Fort Peck Spillway — A 315-Mile Ride to the Middle of Nowhere (And We'd Do It Again)

Standing next to one of these 40-foot-wide, 25-foot-tall spillway gates really puts the scale of Fort Peck into perspective.

We like riding the bike to places we’ve never been. And if they’re unique and different we’re probably in. This was one of those trips.

We rolled out of Williston, North Dakota heading west on Highway 2 towards Montana. The morning air was cool, the kind of cool that makes you appreciate the bike instead of sitting in a cage. We were off to a good start.

Then we hit the stretch between Culbertson and Poplar

If you've never ridden a road that's buckled every 50 to 100 feet, consider yourself lucky. There is no line to straddle, no lane to find, no way to avoid it. You just hang on and let the bike rattle every bone in your body and hope it ends soon. It couldn’t end soon enough.

I won't lie to you, somewhere in that stretch I started questioning whether this was a good idea.

The Passenger Princess, to her credit, said nothing. She didn’t need to. Her new gel seat cushion though was working its magic and she was thankful she had it.

Our first stop was Poplar, MT, which sits on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. The rough roads had taken their toll and a bathroom break was non-negotiable for the passenger princess at this point.

We pulled into a sketchy-looking gas station and, for the first time in her life, she didn't care. There was a sign on the restroom door that said, "For paying customers only," so she bought a pack of gum because she felt guilty. Then we got back on the bike and kept moving.

From Poplar we rode through Wolf Point. I'll be honest, some reservations we've ridden through are visibly struggling. Wolf Point wasn't that. It was a well kept town.

It does have its quirks though. There's a pig made entirely out of hay bales sitting on the football field, and a coffee shop that was shaped like a kettle. We didn't ask questions. We just appreciated it and moved on.

By the time we rolled into Glasgow it was lunch time. We weren't looking for an adventure in dining. We don't eat at Pizza Hut very often but the Passenger Princess enjoys it once in a while as a change of pace from our normal spots back home. It hit the spot.

It hit the spot. We ate, got back on the road, and kept heading toward Fort Peck. It was starting to get warm.

From Glasgow the road wound its way toward Fort Peck and eventually put us right alongside Fort Peck Lake. By this point the morning cool was long gone, but riding next to that much water brought the temperature down enough to notice.

The lake is massive, clearly a serious fishing and boating destination. You could tell just by looking at it.

Then we got to the spillway.

The Fort Peck Dam was built starting in 1933 as a New Deal project and when it was finished in 1940 it was the largest hydraulically filled earthen dam in the world.

The spillway itself is over a mile long, a concrete chute designed to handle floodwaters from the Missouri River. It was so impressive during construction that it landed on the very first cover of Life magazine in 1936.

And here's the thing about the spillway, it almost never gets used. It's only been opened a handful of times since the dam was completed, reserved for the kind of flood events that don't come around often. Most people have never seen water run through it.

Fort Peck Dam on the cover of the very first issue of Life magazine, November 23, 1936.

Before we ever got there I had done some reading on the dam. During construction in 1938 a section of the dam collapsed. Eight men were killed. Six of them were never recovered. They're still in there.

Somewhere in that structure you're standing next to are six men who never came home. That's not a legend, that's what happened.

We were the only ones there. No crowd, no tour group, just us and a phone number posted on a sign that connects you to a recorded history of the spillway.

We called it, listened, took pictures, and stood there longer than we planned. Knowing what we knew probably had something to do with that.

The Fort Peck Spillway stretches more than a mile and has only been opened a handful of times since the dam was completed. The most recent opening was in 2019.

Eventually the heat made the decision for us. Time to head home.

By the time we pointed the bike back toward Williston it was 104 degrees. That's not a typo. Highway 2 eastbound was a different story than the morning ride out, the road between Poplar and Culbertson still had its moments but it wasn't the bone rattling punishment of the westbound lane.

Small victories.

We stopped in Wolf Point for Gatorade and pickles. If you've never heard of using pickles to rehydrate on a hot ride, file that away. The salt helps your body hold water and keeps the cramps from setting in. We've been doing it long enough that it's just part of how we manage heat on a long day.

It works.

From Wolf Point we pushed on to Culbertson where we pulled over for shade, air conditioning, and more water. At 104 degrees you don't tough it out, you stop and you take care of yourself and your passenger. Then you get back on the bike.

315 miles round trip. A road that tried to shake us apart, a hay bale pig, a lake the size of a small sea, a spillway that's been standing since 1940, and a ride home in triple digit heat that reminded us why hydration isn't optional.

Not a bad reason to take the bike out.