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ONE FAM I LY GOES BIG Part One Story and photos by Aaron Teasdale Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth. – Walt Whitman, “Song of the Open Road” The brakes squealed under the strain as our three-person bicycle plummeted down the wild mountain road. I steered our behe- moth around piles of wolf and bear scat, and my 11-year-old son Silas (on the back seat of our tandem) and my seven-year-old son Jonah (on the trailer-bike behind him) called out “Woohoo!” As the dirt track plunged into a valley walled by high, dark peaks, I noticed it heading unexpectedly south, toward the no man’s land of the international border KEVIN MCMANIGAL with Montana. We were on one of the most remote stretches of the Great Divide with me. Forget video games, I wanted es; chain lube, toothpaste powder, and hot Mountain Bike Route (GDMBR), descend- them to be tough, skilled, and comfortable sauce went into tiny dropper bottles. (And, ing from Galton Pass into the rarely trav- in the wilderness. Life was moving fast and yes, I need hot sauce to survive.) After eled Wigwam River Valley in uninhabited I knew they wouldn’t be boys for long. Our months of planning, I could fit the gear for southeastern British Columbia. Had we our family of four into a single BOB trailer, missed a turn in our excitement? Were we with any extra food and day clothes going descending into a dead-end we’d have to Nuts & Bolts: GDMBR in the tandem’s two panniers. climb back out of? The plan was to ride from Montana’s Maps: Adventure Cycling Route Net- A miscue like that would cost us dearly. work: adventurecycling.org/routes/great Glacier National Park to Alberta’s Banff Going uphill with the 12-foot-long mega- divide.cfm. National Park over five weeks, but first we bike we called the Teasdale Train was needed a trial run to ensure the whole idea A summer night outside. Dinner at the first night’s camp on Morrell Lake in western Montana. tough enough; getting it back up this steep Books: Cycling the Great Divide by wasn’t a fool’s quest. So we set out to ride mountainside might break us. In my all- Michael McCoy. This book is in the early from Seeley Lake, Montana, north along a heads. After being told it was time to go encompassing effort to keep our traveling stages of being updated by Adventure remote stretch of the GDMBR to see how approximately 3,000 more times, Silas put weight down, I’d carefully packed rations Cycling and the Mountaineers Books but far we could get in five days. the rocks in his handlebar bag. for the precise number of days we planned the estimated availability is late 2013 or As we started out, I made the mistake “Nooo,” I said. “I did not just spend to travel. Pushing back up this hill could early 2014. The current version can be of admitting to my wife, Jacqueline, who weeks trimming our gear weight so you easily add a day to our ride and cost us pre- purchased at Adventure Cycling’s online was on her own bike and towing the trailer, could carry rocks.” store: adventurecycling.org/store. cious calories we needed to reach our next that I wasn’t entirely sure we could pull this Silas started pleading desperately and food cache. Problem was there wasn’t any- off. Jacqueline has the heart of an angel but I sighed, “I snapped the handles off our one else to ask, no other map to check, no time was now. wasn’t a mountain biker and had barely toothbrushes and now you’re going to way to know for sure except to keep going. So, in the first of a series of questionable pulled a trailer before. She looked at me carry rocks.” To explain why I’m here, dragging my moves, I quit my job as an editor for this silently for a moment and then, out of earshot Jumping back on the bikes, we were kids through howling wilderness, we must magazine and announced that I was taking from the boys, said in an accusatory whisper, aided greatly by the fact that Jonah had consider the arc of my life as an outdoors- my family on the GDMBR for the summer. “What the hell have you gotten us into?” been transformed into a pint-sized, ped- man. First, we can blame my father Harold Amazingly, no one questioned my sanity. We had ridden four miles when things al-pumping lightning bolt on the third who passed on his love of mountains by Never mind that it had never been done, or started falling apart. seat. After navigating a root-infested trail taking me backpacking every summer as a that it might not in fact be