Back in 2021, a group of Central Wyoming College (CWC) students biked over a thousand miles along the Continental Divide. Along the way, they gathered air quality samples, traveled through wild backcountry places and saw nine grizzly bears!
The trip was about pedaling hundreds of miles and collecting data, but it was also about navigating hardships, overcoming obstacles and working together as a tight-knit unit.
The team was made up of students Jada Antelope, Tammy Green, Aidan Hereford, Tara Jorgeson and Alex Minge. It was led by CWC professor Jacki Klancher, with support from a pit crew of trainers, cooks and drivers.
That big ride is the subject of a new Wyoming PBS film titled “Gravel and Grit: Bridging the Great Divide," which premieres on April 28 at the Robert A. Peck Arts Center Theatre at the CWC campus in Riverton, with a panel discussion featuring the filmmaker and the group of cyclists.
“Gravel and Grit” will also be available on the Wyoming PBS YouTube channel starting May 14 and will have its broadcast premiere on May 21 at 7 p.m.
Wyoming Public Radio’s Hannah Habermann sat down with bikers Tammy Green and Alex Minge, to hear about what they learned on the trail.
Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Tammy Green: I was born in Lander, Wyoming, 63 years ago, married for 48 years. I got married at the age of 15 because I got pregnant at 14 and then I have three kids, 11 grandkids. They’re my heroes in life.
I've been a hairdresser for 41 years and owned my own business for 27 of those.
Alex Minge: I currently reside in Casper, Wyoming, but pretty much grew up in the Riverton area. I graduated from a little town called Shoshone, less than 700 population, so just a teeny tiny school. I was born in Belize, Central America.
I enlisted in the Navy as soon as I graduated, and did five years in the Navy and three deployments. Each of those were like seven to eight months, so I spent a lot of time out at sea.
Hannah Habermann: How did you first hear about this trip?
TG: My dad had passed away and so I started biking, like a three mile bike ride. Then it went from three miles to 10 miles and then 10 to 20, and then by the end of my journey it was 85 miles. I just needed to be on my own, with podcasts.
Through doing her hair, Jacki [Klancher] says, ‘Hey. I've never really seen anybody bike like that. Is there any way you want to join this journey?’
And I went, ‘Oh, let me talk to my kids.’ Not my husband, but the kids. And I said, ‘What do you think of your mom going on this big journey across the Continental Divide and they were like, ‘Well, if you don't do it, you're going to regret it. If you do do it, you're going to regret it.’ And inside I was like, ‘I'm going to regret all of it because it's going to be so hard!’
Then I called Jacki and said, ‘Okay, I'll do it.’
Then she says to me, not knowing I never even went to high school, she says, ‘Well, the trouble with this whole thing is you’ve got to go to college.’ So I went to college with these guys, we did Zoom the whole time, and then of course, May 2, the same date that my dad had passed away, I get a call and I had made straight A's. That was one of those God blessings that came down.
AM: I got my A.S. [Associate of Science degree] from CWC and also got my expedition science degree. I spent a lot of time outside at the Alpine Science Institute over in Lander, how I got started mountain biking was through that same GIS thing. Also knowing Jacki, because she tries to rope you into whatever she can!
Fast forward to now, I'm working in Casper, Wyoming for a uranium mining company and doing a lot of the stuff that I learned at CWC. It was all worth it to me.
HH: Tell me a little bit about the expedition. Where did you start? Where did you end and how long did it all take?
AM: We started in Eureka, Montana, the northernmost part of Montana basically. We were supposed to finish in Lander, so it was supposed to be 1,100 miles in total. Not everybody ended up making the finish line at the same time and everything, but we did a majority of the route.
The goal was to do some air quality samples in some of the most remote areas in the backcountry. We deployed these little sensors for the first time in those remote areas.
The idea was to create a collaboration with our schoolwork, as well as the actual cycling, and create opportunities for people that don't normally get these types of opportunities, which I think was really cool.
[The trip] was what got me interested in GPS mapping and surveying, so it's amazing how much of [the trip] ties into the real world.
TG: We'd wake up in the morning and we'd have to take the tent down, get our breakfast ready. It was chaos, like, ‘Go, go, go, go, go!’ That was the start of the day, then you'd ride.
We had two teams, the competitive team – they're a little tougher – then the slower team. I started with Alex and those guys, but then [I joined] the girls that I was supposed to mentor, because my job was to be a mentor since I was the young mom. I was trying to teach them, because they needed that, just to keep them going. So if I saw anybody struggling, then I stopped the bike and then walked.
I seriously didn't know how to put a tent up. I was like, ‘We have to do what?’ You slept in your coat, you slept with everything on. It was cold snow at the beginning and then hot at the end. It was like, a hundred degrees at some spots and we'd have to bike and it was so hot. So hot.
And we did it. We really did it as a team and everybody worked together.
HH: What was a lesson you learned on this trip that you weren't expecting to learn?
AM: No matter how well prepared you think you are, there's always going to be something that happens. You can't even prepare for everything, in all reality. You just have to work off of what you know. It taught you how to thrive under chaos a little bit.
TG: I'm going to say perseverance, because it was perseverance from the time we woke up until the time we dropped at nighttime, go, go, go!
During my journey, my husband found out we had prostate cancer. I’m saying we, because we've been married forever. I had to leave the trip and it was probably the hardest thing to leave all of those guys, and even though I knew that [my husband] was my other half, I did not want to leave. I wanted to be part of the trip until the end.
I got home and he said to me, ‘Your journey was supposed to be there, so you have to go back and be those kids’ person.’ That was the best day ever, to return to the journey.
To do what we all did together as a team – I can't say anything better than being 58 years old and going, ‘I can't do it.’ You do it, because your body's capable of anything.
I do believe that after this journey, because who would've ever thought riding three miles to riding a journey of over a thousand miles could even happen.
AM: I think without you guys there that I definitely wouldn't have been able to make it through, so teamwork was a big one for me as well.
I feel like everybody played a certain role when they needed to. When they needed to be a leader, when they needed to just be a second man in charge, we could all play the same position when we needed to.
I feel like not a lot of teams know how to do that, but with this group, it was really good. We were able to share the responsibility a little bit, so it was nice.
HH: What would you say to someone who might be dreaming about going on an adventure like this someday? What words of advice or encouragement would you share with them?
AM: I'd say, ‘Man, the sky's the limit.’ Don't think that anything is out of reach for you or too big for you, because who would've thought that a group like us would be doing what we were doing?
Don't give up and don't be scared to reach out to people. I know for me, when I first came back out of the military, I was a little bit of a hermit and a little skeptical to reach out to people for help.
But that's why advisors are in place, because they're there to advise you and a lot of times they give you good guidance. Use the resources that are available as much as you can, and don't stop dreaming.
I still have all of these other goals that I want to achieve. I never stop setting the bar higher for myself. You can do the same.
TG: First, I better thank CWC and Jacki Klancher for this journey because it wouldn't be possible without her.
As an older adult, I would say ‘Yolo!’ You only live once. People call and say ‘You want to go to a concert? You want to do that?’ ‘Yeah!’
I'm on board for everything in life. I like to live life to the fullest. These young kids that are coming up, I just think that they need to experience what we just did.
You can do it. Anybody can do these kinds of things. You just have to go, ‘Yeah, I’m going to do it.’ I'm going to do anything that's out there. Be adventurous and live. That's what I think all of us need to start doing, is living life. If there's something out there – climbing a rock, whatever – just get off your butt and do it!
