I awoke at 5am or so to the sound of thunder and rain on the roof of the tent and quickly waded out of my sleeping bag and unzipped the tent, lunging for... my bike pants, which had been wet for days and I had left out to dry overnight. They were once again soggy and I sadly returned to the tent to get a little bit more sleep before our 6:30 alarm. Even though we had been warned the night before by the homeless man who seemed to live in the park, we were still taken by surprise when the sprinklers started at 7am. Luckily for us we were not situated near the first zone of sprinklers and, unluckily for them, the group of older ladies who were starting the route were doused as they tried to collapse their tents and move their bikes out of the way as quickly as they could. Ziven and I moved all of our stuff onto a small bridge that was out of range of the sprinklers. We packed away all of our stuff and, in a fateful move that would come back to bite me in the butt, I chose to store the tent rain fly on the outside of my back bag so it could dry as we biked.

We headed out of town on what would soon become Elisa’s No Good Very Bad Day. We trekked across the street so we could use the gas station bathroom and chatted to a pair of riders who had camped next door and were heading to the border and then southbound. The road out of town was the same big hill we had conquered the night before on our way to Subway and we zoomed down the northside into a valley filled with farmland and, apparently, screws. I was drafting off Ziven (not too closely, having learned my lesson in Wyoming) and noticed something silver in his tire. I called us both to a halt and we investigated, finding a big screw embedded in his tire. We carefully extracted it, waving that we were okay to a pair of other riders we had talked to at the gas station an hour earlier. After shoving a thingamabob into the tubeless tire and letting the sealant do its work, we continued onward toward the border.

After a final bend on a nondescript farm road, we emerged at the border crossing and, after a quick dip into a store that advertised duty free ice cream, discovered that Ziven did not read the signs properly and it was, in fact, duty free ice. Heartbroken, we continued onward and the Canadian border patrolman asked if we had any weapons, specifically pepper spray. Ziven responded that we had only bear spray and he waved us on - apparently grizzly level pepper spray was not a concern. We posed with the sign announcing our entry into British Columbia and kept on going down the road, taking the first right into the hills and climbing quickly away from the highway on the infamous Flathead Alternative. The going was slow as the grade refused to mellow out and we chugged along on pitch after pitch, taking frequent snack breaks and blowing my bear whistle every few minutes, having spotted our first bear paw print that morning. Eventually, finally, at last, we reached the top of the climb and descended down an overgrown road with plenty of ruts that would have given New Mexico Elisa a run for her money.

Using my newly discovered gravel badassery, I managed to keep up (ish) with Ziven and, in the process, ran over a snake’s head. Although many people are snake averse, I find them quite cute and felt horrible at having ended its life (presumably) so quickly and needlessly. I did not return to look at the damage but instead adjusted my grip and paid more attention to the ground, still blowing my whistle every thirty seconds or so. At the base of the mountain we had gone up and down, we continued into some meadows and more overgrown roads that looked like no one had driven in years. If we hadn't had our bike computer telling us that this was the correct route I would have assumed we had taken a wrong turn many miles before. We climbed up and down smaller hills and bumped around in the rutted double track that occasionally turned single track, anticipating that at any moment we would get to… dun dun dun… THE WALL. We had heard from other riders that this segment was a bit overhyped and, while very very steep, was quite short. When we went around a bend in the single track and I spotted it, I realized that they were correct but also that there was no way I was getting down that. Southbound riders and Tour Dividers had the monumental task of hoisting their heavy bikes, gear, and themselves up the slipper, well, wall-like slope but we had the almost more dangerous task of carefully maneuvering ourselves and the same heavy bikes and gear down without slipping on the soft mud and falling 50 feet into the brush. Ziven told me to stay put and take pictures of him as he sussed out the situation, carefully using stumps and rocks as footholds as he fully picked up his loaded bike and carried it down. Swallowing my pride and letting Ziven be the hero once again, I started unloading the removable Tailfin panniers and waited for Ziven to come retrieve Poppy. I then was sent to go first with the bags to take pictures and got halfway down before realizing I had no photo-taking device. I then clambered up and down again, hanging onto trunks and slipping and sliding down. No idea how anyone does that with heavy things in their arms. Oh well, next time! After a successful Wall experience, we cavorted through the forest on a fun little singletrack that I somewhat enjoyed until we reached a creek crossing. Trying to avoid maneuvers that Ziven had done very gracefully and I did not trust myself to do, I took another route and managed to get myself into a spider’s web under a tree. Screaming with fear at a massive spider descending on my shoulder, I plunged forward with my bike and ended up submerged to my ankles in icy water. Now with my soggy bottoms from the morning rain and soaked shoes and socks, I was not a happy camper. After a few tears born from frustration and arachnophobia, we continued on and the single track once again widened into double track.

We passed a Tour rider who did not stop to say hello but raced by faster than we could wave. After starting a new climb, we continued for a while before descending into a similar looking valley and stopped for a snack on a wide wooden bridge. The road widened and we rode past a small campground where it seemed other bikers may have been. We now saw evidence of civilization once again and passed a family with horses, pausing to dunk our shirts in a small stream that meandered next to the road. Our final climb of the day was a brute and we had been churning for over an hour when I suddenly noticed something strange in my shadow from the setting sun. Where was the rain fly? I slammed on the brakes and spun around to see the straps dangling mournfully, no golden orange tent cover in sight. Immediately I began to freak out and cry - this was too much for little old Elisa who was already being pushed to her limit. Ziven smartly pulled out his phone and began to look at pictures to try to locate the last time we had it.

