We left our Warmshowers fairly early the next morning, wanting to have enough time to go over the infamous Lava Mountain before dark.... Climbing out of town past the university, we entered a high plateau above the town dotted with houses and, after the road turned to gravel, ran into our friend Daniel from Wise River. We chatted and rode with him for a while, learning that he had started in the Arizona desert and was heading to the Arctic Sea before turning around and choosing a new destination. We rode with him for a decent chunk of the climb before continuing on while he stopped for a bit. We rode on a frontage road along the highway for a few minutes before stopping in Basin, a small collection of boarded up shops and houses, one of them still serving food. We ordered a milkshake and a salad to supplement our diet of candy and green-less dinners before settling up and continuing the climb. The road was pretty calm for most of the early afternoon before we were faced with an incredibly steep and rocky slope that we had to get off and push for. This was where we discovered that the Tour Divider from Wise River was correct - Lava Mountain did have vampire mosquitos. Step, heave, push, whack was the refrain for this short but tiring section as I battled gravity and mosquitos that seemed to continuously swarm in spite of my attempts to kill them all. Soon able to remount my bike, we continued on a fairly rutted road that wound up and up before taking the right fork into the trees where it got a little crazy. I could see how Tour Dividers riding down this slope in the dark were traumatized, but it was just a matter of knowing when to stop and shove up the last little bit of whatever section you were on and I was an expert at this by now.

We pushed onward and eventually ended up in a mountain clearing with pretty little flowers in the grass around us. Now the fun would start. The descending was very bumpy and I often dismounted to bypass large ruts or sections of boulders or super steep little jumps. Trying to hurry to keep up with Ziven, I made decent time but was put to shame by Daniel catching up to us and ripping through the technical sections on his old mountain bike with 26” wheels and a super vertical head tube. We bumped along and the road had fewer boulders and rocks but the ruts were almost as deep as I was tall in sections. Our rocky road finally merged with a smooth one and we were suddenly zooming through a picturesque meadow and into a small valley. We climbed a bit and crossed from one hilltop to another on a road rimming both of the hills before descending more. We took a quick snack break in the shade along the road before starting one of our last climbs in the day, stopping to feed some of our goldfish to a cute puppy who had started to follow Ziven up the hill. We pet him and were considering how to smuggle him away on our bikes when he bid us farewell and trotted back into the trees towards his house.

After the climb we descended for quite a while and were spit out onto a smooth road near town and spotted lots of signs of non-Trump country and mountain bikers heading the other way towards the mountains. With good impressions already made, we headed the short distance from the edge of town to our accommodation kindly arranged by our Butte Warmshowers. Their friends lived near the State Capital and we quickly zoomed through downtown and onto their street, spotting the RV that would be our home for the next two nights. We called our hosts and the dad came out to give us a tour and offer some suggestions for dinner. We put down all of our stuff and showered in the tiny toilet/shower combo before heading out (via foot!) and patronizing a fried chicken restaurant for dinner. We happily wandered to the Safeway next door and got snacks and breakfast food for our rest day before heading back and watching some well earned TV in our comfy bed.