It stands for Ride Around the Pioneers in One Day, and it’s happening right now in northwest Montana. Tom and his brothers and hundreds of other riders are riding 130 miles through the Pioneer Mountains to raise money for Camp Mak-a-Dream, a camp for children and families affected by cancer. This is the 10th anniversary of RATPOD. Last year it grossed $1.7 million for the camp and has become such a hot event that registration fills up in 20 minutes.

By our reckoning the riders have passed the scenic byway turn-off at Mile 14, they’ve moved beyond the breakfast stop at Mile 30 and pushed up the 6- to 8-percent grade to the Crystal Park turnout at 8,000 feet. Soon, if not already, they will be flying downhill for a full 20 minutes, past the town of Divide and along the Big Hole River. They will cruise to Wise River Mercantile, where they’ll have lunch. After that comes a watermelon break at Mile 85 and an ice cream and pie stop at Mile 107. Twenty-three miles later, they’ll end up where they started, in Dillon, Montana.

I’m not there, of course, but I know enough of the landscape to breathe the tang in the air, to see in my mind’s eye the lodgepole pine, the alpine meadows and the big, big sky. We here at sea level, we ride with them in spirit.

Photo © Lucy Capehart, 2002