Day 4: Butts Cabin to Eureka (73 miles)
Today was easily our hardest day, to date—nearly our longest in terms of distance, with two significant climbs.
Thankfully, we were able to get off to an early start, but three days in and just getting my touring legs (and touring butt—I was starting to develop some major saddle-sore) under me, riding was slow going.
We started the day climbing to the top of Cabin Pass, where we were rewarded with some of the nicest views we’d seen all trip—majestic mountains on all sides of a narrow, flower-carpeted alpine valley.
A steep descent took us down a tighter valley and past a backcountry homestead on our way to Wigwam River.
After a quick jaunt on a dirt road heading south, we crossed to the west side of the Wigam River, on a dirt track for non-motorized vehicle use. From here, we climbed away from the river and traveled south, ascending away from and descending to a number of mountain brooks that fed into the Wigwam River.
Shortly before arriving back at the Wigwam River, we headed right on a narrow single track that ran south, parallel to the river. The fun ended when we reached an extremely steep section of trail that ran straight up ahead of us—up we went, pushing our bikes, hoping that they didn’t push us back down over the hill.
The hike-a-bike section was, thankfully, soon over, and we were back on a double track gravel road, which eventually intersected a road that took us up, slowly, 2500 feet to the top of Galton Pass. We bombed down the other side, descending 3000 feet in about 6 miles, before continuing, exhausted, to the USA/Canada border at Roosville and on to Eureka.
