Bikepacking Montana on the Great Divide (part 1): from the Canadian border to Helena
Montana is the first US state we crossed by bike, and it’s the one that made us fall in love with the United States! In late June 2024, we crossed the Canadian border at Roosville, near Eureka, then followed the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (GDMBR) through the Rockies to Helena, the state capital: 636 km and 7,935 m of climbing in two weeks. Along the way: a ranch crossed on the sly, a night in jail, a llama ranch with no llamas and our first rodeo.
In the podcast, Marie-Liesse and I told Jean-Mi everything as it happened. Here, I go back over the moments that stuck with us the most, and give you what you need to know to ride in Montana: the route, the stages, the bears, where to sleep (often for free) and why your stove should never travel with your tortillas.
In short
- When: June 29 to July 12, 2024, the two of us, right after the Canadian section of the Great Divide.
- The route: the Great Divide from the Canadian border (Roosville, near Eureka) to Helena, via Whitefish, Bigfork, Seeley Lake, Ovando and Lincoln, with a few detours on the road.
- The ride: 636 km and 7,935 m of climbing over 10 stages (49 hours in the saddle), including town rides: our short trips around town on rest days in Whitefish and Helena.
- Sleeping: with Americans we met along the way, in campgrounds that are often full in summer (25 dollars a site at Holland Lake), in the old jail in Ovando and at the Llama Ranch, where everything is free.
- Bears: grizzlies and black bears also live in the Montana Rockies. Bear spray within reach and food away from the tent, always.
- The folklore: a Fourth of July parade in Condon and a rodeo in Helena. Get your cowboy hat out!
Our bike route through Montana
- Eureka → Dan and Dawn’s place, in the mountains: 50 km and 699 m of climbing, our first American climbs.
- Dan and Dawn’s place → Red Meadow Lake → Whitefish: a long climb in the fog, then the descent along the lake. A rest (and rain) day in Whitefish.
- Whitefish → Bigfork: 76 km, almost all on paved road.
- Bigfork → Condon: a gravel pass, then a night at Veterans Camp Ponderosa, near Condon.
- Condon → Holland Lake, by road, on the Fourth of July.
- Holland Lake → Seeley Lake, on gravel tracks and a single track.
- Seeley Lake → Ovando: 51 km, under a blazing sun.
- Ovando → Lincoln: 63 km.
- Lincoln → the Llama Ranch: 38 km, including an hour pushing the bikes.
- The Llama Ranch → Helena: 70 km and more than 1,000 m of climbing, in 38 °C heat. Three rest days at Scott and Dawn’s, and a rodeo.
| Day | Stage | Km | D+ | Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Eureka → Dan and Dawn’s place | 50 km | 699 m | 4h26 |
| 2 | Dan and Dawn’s place → Red Meadow Lake → Whitefish | 69 km | 822 m | 5h11 |
| – | Town ride in Whitefish | 3 km | 24 m | 0h12 |
| 3 | Whitefish → Bigfork | 76 km | 589 m | 5h04 |
| 4 | Bigfork → Veterans Camp Ponderosa, near Condon | 66 km | 1,044 m | 5h47 |
| 5 | Veterans Camp Ponderosa → Condon → Holland Lake | 44 km | 345 m | 2h32 |
| 6 | Holland Lake → Seeley Lake | 62 km | 1,013 m | 5h15 |
| 7 | Seeley Lake → Ovando | 51 km | 592 m | 3h50 |
| 8 | Ovando → Lincoln | 63 km | 806 m | 4h34 |
| 9 | Lincoln → Llama Ranch | 38 km | 723 m | 3h11 |
| 10 | Llama Ranch → Helena | 70 km | 1,006 m | 5h42 |
| – | Town rides in Helena (2 days) | 42 km | 272 m | 3h03 |
| Total from the border to Helena | 636 km | 7,935 m | 48h47 |
Times are moving times, breaks not included, and town rides are our short trips around town on rest days. All our tracks are on our Route & Stats page, “Banff > Sargents” section, and the details of each day are on Julien’s Strava.
