April 19, 2011
The Frozen Touch of the Montana Wind
Well we thought we were pretty equipped. After months of selecting gear, what more could we need? Today we headed out following a local circle ride set out by Adventure Cycling.
Ten minutes out from their office a snow/hail storm hit. I was glad of my sunglasses, which kept my eyes getting blasted by the horizontal snow. But I really needed ski goggles. We stopped and put on our rain pants. Good. We then put on all our fancy, lightweight, breathable, windproof, motorist repellant, UV protecting shirts and jackets, and we froze! We took off our long fingered padded cycling gloves and put on our tricky inner liners inside of rubber dish gloves, and we froze!
Dodie said "Ok, we quit, let's retreat to home". I said "This is nothing compared to what we saw on Lookout Pass. If we quit now, we have to postpone this trip until "Summer"" Dodie, of course, never quits, so we shivered onwards.
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Fortunately the sun did come out for a bit and warmed us up, before another wintry blast took over, up the side of the mountain bowl that surrounds the city.
Overall, though, the ride turned out to be great. Missoula has a generous allocation of bike lanes and paths, and little traffic in general. The Adventure Cycling route passed through peaceful and scenic areas, crossing and re-crossing the Clark Fork River.
After the tour we hopped in the car with Avi and Violet and charged off to REI. The kids helped us choose (by pulling everything off the shelves) warmer gloves, socks, and ear warmers. That should be enough to bring Summer in, but we really do not fancy being in pain on the Passes.
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