track, heading up to the summit that we should have hit the first time.  With a sign that states: road not suitable for cars or campers, use at own risk.  Huh, that would have been nice to know 9 miles back.

So we started down the "road"  at least the view was great.  The road was so bad I had to pretty much use the breaks the whole time, which lead to hand cramps.  This was not a bad thing because it required me to stop, which let the rear rim and the front disc cool down.  I was trying not to get into any more trouble that I was already dealing with.  

As I was riding down I found Robin checking the view out before he ran into his mechanical troubles (two flats).

After I passed Robin I headed to the bottom, which was a tough ride and really should not have been listed as an option.  When I got back to the highway I saw Zack at the ranger station so we had a picnic of our usual foods, Nutella and peanut butter sandwiches with some Starbucks Via.  After about an hour Robin made it down and we had a right bitch session about the alternate, then we headed on to Darby.

Upon getting to Darby we found the grocery and the free city park camping.  After a rough day it was nice to cook a decent meal in the park, where we had the luxury of bathrooms!  Wanting to get an early start we turned in early; however, our night was not over yet.  At about 1230 we were awoken to the distinct sound of sprinklers...