When you start out to do something big, maybe not big for someone else but big for you the whole core of it is that you don’t know if you can do it. But you can know that the attempt will have been worth it. After a little more than three weeks of riding we realized that we didn’t have any margin of error to make it to our next waypoint and so decided to backtrack to Butte and car camp and hike Grand Teton and Yellowstone. It’s a different adventure and it’s one that Devon was keen to begin. For myself leaving the route felt bittersweet. Riding this route is something I have dreamed of for a very long time. And, while I couldn’t finish it this year, I hope this ride is a beginning of much more beautiful riding in my life.

The final days of riding were all in some of the steepest terrain on the GDMBR. There were long big climbs and descents and all of it in the vast dreamlike landscape of southern Montana.

It’s hard to capture the dreamlike landscape of prairie and steep climbs and rolling mountains of southern Montana. The pictures below are just a try.

In the end we had just one last wild campsite before returning to Butte. We found a pretty site by a small stream and were blessed with a quiet night.