The Divide: Polebridge to Whitefish

The start from Polebridge was quite similar to that of the day before where we climbed the other side of Whitefish Pass up to Red Meadow Lake. About a half mile from the top of the pass, we heard a truck start sounding incredibly like my father's truck that my mom was supposed to meet us with in Whitefish. Riding around the corner, we saw the red of the truck bed, noticed the lime green handlebars of my mother's bike latched on the back. We stopped, knocked on the window, her head flying up, her eyes widened innocently. "Mom, what're you doing up here?" She looked around, "Oh, I was just doing a little bit of reading." We found out that as she drove along the road ahead of us, she became more and more distressed that our backwoods trail was harboring something quite sinister, so she wanted to make sure we would be okay. As we came around the lake, followed by the pursuant truck, we saw two women and a small dog carrying a paddle boat across the road and into the lake, both women armed with revolvers belted to their hips and off we went, seemingly oblivious along the densely forested track with our bear mace and knives.

Returning to civilization meant reaching Whitefish, MT, home of a treasured ski resort and for us, a brewery! On our jump from Canada to the U.S., we had decided we would make it a little more fun for us by stopping at the local breweries along the way and being as the brewery in Eureka was only open four days a week, our first was located in Whitefish. The Great Northern Brewing Company is a large glass paned industrial type building right in the heart of downtown. The beer, we found, satisfied our need for microbrew draft wholesomeness and left us mellowed out as we dealt with the older woman on guard at the local campground.
In the morning, my mother and I shuffled over to the three dollar/ six minute showers. I put in the coins, the shower starting immediately, reached my hand in, shrieked and pulled it out, colder than it was in my 36 degree tent. Three minutes later, the water was tepid. My mom calling over to me, this shower is great! Somehow her water was twenty degrees warmer than mine just three feet away. Afterwards, as she regaled me with the story of the night, looking across at the woman with three wandering cats, her hands flying wildly, "At three am, there was this cat shrieking in the woods and then just like that it was right there, right next to our tent and the next thing I knew, there was the bear mace in my hand and the knife in your father's, him crouching just outside his sleeping bag waiting for this wild animal to pounce." Even now, they tell me it had to have been a mountain lion, there being no way that a house cat could make such a sound, and me sleeping so soundly having no idea what they were talking about.