Start Date:

Jun 09, 2020

End Date:

Aug 27, 2020

Start Location:

El Paso, TX

End Location:

Jasper, AB

Total Days:

80

Riding Days:

71

Rest Days:

9

Miles:

3143

Average Daily Mileage:

44.3

Surface:

Dirt

Riders:

14

Elevation Alert:

High Point: 11,900'

Airport:

El Paso Intl. (ELP), Jasper Airport (YJA)

Meals:

Shared cooking

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Meals - Shared cooking

Your group will share responsibilities for food purchase, preparation, and clean up on a rotating basis. Vegetarian and special dietary needs will be accommodated, though food selection may be limited in some locations.

Accommodations:

Camping

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Accommodations - Camping

Overnights will be at private or public campgrounds with a range of amenities. Depending on the nature and location of the trip, these facilities could range from RV parks with hot tubs, to wilderness locations without running water. Overnight facilities vary, but tents are typically pitched on large, flat, grassy areas. You will need a good freestanding tent with a ground cloth, a sleeping bag rated appropriately for the season and elevation of your tour, and a sleeping pad.

Technical Difficulty:

Difficult

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Technical Difficulty - Difficult

Characterized by travel on dirt roads, trails, two-track, and singletrack, Difficult tours ride in remote areas and challenging terrain. Climbs and descents on loose gravel can be greater than 6%, and sections of singletrack are typically part of the route. Hardtail mountain bikes with a good tire tread are recommended.

Physical Difficulty:

Advanced+

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Physical Difficulty - Advanced+

In comparison to our Advanced tours, an Advanced+ tour will see a greater number of consecutive higher mileage days (60+ miles per day) and a larger number of climbs. An Advanced+ tour might involve some exceptionally hilly terrain, high mileage days, and/or take place at higher altitudes.

Most of our longer (more than two weeks) self-contained tours are rated as Advanced or Advanced+. This has less to do with high mileages or unrelenting climbs, and more to do with the tour length, group roles and rotations, and the added challenges of riding loaded bicycles on lengthy tours.

Level of Support:

Self Contained

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Level Of Support - Self Contained

On self-contained tours you will carry your own gear and there will be no vehicle support. Adventure Cycling's traditional self-contained tours have a single leader and around 14 participants who share cooking duties and camp for the vast majority of overnights; on longer tours, roughly one indoor night per 10 riding days is budgeted.

Cost:

$4,999.00

Restricted Bike Type:

Touring, Road/Cyclocross, Recumbent, Trike, eBike, eTrike, Hybrid

Overview

About to graduate college and hesitant to join that cubicle life? Or maybe you’re a couple years into the rat race and looking for a change of pace. Plug a little gap in your summer. We’re lookin’ to put together a group of young folks for an epic ride across our great continent. The spreadsheets can wait. Spend a few months basking in the life-changing grandeur of the Rocky Mountains, breathe the freshest air this green Earth has to offer; find a little perspective on your place in it. 

The Great Divide Mountain bike route is one of the greatest backcountry trips North America has to offer. This is more than a bike trip. You'll gain backcountry experience, learn to work as a group in challenging conditions, and develop a sense of self sufficiency knowing you completed one of the most epic tours possible by bike. Adventure Cycling has been guiding people on bikes across the country since 1976. Join us for an experience of a lifetime.

Week 1

Antelope Wells to Pie Town, New Mexico (shuttle from El Paso, Texas). After we meet one another and take a shakedown ride in our meeting point of El Paso, Texas, we’ll shuttle to Antelope Wells and the official starting point of your adventure. The route begins at a remote desert crossing along the Mexican border, and you immediately set off on deserted tarmac, but you’ll be crossing the Continental Divide for the first time soon — between Separ and Hachita — the first of more than 30 such crossings! As you hit Mile 125, you’ll leave the Chihuahuan Desert behind for the Gila National Forest and quickly learn that this region is known for steep climbs and descents. Spin through Silver City and into the Gila National Forest where midday heat and monsoon rains keep things very interesting. We’ll cross the edge of the Plains of San Agustín en route to Pie Town. As the name suggests, you might consider a slice of well-earned baked goodness here, though this eclectic community is likely to leave you with memories along with some calories to close out an epic opening week.

Week 2

Pie Town to Cuba, New Mexico. Prepare yourself for some otherworldly terrain on the volcanic El Malpais National Monument with its striking geography devoid of vegetation and seemingly bubbled up from the earth only recently. Take a deserved break in the town of Grants, where we’ll enjoy a layover day at this intersection with the “Mother Road” and watch for cyclists touring the tarmac of Adventure Cycling’s Bicycle Route 66. Finally, we’ll brush past the edge of the Navajo Nation Reservation and on to a hunter’s camp near Cuba.