Montana on the Great Divide
The Adventure Cycling Association, which mapped the Great Divide, splits Montana into two maps: Roosville to Helena, then Helena to Wyoming. It describes this first section as the most demanding of the whole route: pass after pass in the Rockies, forest roads as far as the eye can see, and a town to resupply only every four or five days (Adventure Cycling Association).
Our plan fits in one sentence: follow the Great Divide to roughly the halfway point, then turn off toward the West Coast, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Diego. Mountains first, beach second!
What we lived through in Montana
The Wild West, border-crossing edition
Two kilometers from the border, a gate blocks our way. No sign, or maybe we decided not to see it. We open it. Behind it: a ranch yard, a pickup, and a man who freezes when he sees us appear on his property: two cyclists covered in bags, waving at him with big smiles. By the time he finds his voice again, the gate is closed on the other side and we’re pedaling like never before! Out here, we know, landowners often have a gun.
Why the shortcut? Because Marie-Liesse’s hands still hurt from her fall in Fernie, and every pebble on the official route shoots up her arms. So we improvise. And that day, improvisation drops us right in the middle of an American’s property!
At the Roosville border post, another question nags at us: what if the farmer called? The border officer is interested in something else. Five months on the Great Divide? He’s never seen anyone ride it that slowly. Suspicious! We’re sat in a bare-walled room, where officers watch us from a distance and come back, one after another, to ask us the same questions. We keep our best poker faces. Forty-five minutes, a set of fingerprints and 30 dollars later, the door opens onto the United States.
Eureka, the first town, is no postcard: tired motels, an almost empty street, and no one to lend us a corner of their yard. So we do as everyone does here and sit down to our first burger. Huge, greasy, delicious! The waitress is the one who finds us a roof, or rather a lawn: a small park at the end of town where cyclists can camp. The only instruction: beware of the morning sprinklers. Welcome to the Wild West!
Dan, Dawn and Godzilla
Our first American day comes down to three numbers: 50 km, 699 m of climbing and zero places to sleep. The forest cabin we spotted on the map has to be booked online, and we’ve had no signal since the morning. It’s taken anyway. So is the next one. A driver slows down next to us to confirm it, politely but firmly: around here, you book. The nearest campground is twenty kilometers away. Uphill, of course!
We leave the route, out of legs and out of ideas, when we spot a white-bearded giant busy in his yard. We ask him, a little shyly, if he knows a spot to pitch the tent. He smiles: “Here. Stay with us.” His name is Dan. With Dawn, his wife, and their two dogs, he lives in a wooden chalet in the middle of the mountains, cut off from the world in winter under two meters of snow. At the bottom of the yard sits an old trailer with flat tires. Two mattresses, a bit of dust, a roof: the Ritz!
The chalet, where Dawn offers us a shower, revolves entirely around the TV. Fox News talks to itself in front of an empty couch. No table to eat at, but guns on the walls and Dan’s parents’ hunting trophies. At the back of the yard, a small locked door intrigues us. Bunker? Arsenal? “The generator,” Dawn assures us. We nod. We don’t believe a word of it!
That night, I sleep with one eye open. Dan casually mentioned the grizzly that sometimes wanders through the yard, and that’s all it takes for me to picture a Godzilla-style monster lifting our trailer like a tin can. In the morning, the only monster in sight is a stack of pancakes, with bacon and runny eggs.
That’s when, between two bites, Dawn puts a set of keys on the table. Her house in Whitefish has been empty since her son died. “Go and rest there, for as long as you like.” We’ve known her for less than twenty-four hours!
Whitefish, the house that makes noises
The road to Whitefish looks like a TV set. A long climb, then a descent in the mist, between firs whose tops you can’t see. Not a car, not a sound: it feels like Twin Peaks. On the shore of Red Meadow Lake, a two-minute chat with fly fishermen costs us about ten mosquito bites. Then the sky tears open, and it’s the first real downpour of the trip. Marie-Liesse puts on her rain pants. I figure we’re almost there. I arrive soaked to the bone.
