Advice On THE GREAT DIVIDE off-road tour

[travelerjeff]

A warm greeting to all from San Francisco!

I am contemplating a tour on the full Great Divide route from Banff,
Canada to the Mexico/U.S. border (roughly 2,700 miles).  

If anyone has experience with this trip, I would greatly value the
opportunity to touch base.  

What was your adventure like?  I welcome news about good, bad,
wonderful, memorable, and ugly portions of the trip.  How long did
your trip take?  How challenging are water and other issues?  

Right now, my plan is to leave from Banff around August 10th and ride
south.  I may be carrying photography and film gear so I anticipate the
trip will take roughly two months.    

I completed the Trans America Trail (Yorktown, Virginia to SF,
California) and the West Coast route (Vancouver, Canada to Tijuana,
Mexico) as well as a long trip in Europe.  Each of these trips was
incredible.  These, however, were road adventures.  I have a passion
for mountain biking, but no experience with a long-distance off road
travel.  I am a "NEWBE".

Thanks for any input you may have ...

[SherryOlson]

Tripper,

My husband and I are starting from Banff on August 3rd.  Hope to see you along the trail. I've been studying the Journals on Adventure Cycling for guidance as to good places to stop, get your bike repaired, where not to eat or drink the tab water, etc..

Sherry O.

[ekoostick]

Hey Jeff and Co., My friend and I are on the trail right now going from Banff to Antelope Wells. We started June 7th and it's been a huge adventure so far. It's rained everyday since we got to CO and that has not been a lot of fun. I will be checking back in at the Del Norte library so if you have any specific questions, post them here or e-mail me and I can get back to you.

So far the hardest challenges have been Fleecer Ridge decent, the Great Basin, the ride between Helena and Basin, and yesterday, the washed out road on Marshall Pass. We were still in Montana in late June/early July and didn't find a lot of the smaller creeks to be running. Same with Wyoming. There was no on route water through the Great Basin (but some reservoirs off route that visibly had water, including the A&M which was very full).

This has been our first bike tour and I guess we have overpacked so far. We both have BOB's with 50-60 lbs of gear and food and it pushes you downhill and drags up on the uphills. Also very hard to use effiently in mud. With that said though its been a great journey and we love it (minus the heavy lightning and rain in CO right now).

One fun sidetrip we did was to go to Jenny Lake in the Tetons. From what we have heard, Jackson is very over-rated and we thought Jenny Lake was absolutely beautiful. Also avoid Flagg Ranch unless you love RV's and generators.

I think thats all the hints I can think of. Read our blog and let me know if you have any questions!

-Keith
Divide Ride 07