At the end of our last full week in the Land of Enchantment, consider that New Mexico contains 701 miles of the Great Divide route — just nine miles fewer than state-mileage leader Montana. And, arguably, New Mexico is also the most diverse of the five states encountered, with landscapes ranging from the high-elevation, subalpine mountains of the north, to the low-lying, cactus-filled Chihuahuan Desert in the south. Keep your eyes peeled for the frontrunners in the Tour Divide Race this week — they’ll already be in New Mexico, having ridden from Banff, Alberta, in just two weeks! 

Week 3

Cuba, New Mexico, to Del Norte, Colorado. One state is nearly complete! But first, a climb up to the Santa Fe National Forest and the Polvadera Mesa, where a seemingly endless descent to Albiquiu awaits. The town was a favorite spot of the late artist Georgia O’Keefe, whose works are practically synonymous with the landscapes of New Mexico. Next we’ll wend northward through a panorama of public lands administered by the BLM, the Santa Fe and Cibola national forests, and the National Park Service, as well as through short stretches of private and Acoma Indian tribal lands en route to the San Juan and Tusas mountains of the Río Grande and Carson national forests. Get ready for the high point of the trip — literally. Climbing out of the Rio Grande National Forest, our goal is Indiana Pass at 11,910 feet, the highest point along the entire Great Divide. And then you’ll enjoy a 23-mile, 4,000-foot descent into Del Norte.

Week 4

Del Norte to Silverthorne, Colorado. With rested legs after a layover day in Del Norte, get ready to ride through tiny La Garita, Doyleville, and Sargents on your way to Marshall Pass, a meeting place of three primary mountain ranges: the Sawatch Range, Sangre de Cristo Range, and Cochetopa Hills. Here the Great Divide route junctures with the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail and the Colorado Trail, a 470-mile footpath stretching from near Denver to just outside Durango. (The trail is open to mountain bikes, with detours identified around wilderness areas.) Then it’s on to Salida — a bit of a cycling destination in its own right. Consider stopping by the Oveja Negra bikepacking bags headquarters located in a historic building downtown that was once a brothel! We’ll climb out of Salida beneath the spectacle of several of Colorado’s famous 14,000-foot-plus peaks, including the Fourteeners of higher learning known as Princeton, Yale, Harvard, and Columbia — the Collegiate Peaks. Then it’s on to a succession of high mountain-ringed valleys before tackling Boreas Pass at 11,482 feet. Next it’s on to the famous ski town of Breckenridge, situated at 9,600 feet and onto the Blue River Bikeway toward Silverthorne.

Week 5

Silverthorne, Colorado, to Rawlins, Wyoming. Our last stretch in Summit County offers a good reminder of what we’ve come to love about the remote dirt and gravel byways that make up most of the route — we’ll ride for a dozen miles on busy State Highway 9 before heading up Ute Pass and back into a stretch of broad basin country. Next we visit Kremmling, a mountain town far-removed from the glitzy ski vibe of Breckenridge, before a long climb up from the Colorado River at Radium to the subalpine chill of lush high-country meadows to crest Lynx Pass. Then it’s on to “Ski Town USA,” Steamboat Springs, via the Yampa River Trail system where we’ll spend a layover day in this outdoor recreation mecca (if you’ve got a hankering for titanium, you might think about stopping into the headquarters of Moots). The Sierra Madre Mountains will soon spit us out in Rawlins, where we trade the Colorado high country for something altogether different.

Week 6

Rawlins to Colter Bay, Wyoming. This portion of our Great Divide journey takes in the Great Divide Basin, a 3,600-square-mile geographic conundrum where waters drain neither west to the Pacific nor east to the Atlantic. Rather, they drain inward to evaporate or settle into temporary lakes. It is one of the emptiest, driest long stretches of the Great Divide route (the other being the segment between Cuba and Grants, New Mexico). Here we’ll encounter herds of pronghorns and wild horses, and trace segments of some of our country’s most important historic trails, identified by concrete markers. As we leave the Great Divide Basin behind, we’ll set our sights on Grand Teton National Park. First up, though, is South Pass City, a well-renovated outpost that has earned state historic site status for its importance along the Oregon Trail and during gold rushes. Then we pedal onto the high desert — directly atop the Continental Divide in places — as we explore this spectacularly high and lonely place that delivers us to the flanks of the Wind River Mountains near Boulder. We’ll visit Pinedale, one of the most authentic little cow towns in the West and enjoy spectacular views of the Winds (Wyoming’s highest mountain range) as we ride up the drainage of the Green River. We’ll cross Union Pass, an historic high place visited by explorer Wilson Price Hunt in 1811 and subsequently by a parade of beaver-seeking mountain men, before catching glimpses of the iconic Teton range, which marks our final campsite of the week in Colter Bay Village on the banks of Jackson Lake where we’ll take a rest day after a big week of riding.

