Red Meadow, Revisited

Nine years ago, almost to the day, I huffed up Red Meadow Pass with two friends and we were so swarmed by mosquitoes we ran for shelter and I left my phone and our matches out in the rain. This past weekend, I tried again with two other friends. Again on my Salsa Fargo I bought back in 2015 to ride on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route in 2016. Again, mosquitoes.

I'll paste an excerpt below from my journals of that section of the ride nine years ago. On this trip, though, in 2025, I felt strong and upbeat. Toward the top, we came across a lake and peeled off the road as if sirens were sitting at the bottom of the lake, calling to us. A woman —Ellen? — ran out from the trees with her dog. She had to say hi, she said, because we were three women on a bike tour and she was an Adventure Cycling life member. When she found out that two of us were former employees, she bursted into sympathetic rage over the state of the organization, including the destruction of the magazine and selling of the building.

Red Meadow Lake, 2025

I pet her heeler — a rescue from The Res, she made a point to say — and splashed around in the lake as we chatted, hoping to stay camouflaged from the bugs a bit longer as the conversation turned to the state of the world and our respective decades of protesting just to be sliding backward. Eventually, the three of us got back on our bikes and made our way up the last stretch of road, the heat of the day finally cut by fresh water and time.

At camp, the mosquitoes were as I remembered them, but the ground wasn't soaked from weeks of rain, we hadn't been camping in the rain for the past two weeks, and we only rode up one mountain pass, not two, and it was only the first day not the sixth. Most importantly, I had bug spray and a bug net for my head. We swam in the river, cooked dinner, and fell aslep as the sun eventually set behind us. I curled myself in my rain fly to retain my body warmth and still watch the stars come out. In the morning, we awoke to the sun rising too early above the lake, dew covering everything, mosquitoes once again swarming. We made coffee, packed our stuff, and headed down the other side of the mountain, toward Glacier.

Ride toward Polebridge after RMP

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... Everyone has different riding styles, and different ways of existing within group dynamics. I think it’s important that the slowest person always feels watched over and not alone, especially if they are in pain or the distance is long. Taylor thought it was important to ride the wave of energy she was feeling. I’ve felt that at times too and it’s hard to fight off. There’s no right or wrong way to be on a bike tour, but it sure is helpful when everyone is on the same page. Had we had more time to talk prior to the trip, had we known each other, had we thought to ask, these are the sorts of conversations I wished I would have had. In future romances, I’ll find myself asking not what someone does for a living or if they’re close with their parents, but whether they wait for someone on a climb if they’re having a bad day or whether they ride ahead.

In fairness, my own knee, shoulder, and ankle were all really sore, all on the right side of my body. The top of the first hill was covered in bees. I got stung on my right ankle. It was my knee that caused me worry, though. It was hard to see the clear line between continuing on the ride and not giving myself a real sustaining injury. I was on an 800mg ibuprofen diet to take the swelling down, impulsively yelping in pain whenever I put the wrong amount of pressure on that leg. My undercarriage was also very, very sore. I had a saddle awaiting me in Polaris, a week away, which I hoped would solve all my problems, but the idea of riding for a week with my body collapsing in on itself like a star was demoralizing. It was much easier to focus the blame on our young wipper-snapper riding partner.

We saw more deer and pika but nothing exceptionally interesting with a heartbeat. The views were still incredible, though, with the rivers rushing below and an almost endless amount of waterfalls.

“Check out that one on the right!” Meghan said with suddenly mustered glee as we struggled our aching bodies up the mountain. We were close to the top of the climb with an expansive view whenever the trees cleared. Just to the left of the waterfall was a bunch of snow, a surprise to see in mid-July, reminding us of the high elevation we’d surmounted.

We passed the remnants of a 1988 forest fire that also burned a big part of Yellowstone. Miles of tree skeletons reaching towards the sky as we screeched down the mountain along singletrack. Haunting images of stillness somehow whizzing by, black-and-white charred tree bones standing in attention as our very alive bodies ribboned down the trail with our pink jerseys, yellow hair. Immediately after, at the bottom of the hill, we were on a dirt road going through a very fancy, very private neighborhood covered in “no trespassing” signs. This eventually turned into a neighborhood fit for preppers, or at least the preppers I used to live near in Pittsburgh. The same sort of no trespassing signs and privatization beloved by Americans, with a vague feeling of poverty and opulence, as if ample resources had been invested in cans of Bush’s beans and Miller Lite and guns.

We stopped for a snack and I read a bit through the guidebook. Based on the animals living in this area, and some photos paired with Taylor’s memory, the bobcat Taylor saw may have been the rare and elusive Canadian Lynx! Knowing that sort of beauty and prowess was out there walking among us felt empowering. It’s been my stance on all mystical creatures, especially Bigfoot: just because it’s smart enough to steer clear of human eyes and has developed camouflage that keeps it unviewable, unfilmable, and knows the woods far better than we do, with our clutzy little feet, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Knowing there was a lynx in the woods who dared allow one of us to see her gave me hope that there are many more among these old trees that we haven’t counted, and species we will never know to count.

We kept passing or being passed by two friendly dirt bikers. We never had a chance to talk with them, as they were wearing full face masked helmets, but we exchanged jokey waves on the road.

We camped out at Red Meadow Campground on Red Meadow Lake. The warblers were loud but a change from the rushing creek. In the quiet ruckus out here, I could hear birds’ wings as they flew past or jumped from one tree to another. They didn’t seem to care at all about us. One almost flew right into me on her way to pick up some grub. It was a gorgeous view but so buggy we hid in our tents from the mosquitos. They repeatedly bombed us as we tried to cook dinner, flying into our food, our mouths, our ears. The whine of their wings was crazy-making, and we relented. It was still light out at 9:45 when we went to bed.

The pain of the day was justified when I checked on our stats while hiding in my tent that night. We climbed almost 4,700 feet over 50 miles. I fell asleep with the expectation that the next day should be all downhill and by tomorrow, we should be five days ahead of the guidebook. For someone decidedly “non-competitive” I found a sweetness like revenge in being so far ahead of a schedule we never agreed to.

DAY 7

I woke up to rain and lay in my tent for an hour and a half, appreciating the birds and shelter, cursing the rain and feeling sorry for us. Meanwhile, my phone was outside getting rained on, its waterproof Otterbox case no match for the constant Montanan downpour. We were all grumpy, probably most of all me, which was catapulted by the lighter also being left out all night and the strike pad of my matches all soggy. No coffee or hot breakfast. We were in such a rush to get into shelter and away from the bugs, and possibly feeling like we had already been rained on so much that it couldn’t possibly start up again, that we haphazardly packed up after dinner and were now the worse for it. Throughout the day, my phone became less and less responsive. Of all the rice we’d eaten this trip, I had no dry rice in which to place my phone to try to save it. ...