Dawn’s house is everything a Montana house should be: deer and bear heads on the walls, guns, a huge kitchen. It also has something frozen in time. On the living room table, a photo of her son, with his ashes right behind it. Above our bed, a giant Donald Trump poster watches us sleep. Or rather, watches us not sleep: an hour after falling asleep, I hear in the hallway a dull, regular beating, like rotor blades turning. There’s no fan. I turn the light back on, and I don’t turn it off again.
The next day, it’s raining, so we stay. Dawn drops by with her granddaughters and tells us about her son, who died during a helicopter transfer between two hospitals. The blades. I don’t say anything. Marie-Liesse still laughs about it. I already believed in ghosts: that night only confirmed it.
The Fourth of July, in Condon you shall celebrate
The plan was perfect: two gravel passes in one day, and the Fourth of July on the shore of Holland Lake, watching the fireworks. The first pass is enough to drain Marie-Liesse. Between the two, a camp sends chills down our spines: stuff everywhere, someone lives there year-round, and no one around. We don’t hang about. We race down to the road, where Veterans Camp Ponderosa, a camp for US military veterans, opens its lawn to all travelers. The manager has two pieces of news for us. The bad: there haven’t been fireworks at Holland Lake for years. The good: in Condon, a few kilometers away, there’ll be a parade, a meal and horseback events. Change of plans!
At 10 a.m., Condon is decked out in flags. Floats, riders in costume and pickups bristling with star-spangled banners parade by. We’re in the middle of the presidential campaign, in a state where Donald Trump is on home turf, and the parade is also half rally: one float mocks Joe Biden, “Make America Great Again” caps are everywhere. To our European eyes, it’s a shock. We see a country split into two camps that no longer talk to each other.
At the parish lunch, paid for by passing the hat, dozens of T-shirts display three letters: “MFT”. We bet on “Montana For Trump”. Wrong! The real meaning, which they share with us laughing, is far less political and far more colorful. In the afternoon, kids on their ponies, then riders at full gallop, take on one speed event after another. “It’s like at the rodeo,” a neighbor tells us. That’s all it takes: we want to see a real rodeo.
In the evening, Holland Lake treats us to a splendid sunset and swarms of mosquitoes. We spend the evening slapping ourselves (for a good cause), then smoking out the camp with a small fire. A couple who are leaving give us their site, already paid for. The sheriff still asks for his 25 dollars. We set the alarm very early!
Seeley Lake, square dancing and gasoline tortillas
Leaving Holland Lake, the route slips onto a single track, a trail so narrow only one bike fits at a time. Downhill, it’s hypnotic: tree trunks fly by, the forest belongs to us alone, and Marie-Liesse has the breakthrough moment of her trip. For the first time, she feels exactly where she belongs, to the point of tears. Around a bend, a man is sitting on the ground in the middle of nowhere. Dom, a yoga teacher from San Diego, is riding the route north toward Canada. He leaves us his number and a riddle: “I slept in jail. You’ll see!”
At lunch, our tortillas taste of gasoline. In the food bag, I had also packed the stove and the gas canister. Rookie mistake! We get our revenge in the evening with a burger in Seeley Lake, where the campground has been fully booked for months. Jeff, one of the volunteer hosts, on his day off, cycles around the sites to help us out. No luck. He comes back, exchanges a look with his wife Ellen… and sets us up next to their RV. We have dinner with two retirees who travel the world to go square dancing, and learn that we’re their first guests in two years.
Behind bars in Ovando
The next day, by 9 a.m., the sun has knocked Marie-Liesse out. Luckily, it’s only 51 km to Ovando, a tiny village brought back to life by Great Divide cyclists. A repair shop, a small museum, and three unusual beds reserved for cyclists: a teepee, a sheepherder’s wagon and the old jail. First come, first served. Dom’s riddle is solved: tonight, we’re sleeping behind bars!