Week 7

Colter Bay, Wyoming, to Lima, Montana. Once you’ve soaked in the cool waters and huge views along Jackson Lake, it’s off on 70 miles of pavement along the little-traveled Ashton-Flagg Road between Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. The TransAmerica Bicycle Trail also follows this route, so don’t be surprised to meet fellow bicycle tourists equipped with Adventure Cycling maps. After the pleasant Warm River Campground, we’ll ride up into Idaho’s Island Park region and over to a surprisingly easy Continental Divide crossing at Red Rock Pass. Here you’ll enter Montana — the state with the most mileage of any along the route — and immediately discover one of the Treasure State’s hidden gems. In Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge you’ll find incredible scenery and a chance to see trumpeter swans, an immense and beautifully white bird that nearly became extinct early in the twentieth century. From this high-country aerie, it’s on to the town of Lima, near the Montana-Idaho border and a gateway into a remote corner of this state.

Week 8

Lima to Helena, Montana. Over the Medicine Lodge–Sheep Creek Divide we go, along a portion of the historic supply route that linked the gold fields of southwest Montana with the Union Pacific railroad at Corinne, Utah. After passing through this sparsely populated part of the state, you’ll understand why you’re lucky to count yourself among the few who have been there. The Big Sheep Creek Back Country Byway,  an official designation given the route by the Bureau of Land Management, leads us into Bannack, the original territorial capital of Montana. The deserted streets of Bannack are a well-preserved piece of Montana’s history, but you’ll be moving quickly into the present this week, starting with the smooth pavement and aromatic pine forests of the Pioneer Mountains National Scenic Byway. All that stands between you and historic Butte is the precipitous Fleecer Ridge, one of the route’s most famous — and grueling — climbs. In Butte, once called “The Richest Hill on Earth,” mining heritage complements a growing arts and music scene that belies its hellroaring reputation. From Butte you’ll head back into the backwoods of “Gold West” country toward Helena, Montana’s capital city, where you’ll spend a layover day. At the top of the must-see list is Montana’s Museum, located near the capitol building, and the splendiferous Cathedral of St. Helena, a century-plus-old Gothic-style cathedral inspired by the Votive Church of the Sacred Heart in Vienna, Austria.
 

Week 9

Helena to Whitefish, Montana. This week serves up big climbs, big views, and some of the biggest mountains in Montana. From Helena, it’s over the Continental Divide to Lincoln and then on to beautiful Seeley Lake, a mountain lake and town that share a name at the southern end of the Swan Valley. Here you climb into Grizzly Basin, which looks like a piece of Glacier National Park that’s been transported south a few miles. Along the flank of Richmond Peak and on to Holland Lake, you’ll ride through thick forests of western larch and Douglas fir before dropping into a series of primitive dirt roads nestled at the foot of the Mission Mountains. Get ready to climb — you’ll gain the ridge separating Flathead and Swan lakes in Flathead National Forest before descending once again into the picturesque town of Bigfork, perched at the mouth of the Swan River on the shore of immense Flathead Lake, the largest freshwater lake in the U.S. west of the Mississippi. After winding our way across the wide Flathead Valley, we’ll spend a layover day in the popular tourist town of Whitefish at the Whitefish Bike Retreat — complete with private mountain bike trails in case you feel like some unloaded mountain biking!

Week 10

Whitefish, Montana, to Banff, Alberta. We’re closing in on the end of our adventure, but some of the most spectacular mountain scenery still lies ahead. Leaving Whitefish, we climb Red Meadow Pass, pedal the valley of the North Fork of the Flathead River along the western edge of Glacier National Park, and take in endless views along the “Crown of the Continent.” We’ll bid farewell to Montana and America at the border crossing in Roosville and make our way toward British Columbia’s version of Whitefish, the town of Fernie. From there, we chart a course northeast and cross into Alberta en route to Banff, the northern terminus of the Great Divide until 2018. This justly famous mountain town sits in the shadow of Mt. Rundle and hosts an eponymous film festival each year. Your visit will include a layover day to enjoy this special mountain community and prepare your bikes and bodies for the final push to Jasper.

Week 11

Banff to Jasper, Alberta. Our long journey is almost at its end, but not before you become part of the first Adventure Cycling tour to ever ride the newest section of the Great Divide! This stretch along the wide-open vistas of Canada’s Rocky Mountain front was added to the route to celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2018 and connects two of Canada’s iconic mountain towns. With Banff and Jasper national parks framing the western sky for this entire week, we’ll work toward the town of Hinton before a final push back into the mountains to our long-sought destination of Jasper. The views may be breathtaking, but you can kick back and relax to celebrate the conclusion of an epic 3,000-mile ride. From the scorching Chihuahuan Desert to the high peaks of Colorado to the Great Divide Basin to the seemingly endless Northern Rockies, you’ve completed the adventure of a lifetime. You might even be tempted to turn around and go back!
 

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"This was an outstanding adventure for me...Our leader was great and the other staff members and other cyclists were congenial."

"It was great to meet people from different places and experiences who are all drawn to touring. Having that common thread put us all at ease right away."

"A fantastic and challenging tour...Beautiful scenery."

"I had a great time! Can't wait for my next trip"