possible. When a hill forced us to push the bikes, that afternoon — giving warning calls child. Mountain biking the untrammeled The Teasdale Train with the boys on Jonah sat down rebelliously in the dirt and of “Bump!” so Jonah didn’t springboard corners of the Western Hemisphere con- it weighed around 200 pounds, and they whined, “I’m tired.” into space; Silas helping Mom push up the sumed my 20s. In time, backcountry bike were only sporadically interested pedalers. Fortunately, I was prepared for this steep hills — we reached the lake where I’d touring combined my passions. Then came To have even a fool’s chance, we needed to very predicament with a secret weapon: a planned to camp. Jacqueline fired up the marriage, kids, careers, ostensible maturity, be ready for any weather, every peril, and yummy orange electrolyte drink — with camp stove. The boys cast spinners in the and a tidy life of comfort and predictability. we needed to do it with the least and light- caffeine. lake. I pitched the tent in golden mountain You know, settling into the American Dream. est amount of gear possible. “Now, guys,” I said, handing it over, light and it hit me like a sudden victory: Except it wasn’t my dream. I was never Applying everything I’d learned from “this is a special energy drink.” this was the next six weeks. at ease with that comfort. I figured predict- years of winnowing my touring kit, I ruth- Suddenly, Jonah, all seven years and 50 Two days later, we were walking the ability was for mathematicians. I wanted lessly minimized our gear to only what we pounds of him, tilted the bottle back and bike up a dirt road, which soon turned to to live more vigorously, sleep under the needed to survive. A fishing pole meant chugged it like he’d just been rescued from trail. Somewhere ahead was a mountain stars, and explore the untamed corners of we could carry less food; handles were the Sahara. Meanwhile, Silas was off bang- pass we hoped to reach. I’d quickly learned the world. And I wanted to bring my kids removed from our two shared toothbrush- ing rocks together trying to make arrow- that pedaling hard up hills was a surefire 26 ADVENTURE CYCLIST JULY 2012 ADVENTURECYCLING.ORG ADVENTURE CYCLIST JULY 2012 ADVENTURECYCLING.ORG 27 way to annihilate my legs, so we walked. When we finally reached the pass after and family members, “Then Dad said the and swung back north, the right direction. To my surprise, the children issued no two days of pushing, the boys jumped ‘S’ word!” As we sped through pungent subalpine fir complaints. After a couple days out here, up and down — “We made the pass! We The bear was tiny, which was even forests in a blur, I called out, “Ahhh, smell they’d realized it wouldn’t do any good — made the pass!” — while I sprawled in the scarier than it being huge. As I scanned that fresh mountain air, boys!” we were on our own, there was no warmer/ beargrass and examined coal-black clouds the greenery for sound or movement, there Fortunately, they were too young to be drier/more comfortable place to go, and overtaking the sky. I was living out of a was only one electric thought in my mind: cynical and call me a dork. Instead they we’d be moving across this mountainside backpack-sized bag in the wilderness with Where’s its mother? cried, “Yeah! Yeah!” until we reached a water source and a place my wife and two children, we were high on A few moments later, Jacqueline — not Riding through a patchwork of clearcuts to pitch the tent. an exposed mountainside, and the sky was the mama I was worried about — rolled near the valley bottom, we looked for a hunt- After watching a black bear sow and two ready to unleash violence. up. I whisper-yelled back to her, “Get your er’s trail that led down to the Wigwam River. cubs through binoculars as they ambled “We need to get to lower ground,” I bear spray out!” as the cub scampered into Its recent discovery by cyclists had allowed the forest. After an adrenalized pause the the re-routing of the GDMBR into this valley, four of us started yelling, “No bear, no and it had immediately become notorious for bear!” in a full-throated wilderness chorus. its difficulty. Tire tracks in the dirt tipped “We come in peace!” Jacqueline plead- us off, and soon we were moving through ed, before we slowly walked down the trail, deep forest on an obscure trail and muscling ALE bear spray cans in hand, the kids placed D bikes over downed timber.

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