Day thirteen.

“There’s got to be a better way to get to Mexico.”

Or

“That hill is a son of a bitch.”

We said a quick goodbye to Montana Smith and found a diner for breakfast where we took a Quick Look-see at our map and our days route.  In hindsight, we should have taken a more careful look.

We took the main route south from Helena, the red line you see on the left.

We didn’t notice the “alternate route” to the east. (In yellow). Doh!

We ended up doing the elevation profile pictured below…

Instead of this relatively flat one. Double doh! Our second climb was 8 miles long, but it was pretty tame with a good gravel road. But the third climb, while only 5 miles long was steep and rocky and I probably walked a third of it. You wouldn’t have wanted to drive that “road” with anything less than a Jeep.

What won’t kill us…

We found this lovely, if buggy campsite.