The lady at the museum reminds us, though, that not everything is funny in Ovando. In July 2021, a cyclist was killed by a grizzly in the middle of the night at the village campground. Since then, everyone here repeats the same rules to travelers: no food in the tent, bear spray always within reach. We listen religiously, have dinner in a real Fargo-style diner, where a waitress makes the rounds of the tables with the coffee pot, then go to bed in jail, hoping no bear comes knocking on the door!
The Llama Ranch, without llamas
For days, every cyclist we meet heading the other way tells us the same thing: “Stop at the Llama Ranch.” The ranch has to be earned. It hides behind a hike-a-bike, a climb where you push your bike instead of pedaling, and legend has it that John, one of the owners, keeps a diploma for the first cyclist who rides it without putting a foot down. With our bags, our drone and our laptops, the diploma will stay in the drawer!
We push for an hour, in the cool of the morning, then the ranch appears at the bottom of a valley of scorched grass: a big house, cabins, two alpacas (there are no llamas left), dogs, geese, and a self-service fridge of cold drinks and sandwiches. Barbara has been welcoming cyclists here for twenty-five years. John arrived eight years ago, by bike, riding the Great Divide. He never left!
Here, everything is free, and donations are refused. Barbara and John ask only one thing: pay it forward. The 20 dollars you would have paid for your cabin, give them to someone else, or simply give your time. That night, in the big cabin we chose, we promise ourselves not to forget.
Helena, 38 °C in the shade
The 70 km to Helena end on a big, noisy road, in 38 °C heat. Marie-Liesse, who hates the heat, arrives drained. No Warmshowers host has replied, fatigue does the rest, and we argue like we rarely have since leaving. Then a reply comes in, at the last minute.
Scott and Dawn are a couple straight out of a movie. Him: stocky, big mustache, a military kid, three-word sentences. Her: a flowery dress, a laugh that fills the house, and a magazine-worthy garden where hummingbirds come to drink. It feels like Desperate Housewives. In our room stands a safe. “About fifteen guns,” says Scott. Then, after some thought: “Maybe thirty.” He opens it. It’s an arsenal, with a gun planned for every room of the house. Just in case.
As the days go by, Scott loosens up. He shows us the two-seater plane he’s restoring in his garden shed, to take off one day from his own field. He tells us about the wildfires whose smoke we can see rising from the mountains. Climate change? “Bullshit.” Then he talks about Muslims in words we won’t repeat here. I don’t open a third topic. We still part as friends: in Montana, you learn to share a roof without sharing the same ideas.
On Friday evening, he takes us to the rodeo. Metal bleachers, beers, a crowd in hats and cowboy boots, and a program that starts… with kids clinging to sheep! Then come the barrels, the lasso, and eight seconds with one hand on a bull that doesn’t agree. We cheer, we shiver, and the calf tied up in a few seconds tugs at our hearts a little. We finally saw our rodeo!
Looking back
We entered Montana fearing armed, suspicious Americans. We left with the keys to a house lent by a stranger, a night in jail, a self-service fridge at the bottom of a valley and a list of names we’ll never forget: Dan and Dawn, Jeff and Ellen, Barbara and John, Scott and Dawn. There were guns, sure, and ideas very far from ours too. But everywhere, an open door!
Practical info for a bike trip in Montana
Crossing the border and visas
- We entered the United States at the Roosville border post, north of Eureka, where the Great Divide crosses.
- With an ESTA authorization, you can stay 90 days at most. To take our time, we applied for a B1/B2 tourist visa at the US embassy in Paris, which allowed us to stay up to six months.
- At the land border, expect questions, fingerprints and a fee (30 dollars for us). Have a clear answer ready about your route and exit date: five months on a bike raises eyebrows!
- “No Trespassing” signs are everywhere. Don’t cut through ranches, even two kilometers from the border.
Terrain and elevation
- Between the border and Helena, expect an average of 1,300 m of climbing per 100 km (7,639 m over our 590 km of stages), with steep climbs and often heat.
- Before the Llama Ranch, plan on about an hour of hike-a-bike: you push the bike.
- Around Seeley Lake, the route takes single tracks. If you’re injured or tired, paved roads offer alternatives, like between Whitefish and Bigfork or between Condon and Holland Lake.
