THE CHaFE 150 ROUTE

The ride embarks from the Coldwater Creek campus, about two miles east of downtown Sandpoint (click for map to staging point). The ride heads east on state Highway 200, along the northern shoreline of Lake Pend Oreille (pronounced ponderay) the West's fifth largest natural lake. While eastbound on this leg, headed toward Montana, you'll be on the Great Floods/Wild Horse Scenic Byway, surrounded by three different frontal ranges of the Rocky Mountains -- the Selkirks, Cabinets and the Bitterroots.

You'll enjoy smooth pavement as you leave big Lake Pend Oreille behind to come alongside the Clark Fork River. Here you'll be traveling along a route scoured by the great Ice Age Floods -- cataclysmic floods unleashed 10,000 to 20,000 years ago when glaciers damming ancient Great Lake Missoula broke and freed the lake waters in the largest floods in world history.

Entering Montana, after about 7.5 miles you'll bear left and north up Highway 56 along the Bull River, a pristine tributary to the Clark Fork. This route follows a corridor within the Cabinet Mountains wilderness, chock full of high alpine vistas and babbling brooks. Upon reaching the height of land at Bull Lake you'll descend down to the Kootenai River turning left onto Highway 2 just before Troy, Montana.

From here you'll pedal west, downriver into Idaho toward historic and quaint Bonners Ferry.

From Bonners Ferry you'll head south on Highway 95, back down to Sandpoint and the finish. This is what geologists call the Purcell Trench, a huge valley carved out by ancient glaciers. It's also the path once blazed by Canadian explorer David Thompson of the Hudson Bay Co.

• Click for detailed list of waypoints
• Click for detailed expandable topo map
• Click for interactive route map

Although the route is a challenging distance -- 145.3 miles -- it has no mountain passes or sustained climbs, encompassing one huge lake, two upriver legs and 2 downriver legs.

Support and Aid Group (SAG): Full food support and SAG will be provided. A lead vehicle and sweep wagon, staffed by a driver, nurse and mechanic will be patrolling on the route. Five full break stops will be prepared, at approximate 30-mile intervals, stocked with timely foods, portable bathrooms and staffed with volunteers and mechanics with work stands. Bus services are scheduled to provide mass assistance should weather or forest fire force the ride director to choose such a drastic support.