Gnarly.....

Mary Collier on her Scary Night
Posted June 17th, 2008 by sherry
Racer Update about:
Mary Collier
Good morning. Its Mary Collier. Tuesday, June 17th. Its about 9:15 a.m. Last night was probably one of the scariest nights in my life. I'm in Seeley Lake and I got to bed about 4 o'clock this morning. I started the pass coming into Seeley Lake at a decent hour and thougth that I would just jam through it. Didn't have any data that there was a ton of snow and snow drifts making the trail very difficult - the pass. I hit snow at about 7:30 and I thougth the snow would pass pretty soon and I got out of the snow at about 12:30 or so after carrying my bike at times because the weight of the bike was pushing me down the hill off of the trail because the snow drifts were making the trail non-existent. Pretty crazy scary stuff. I am going down the trail following in I believe Adrian's tracks. I could see a small block in front of me and from the side some other tracks joined us that were huge bear tracks. So I am walking pushing my bike with my right hand holding my bear spray with the safety off with the left hand. Good moonlight though. Full moon. That was helpful. It was nice. I turned on all of my blinkers too hopefully to scare away any bears. Even before that the day was just crazy, some mountain lion tracks through some knarley stuff, dead deer legs, many many many mosquitoes and huge trees to cross. I lifted my bike over a pile of trees that was taller than me. That was kinda the only way past it. So a rough and crazy day. I was initially planned to make it to Helena today, but looks like I have about 9,000 feet of climbing and after having such a long day yesterday, I am not too hopeful about that. I am going to actually do some laundry here in Seeley Lake and get some breakfast and see where that puts me. So enjoy your day. Talk to you all soon. Bye.