The news was not good. The last picture we had with it was right after The Wall, and the most recent photo was from an hour before at the beginning of the climb, without the rainfly. My harebrained theory was that it had to be at the base of the climb and was already turning around to descend and grab it when Ziven tried to talk some sense into me, a then senseless person. The sun was already setting and we had to finish our climb AND the descent, of which we had no knowledge of the conditions. This would get us to a cabin we knew was safe and available to sleep in - the rest of the land around us was known as “Grizzly Corridor” and while we had a bear box, we had too much food to fit into it. The smart move would be to move on, but I could not comprehend both leaving behind a key component of my prized tent or continuing on without any protection from the elements - we still had the tent itself but with no waterproof cover any sort of moisture would fall directly on us. Ziven cajoled me to keep going and eventually became frustrated, justifiably so, with my hysteria. I sobbed the entire descent, bumping around ruts and big rocks that would have been impossible to maneuver in the dark (not to mention we had shipped our lights home in Colorado because we decided we would simply create a schedule where we did not bike in the dark). Ziven was, as usual, correct and, had we gone back, we would have endangered ourselves as well as our schedule for the last days of the trip - we were already reaching capacity at five or so 100ish mile days in a row and could not afford to add on anymore, especially sans bike lights.

The road got smoother and I exchanged crying for using my whistle, comforting myself with the knowledge that I would ask the next southbounder we saw to keep an eye out for our tent and mail it back from Eureka. Ziven poked holes in this plan, reminding me that riders had spent hundreds if not thousands of dollars on lightweight setups and would not happily cart my heavy and cumbersome rain fly over The Wall and 70+ miles into the US, spending extra time to mail it home for us. Knowing this in my heart before Ziven had said anything, I kept my mouth shut as a southbounder whizzed by and sadly slogged on. Finally a cabin emerged from the forest and, in the last 300 yards or so, a massive 60 foot puddle also emerged as the final boss on Elisa’s No Good Very Bad Day. It was slightly too deep and the gravel too soft for me to want to bike through it as Ziven had and we were too close to the finish for me to carefully peel of my socks and stow my shoes, so I gave in to the universe and plunged into the massive puddle (aka section of stream that went over the road) shoes and all. With water pouring from the hole in my shoe, we pulled up to the cabin, Ziven whooping that we were saved, to find a group of twenty something year old men taking a picture of themselves with the Butts Cabin sign and, well, their butts. They quickly stowed away the subjects of their photo and we greeted them, expressing how glad we were to be done for the day.

We probably smelled horrible after days in the rain with no bath or change of clothes, but they graciously ushered us into the cabin to check it out. It was definitely a free-to-stay-at, abandoned cabin in the middle of British Columbia backwoods. There were bunk bed shelves and various places to put beds but there were also clearly mice and the quartet had put their food on high shelves and claimed sleeping areas off the floor to avoid them. Ziven and I would be sleeping on the floor. We got our sleeping stuff unpacked and decided we would do some “laundry” while there was still light. This meant trudging back to the evil puddle with a plastic grocery bag and all of our stinky socks and underwear, Ziven doing his best to clean them while I filtered water… technically downstream from him… oops. It was hard to tell, okay? After we rejoined the group and learned that one was from San Francisco, we exchanged stories and they eagerly asked for information about the roads ahead. We were now the seasoned veterans and they were the newbies. We cooked dinner as they called it an early night. Restless sounds coming from the cabin did not convince us that staying inside was a good idea. Apparently a few mosquitos had snuck in and were wreaking havoc on the exposed flesh of them all. It was also apparently quite hot inside and they would often get up to let some fresh air inside. Deciding we would be safe enough from bears pitching a tent right next to the cabin, we moved our stuff outside and happily settled into our familiar tent. I morosely looked at the stars, which were visible thanks to the absence of my rain fly.

The good news was that, once I had relayed our harrowing story and, maybe once they had looked at my sad, puffy eyes, the group had voluntarily promised to look for it the next day and send it home to us if they found it. I fell asleep exhausted, but Elisa’s No Good Very Bad Day did not end at midnight. Sometime around 2am there was a light sprinkle and, not wanting to get doused in case the rain did not stop immediately, we reluctantly got up and dragged the tent under the eaves of the cabin. This location was pretty good except it partially blocked the cabin entrance and, primitive as it was, the cabin had motion sensor lights and we happened to be camped right in front of the sensor. I soon found that if I slept on my back the lights would stay off when I moved but if I elected to sleep on my side my prone figure was tall enough to trigger the lights. The infuriating dance between us trying to get comfortable wedged between a picnic table and a woodpile and the motion sensor went on for quite a while and, needless to say, we did not sleep well.

Ziven here; Elisa’s memory of the day completely matches mine. It was a physically challenging and very long day for me, and even harder for her. She glazed over it, but one of the hardest parts for me was the long stretch of overgrown single and doubletrack. The Flathead Alternate is technically on the Tour Divide and not the Great Divide, but we had chosen to try it in order to push ourselves. As such, any doubts and issues with the trail could only be blamed on us for choosing it. Once in the remote wilderness famous for Grizzly Bears, I was a bit scared and ready for the trip to be over. Something about the dense bush triggered a sense of claustrophobia that I don’t normally have. I felt it was extra hard for me, having taken on the responsibility of navigator. If we got lost and hurt as a result, it was on me.