Bears in Montana
- Grizzlies and black bears live in the Montana Rockies. In July 2021, a cyclist was killed by a grizzly in Ovando, in the middle of the night, at the village campground.
- Never keep food or anything that smells good in the tent, and use the bear lockers at campgrounds.
- Keep your bear spray within reach, day and night.
- Ask locals and cyclists riding the other way: they’re happy to report bear sightings.
Where to sleep in Montana by bike
- Campgrounds: in summer, many must be booked and are full months in advance, like in Seeley Lake. Expect 25 dollars a site at Holland Lake. Volunteer campground hosts can help you find a solution.
- Forest Service cabins: they’re booked online. Book while you have signal, because it disappears fast in the mountains.
- Cyclist spots: the jail, the wagon and the teepee in Ovando, the Llama Ranch (free, in exchange for a good deed for someone else), and the little park in Eureka (watch out for the morning sprinklers).
- Warmshowers: the network works, but in big towns like Helena, replies can come at the last minute.
- With locals: ask with a smile. That’s how we met Dan and Dawn, then Jeff and Ellen.
Heat, mosquitoes and logistics
- In July, we had up to 38 °C arriving in Helena. Start early and carry plenty of water.
- Along the lakes (Red Meadow Lake, Holland Lake), the mosquitoes are fierce: repellent, long sleeves and a small fire in the evening.
- Further north, around Whitefish, expect rain and fog.
- Never pack your stove and gas canister with your food.
- Download your maps offline: signal is rare in the mountains.
- For food, burgers, pizzas and diners are everywhere, but prices are high. An American “medium” pizza already feeds two hungry cyclists!
The rodeo in five events
The rodeo is an institution in Montana, and summer is its season. Here’s what you’ll see from the bleachers:
- Mutton busting: kids hang on to a sheep for as long as possible.
- Barrel racing: the fastest possible run around three barrels.
- Tie-down roping: the cowboy lassos a calf, jumps off his horse and ties its legs.
- Steer wrestling: the cowboy jumps from his horse onto a young steer and wrestles it to the ground by the horns.
- Bull riding: holding on for eight seconds with one hand on a bull, under the protection of the rodeo clowns.
Your questions about bikepacking in Montana
At the Roosville border post, north of Eureka, where the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route crosses. Expect questions, fingerprints and an entry fee.
With an ESTA, your stay is limited to 90 days. To stay longer, you need a B1/B2 tourist visa, applied for at a US embassy: ours allowed us to stay up to six months.
At the Llama Ranch, between Lincoln and Helena, which refuses money and asks you to pay it forward to someone else. Also with locals, through the Warmshowers network, or simply by asking to pitch your tent.
Yes, grizzlies and black bears. We had only seen four since Calgary, but a cyclist was killed by a grizzly in Ovando in 2021. Food away from the tent and bear spray within reach, always.
We rode 636 km and 7,935 m of climbing in two weeks: 10 stages, plus a few town rides on our rest days in Whitefish and Helena, about 49 hours in the saddle.
We were there from late June to mid-July: long days, lakes, Fourth of July parties and rodeos, but also mosquitoes and heat waves of up to 38 °C in Helena.
The episodes to listen to (in French)
Episode 5: “Nos premiers pas au Far West” (Our first steps in the Wild West) (the border, Eureka, Dan and Dawn)
Episode 6: “Une fête nationale folklorique” (A folksy national holiday) (Whitefish, the Fourth of July in Condon, Holland Lake)
Episode 7: “Une nuit en prison” (A night in jail) (the single track, Dom, Jeff and Ellen, Ovando)
Episode 8: “Craché dessus par un lama” (Spat on by a llama) (the Llama Ranch, Helena, the rodeo)
They’re all on our podcast page, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Deezer. The episodes also tell what I left out here: Lincoln, the “medium” pizzas served as “large”, the travelers we met at Scott and Dawn’s… The next chapter, from Helena to Wyoming, is in part 2 and episodes 9 to 11! For more stories, it’s this way, and to support the blog, that way!
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