Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide (Part One)

In an expansive part one documenting the 2024 Tour Divide, photographer Eddie Clark shares his experience of chasing fast riders and capturing moments in the fleeting light from the tall grass and sagebrush along the iconic and storied route. Dive into his recap and explore an excellent photo gallery here…

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I first started photographing the Tour Divide 15 years ago. In 2009, I took the leap to become a full-time photographer working for myself, and I stumbled across the Tour Divide while searching Google for races I could photograph. Back then, few people knew about it, or even bikepacking, let alone unsupported bike racing, so when I wrote Brian Riepe, who was then the editor of Mountain Flyer Magazine about it, he said it sounded like a good idea and he’d run whatever I got from it. I only spent maybe four or five days chasing the race since I had no expense budget, but I was hooked, and to this day, I’m ever thankful to Brian for that opportunity and his support since as a friend and editorial mentor.

Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark

Over the years, a whole lot has changed about the race, the gear used, and how it’s raced. Some change was good, some bad, but change nonetheless, which is a constant. Everyone has opinions on these changes, and some have been interesting, to put it nicely, while others are just baseless internet armchairing. I’m going to tell you folks about a lot of my opinions based on years of observations from being out there hiding in the bushes, talking to racers and folks along the route, and I’ll also have some observations about how the race itself has played out so far this year.

Like last year, I started my coverage at the Canadian border since I’m no longer interested in the Canadian segment starting from Banff. If things were to change and the start was moved to Jasper, which is the actual start of the route, then I’d for sure be interested in seeing that.

Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark

However, there are plenty of folks taking photos there, and I’d just be another person in the way. It’s honestly more time and hassle for me to justify getting a few extra photos than I’m interested in investing. In the spirit of not repeating myself and doing things differently, I rolled up the Flathead Valley from Columbia Falls to intersect the pointy end of the race on Red Meadow (not Mountain!) Rd. Of course, I just missed Justinas, who was leading the race at that point. There’s zero internet or cell access in there, and it was a gamble on timing that I lost. Uba and Tomas rolled up the road probably less than an hour behind, and they both looked a little grizzled and cold. According to Dan Connel, it had snowed on Whitefish Pass. It was a cold, wet, and windy morning with brief lulls of warm sunshine. Laurens ten Dam came through next in high spirits despite the conditions, and Dan was shortly after.

  • Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark
  • Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark

Cade Reichenberger and Meagan Häkkinen were the next racers I really worked at getting photos of since she was the lead woman at that point. They were together, so Cade got a bonus inclusion. While I try to get as many photos of folks as I can, it’s difficult, and they’re not always my main objective at any given time. Anymore, I’m really more interested in photographing folks, hopefully key race figures, riding through parts of the route that are beautiful or special in some way as I think that’s the real reason for being out on the Tour Divide. There are tons of bike races with all sorts of racing dynamics, but only one route is the Tour Divide, and it’s a beauty. That said, my goal for this segment was to show off the Flathead Valley, which isn’t exactly the easiest place to get to since the road dead-ends at the closed border crossing into Canada.

Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark

I also brought a drone this time to try and give a bird’s-eye view of the landscapes since much of it is not possible to see while you’re on the ground riding the route. The photo below is another of Cade and Meagan riding south on the North Fork Rd, which precedes the climb up Red Meadow Rd to Red Meadow Pass. The Flathead Valley is a special, wild place, and the route used to utilize more of it through Canada years ago. My last photo of it was of Josh Kato heading into it on a late first day evening in 2015.

Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark

Occasionally, if your view isn’t fixed on the road ahead of you, you’ll get a glimpse of Glacier National Park, which comes right up to the Flathead River on the eastern side of the valley. This year, it was mostly obscured, but I lucked out with a lull in the rain for this photo of its freshly snow dusted peaks.

Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark

The evening that followed was a challenge for me, filled with electrical gremlins and high school kids partying and shooting guns, that had me checking into a hotel in Kalispell at 12:30 a.m. to get myself and laptop together. Not fun! The moody photo of the Swan Mountains, which the route goes right under on its way to the Swan Valley and Richmond Pass, was the only good thing that came out of that night.

Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark

The next morning, I beelined it for Holland Lake and the Swan Divide Trail and lucked out with photos of the lead women Meagan and Ana Jager, who was about a few hours back at that point. While it’s certainly a big climb, the route and the surrounding mountains sure are pretty. The obvious drone photo is looking north up the Swan Valley with the snow-covered Mission Range to the west. Besides being a pretty section, I think this is the scariest segment to ride because it’s very thick grizzly bear country and the lines of sight are quite limited while you’re on the singletrack. Just two years ago, a woman touring the route was killed by a grizzly a little south of here.

Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark
  • Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark
  • Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark

After fulfilling my photographic objectives, I made another big leap down the course to Helena to hopefully catch Justinas and meet up with my buddy Jay Petervary, who’s a good man and a legend of the Tour Divide. Jay was hit by a car and badly injured while trying to ride the entire route, starting from Jasper, last year. As they say, “You can’t keep a good man down,” and while Jay isn’t physically recovered enough to take on the whole route just yet, being out there cheering and talking to the racers was the next best thing, and I was happy to get to spend some time with him.

Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark

Again, I missed Justinas, so we headed up to Priest Pass to spend the night and catch the racers. Laurens came through first, and then Uba shortly after, just around midnight. We woke up to snow the next morning as the beginning of the winter storm had started to set in. I grabbed a photo of Tomas Fabian, who was actually thriving in the cold weather while Jay and I enjoyed hot camp coffee and whipped up some breakfast burritos.

My next objective were the mountains immediately south of Butte, but they were socked in with no views to be had, so I instead headed up to Fleecer Ridge. The temperature was a good 10 degrees (F) colder in Butte than in Helena, and the snow had really started setting in at the higher elevations. In the past, situations like this have become defining moments of a race, and I rolled the dice to go as far as my 4×4 F150 would take me to Fleecer Ridge. I made it almost to the top before conditions became too sketchy to risk getting stuck high in the mountains in a winter storm. The reality is I would have been just fine as I had everything I needed to survive comfortably, but more importantly, I would have missed future photo opportunities while waiting for conditions to improve if I’d gotten my truck stuck in the mud and snow up there.

Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark

Justinas showed up and his easygoing positivity shone through the chilling conditions, as always. People talk about peanut butter mud, but only the lucky few get to talk about peanut butter snow that clogs your wheels, like when Justinas had to resort to pushing the final few hundred meters up Fleecer Ridge only to get to do the exact same thing down the other side.

Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark

Next, I waited for Uba, who was still a couple hours back at this point. He thought that he’d seen the hardest the Tour Divide could throw at him last year with his experience in the Great Divide Basin, but he realized it actually can get harder. He seemed amused and equally befuddled as he said this to me while stopping for a moment as I took this photo. Later, he noted on social media that this was probably his hardest day ever on the bike, which is a quite bold statement given his perspective. I’d have to agree, despite what others might have seen or written on the internet, I was there and this was the coldest snowiest day and part of the race, and he got it square on the chin. As I can recall, perhaps only Josh Kato, Steve Halligan, Chris Seistrup, and Nate Ginzton have experienced such an atrocious day on the Divide.

Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark

The following morning, the weather broke and patches of blue sky could be seen as the Beaverhead Mountains in southern Montana were released from the storm.

Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark

Knowing I’d be working my way back through the field, I got another round of the leaders starting with Justinas, then Uba about an hour back, and then Laurens another four hours back, all in the zone around Lima, Montana. It’s quite easy to move around the route through here, even more photogenic, and there’s an area that I really like to camp just a few miles off route, which makes this a go-to zone for me.

Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark
  • Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark
  • Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark

I spent the afternoon working my way back up Medicine Creek Rd (Old Bannack Rd Pass) from Big Sheep Creek mainly because I got denied by bad weather and mud on this section last year. On a clear day, it’s a real gem of a landscape with classic Big Sky Country Montana-style views of the Bitterroot Mountains and remote alpine valleys. On a wet day, this road becomes a hike-a-bike muddy nightmare. Fortunately, it wasn’t so bad when I drove it on this day.

Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark

The following day was spent committing to the singlespeeders and making a last big run back up the route for a while. They were pretty tightly grouped together, and it would be interesting to know if they were all running the same gear—a question I haven’t had a chance to ask. Maybe that information is already out there, but my time for scouring the internet and social media is pretty limited while I’m on the Divide. Johnny Price was leading the pack out of Wise River, and Jake Colantino was still wolfing down a big sandwich at the Wise River Merc when I caught up to him.

  • Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark
  • Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark

Then, finally, I pointed it toward the Red Rocks Wildlife Refuge, which is one of my very favorite places on the route. It’s the very last section of the route in Montana for riders before entering Idaho. The refuge was created in 1935 as a breeding ground for wild birds, wildlife, and particularly the once-rare trumpeter swan. The abundance and diversity there is simply astounding. It’s a special place and an area where I might get a few race photos, this time of Ana Jager and another TD racer or tourer I have yet to identify, but mostly I enjoy the peaceful wild surroundings and non-stop whimsical sounds of birds and waterfowl. For me, it’s a place to pursue wildlife photography, which is surprisingly fulfilling, and this year, I even brought an 800mm lens on loan just for this zone.

Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark
  • Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark
  • Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark
  • Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark
  • Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark
  • Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark

With Teton Pass being closed this summer due to the landslide, it made sense for me to revisit the Shoshone Mountains and Togwotee Pass, which can be challenging in their own right. There was little snow left as the warm weather had turned much of it to water already, but according to the locals, there were more grizzly bears than ever in this zone, so I didn’t spend much time here. After getting some shots on Brooks Lake Rd. I made my way south. Like much of the route, many of the older and rougher dirt road/4×4 sections have now been improved, making the route considerably faster, and Books Lake Rd is yet another example. At least the Shoshone’s are as majestic as ever.

Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark

Yet again, I got denied a Great Divide Basin crossing by foul weather. As everyone saw last year with the leaders’ debacle in a porta-poty, the Basin is not a place to be taken lightly, and I have a high level of respect for it. At first, I caught up with Meagan at the edge of the Basin near the Wind River Mountains before making a run out into it to catch up with Tomas. He was still happy at this point, but the saying “ignorance is bliss” can certainly be a double edge sword. It quickly became obvious as the morning passed that the weather was about to go terribly wrong, and so I turned around after only getting 15 miles from Atlantic City.

Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark

On a truck stop bathroom wall just outside of Missoula, I read a sign saying that when bad things happen to you, there’s usually a reason leading to an alternative form of goodness, and you just need to recognize that… what you get isn’t always what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need. I wanted a full pull across the basin, but I needed Atlantic City photos that told a story, and that’s what I ended up getting. With my tail between my legs, I raced the storm back to Atlantic City just as Meagan arrived at the Merc. She was flustered and not ready to stop yet, but going on was not much of an option as the rain fell by buckets and the lightning lit up the surrounding hillsides. Established in 1893, the Atlantic City Mercantile is a part of American Western history and has hosted characters of all sorts, both famous and those of ill repute, as well as plenty of wily Tour Divide racers and tourers. It truly is a legendary place, and I quickly realized how lucky I was to end up there chatting with Meagan about the Divide.

Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark
  • Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark
  • Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark

What followed was a ridiculously long drive to get back to the pointy end of the race before I’d take a break from the Tour Divide to catch up with the Revolution Enduro crew for a day of shredding and enduro photography with good friends, which I was really looking forward to. At 12:30 a.m., I rolled into a favorite camp spot outside of Kremmling, Colorado, to close my eyes for a few hours. The sleep was poor, worried I’d oversleep and miss my sunrise photos, but it was something, which was slightly better than nothing. Before the sun broke the horizon, I checked my phone to see that Uba had just ridden by, and it was time to get going again. I caught up with him in the Williams Fork Valley, where he was enjoying the views of yet another beautiful section of the route. He rode it in the dark last year, in a sleep fog constantly frustrated with the false flats hidden by the night. This time, he made sure to ride it during the day to better set himself up for the big Colorado mountain passes that lay ahead.

Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark

With a little time on my side, I went up Boreas Pass, a place I know well from 15 years of photographing the Breck Epic, which uses the same climb on its last stage. This is where my lack of sleep caught up with me, and I totally missed an easy shot of Justinas I’d prepared for while waiting because I mistook him for some random mountain biker in my haze of sleep deprivation. I was literally dozing off and doing the head nod despite my second cup of coffee at this point. I still pulled off a few photos after racing further up the climb, and that’s all you get for now.

Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark

After wrapping things up with the Revolution Enduro at Purgatory Ski Resort, I made my way back to the route and timed it perfectly with Laurens passing through Del Norte yesterday, far behind the leaders compared to when I last saw him. If you recall Josh Kato’s hospital update from Del Norte in 2019, you’ll recognize that this photo was taken from within a hundred yards of his hospital room window.

Running Down the 2024 Tour Divide, Eddie Clark

Going into the coming days, it is still a race by all means. It’s hard to say if Uba, the former champion, is playing a cat and mouse game with Justinas by letting him dangle within reach, just off the front and putting the stress on him to make a mistake, or is he really just riding at his own pace. Likewise, how much extra gas does Justinas have in the tank? Given Justinas’ background with racing at the highest levels, I’d guess there are some reserves for a slow-motion sprint finish of the likes from 2015 or maybe even 2012 when Kurt Refsnider unleashed the slowest sprint in the history of racing to beat Jefe Branham to Antelope Wells. There’s also the women’s race, which has been quite exciting and still is not over until the finish. Ana is the veteran champion, and Meagan is also a very accomplished ultra veteran but also new to the Tour Divide and New Mexico’s heat and brutally rough roads. Time will tell. Stay tuned!

TrackerCheck out the 2024 Tour Divide Tracker page to follow along on the live tracking map, find our Rigs of the Tour Divide roundups, and keep up with our ongoing event coverage. Find it here.

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