Day 484 – US – Montana [Helena to Townsend]

01/08/21

54km

  From Helena (Montana) to Townsend (Montana)

North America

Somebody turned up the heat again – and that mountain is on fire, literally

Fiery morning skies

As is now a frequent occurrence, I had to run over 50km today. I did not leave as early as I had intended because my night was not so good. I reckon there was some noise around and it kept waking me up. Anyhow I was able to leave by 6:40am. The sun was already up and I could tell by the look of it that it was gonna be a hot day and there were some fires raging somewhere. The colour of the sky and that of the sun said it all.

Big Belt Mountains on fire

Sure enough it got hot. Halfway through the run, the road I ran on was on a parallel track to the Canyon Ferry Lake, a reservoir on the Missouri river by the Canyon Ferry dam. It is the 3rd biggest body of water in Montana. I had planned to divert my run towards the banks of the lake. Unfortunately as I got near, the smoke from the fires raging on the Big Belt Mountains (part of the Rockies, bordering it to the north east) engulfed the area. The air got even hotter, dryer and it got really uncomfortable. As I approached Townsend, I crossed the Missouri river, which I should meet again tomorrow towards Three Forks.

Across the Missouri river

My current shoes have over 2000kms of running in them but today they faced a new challenge: the tar on the road was melting in the heat, and it ended up sticking to the sole of my shoes! I hope it did not affect my gait too much, it was sometimes tricky to keep running. And for that matter the last 15km were really tough today. I had enough water on board, but it was late in the day. I’ll have to make sure I start earlier tomorrow, as it’s another 50km+ day.

Check out today’s flyover video: https://www.relive.cc/view/vXvLXp5B97v

Check my daily run GPS data on or

Here is the map of today’s run: