Author: Bill

I’m on my walk. Talking to ducks and chatting with the geese. Stopping to look at the Yellowstone River at times but keeping my pace high so I can get back to work. Clouds are rolling over the Absoroka Range. Today, I’m in Livingston.

Yesterday was at a jump line in the sun two counties over. Day before? The same. Three days before? A blinding snowstorm and evacuating the Tom Minor region. The weeks before that? Vacationing in Gardiner hitting up some sweet gravel. Before that? Miller Creek drainage bitching about the hordes of Bozeman, folk. Before that? Having pizza in the apartment … together.

That’s like a whole month of being in a different place.

Wow! I just walked past some goslings. The last time I was here they were so small. Now, they’re huge. Stopping to take video, this will come in handy for a post later.

Mr. Bear and I sipped our coffees while the sun came up. And there it was. The sun. With its energy and warm comfort.

That was all I needed and mounted my stead. Moki and I rode off into the sun.

Around the corner and climb, climb. Another corner and town is disappearing. Trailhead found. Bike symbol located.

I walked and walked. Jumped the creek 5 times. Watched for the Wilderness boundary sign.

Time was running out and darkness would come soon. Giving up on the boundary. Turning around. I’ll be back.

Good times on the Gardiner Bench

Stop and breath and suck up the positive ions. Try and ground, try and ground. Then come back to reality.

Halfway between Livingston and Gardiner, there is a place. A place we escape. I have even been known to drive the extra 30 minutes for an after-work ride. Why do we like this place? It’s discrete and out of the way. But most of all it is often void of humans.

Now I don’t mind humans. But there is one type. A type that comes over the pass and pushes their tension and privileged stress into others. People that walk all over the backs of others. I have politely stopped one of THEM to say, “We don’t drive that way in Livingston, please slow down and enjoy yourself”. Which usually is returned by a big fat middle finger in my face.

I do realize I am sounding a little nationalistic. I do try and see it the way the original people did. But look how that turned out. The bottom line is that I believe no one owns the land and the only entity I obey is mother nature. Mother earth. Whatever you call it … the freaking planet we live a short life on. But we don’t own SHIT. Fuck you landowners that think otherwise and kudos to those that are just stewards and realized that they are just guests.

And I do realize that the most annoying thing for a resident of a place is those that move in and try to change the place to what they are used to. But I think I align nicely with all Livingston and Gardiner residents. But whatever. This post isn’t about all of that.

Over the weekend we drove to the place we go to energize and get away from others. As we drove up the 15 or so miles of forest service road it slowly sunk in. We were not all alone. Around every corner … 6-ers as we call them. Every dispersed camping area completely packed with 20+ campers. Finally, we just found a flat piece of ground that wouldn’t mind a van to park on and made our place to spend the night.

Keep the bullshit on your side of the pass.

Has anyone noticed flowers? With it NOT being spring in these parts the flowers are coming as a shock. Don’t we have like 3 more months of winter?

So I set out on an expedition. To ride out to the bench to take some wind samples. The curlews are out so that is a good sign. But then as I approached Livingston Peak Trailhead the Monster appeared.

“You will not pass”

“Screw you”

And then as descended through Suce Creek the hail beat down on me to punish me for ignoring the Monster. But I did notice some wildflowers on the southern slopes.

As I time-trialed back into town on the Old Yellowstone Trail I analyzed my samples. Maybe spring IS near. There are flowers out and I survived the Livingston Loop. I am only shivering and drenched. Not frozen and stuck in the snow. There is a change, I will finally admit.

Now to prepare for the June snowstorms.

There’s something different about this town. There are no tourists. Yellowstone National Park is closed. It’s just the normal townspeople. And I will tell you that there are some real characters here. And all these empty condos are weird as well.

So I am on my morning walk around town. I have seen nobody. I did see about three elk hanging out at the Gardner high school.

“Good morning”, my greeting was met with a quick look over by one of the elk. The others seemed to be more concerned with flying things. I walked on getting a little belittled as the seemingly smirky look was like, “barefoot. Haha. What the hell do you think you are?”

Screw you dude. Wow, not long before I picked my first fight in the new town.

We’ve been up there before. Spinks Creek. It’s a trail. And a trailhead. Mostly we’ve been on our fat bikes and once even made it to the private land turn-around.

It’s pretty fun but it’s rocky. And today we decided to take this on before heading to Gardiner. One day off is what it seems like. We made the most of it … but … It just didn’t seem like a weekend. Sure, we were in our van and camping. That part was good.

But I couldn’t get over the fact that things have changed. Going from just one person working to two people working makes life complex. Instead of taking off Thursday or Friday and not coming home till Monday or Tuesday, we are now going to work on Monday and then having to be back to work on Sunday. Well because of the starts at 6 now.

That just leaves us with Saturday, the only full day that both of us have off together. I am contemplating just going off on my own. Just having my weekends and adventures alone. And then once in a while, if we both manage a time we can do something together. We can be together again.

I took one last ride in Livingston before we packed the van and headed out.

And then it happened. The typical phrase right? We stopped over for a night in Carabella. I was eager to finish the day’s workout since I set a mileage goal for the day. This is not when it happened. Wait for it …

The sun was out and it was warm. I was walking around barefoot as Mo drove in. I waved her down. I could barely keep my joy from exploding into a full-on sundance. But that is not when “it” happened.

We both sat down with the van door fully open and started to relax. And it was at this moment it happened.

“Why don’t we just crack a beer and hang out”?

I think one of the reasons I like trails so much is that it is a direct connection to Mother Earth. Her vibration and willingness to take from you all the pent up electricity from modern life.

When everything is trying to damage you, she is there. I have traveled many a trail. Many a mile. Many a hill.

Thank you mother earth.

“Excuse me, when your my age you need all the help you can get”, as the older gent passed us and proceeded to climb the dirt road at around 20 mph. Mo giggled and then busted out in a laugh. I know that laugh. It is the same one that I heard when I licked a department store window.

“Just look at how fast he is going”, she said as the figure disappeared about a half-mile ahead already. That was all I needed. I pursued the man in black across the desert.

Never mind the debate. I have my insights. And I want to get one of these things so I can do reps on my favorite downhill track.

I never caught the man in black. I am no match for a 750-watt electric bike. I stopped and took off my shoes and socks and walked back to camp. Mother earth, what shall I do?

Well … the exact opposite of weathering. More like observing the storm. From the comforts of #buttonsthevan.

At this time I would like to express gratitude. For having jobs. For having shelter. And for the most beautiful thing of all … nature.

We arrived last night and at first, seemed good. I hot shower, etc. Right?

Then this morning I go for a walk. It’s 31 and feels like 29 according to my app. Sure enough, I was realizing I forgot my gloves. Shit, I hate winter.

“Grab some food we are packing the van“, I yelled through the door as I grabbed the knob with a crude COVID hanky thing.

Two and a half hours later we arrive at our camping spot we had just left the day prior. Now, this is living.

Back in Livingston Montana resetting. Laundry, showers, and filling water tanks. The plan is to hit up Acton for another week or so for enduro training camp part 2. Which brings me to what is dominating my mind. How important is it to set a distance as a goal? With my passion, which is mountain biking. Which is in the normal scheme of thing pretty stupid. But I have this desire to look at last year and out-do it mileage wise. Not time spent on bike or exercising. But distance. Come to think of it I care about speed too. Higher, faster, farther …. always on my mind.

I mean, it’s not sustainable to always increase your mileage as you get older, right? At one time in my life. I cycled I think 8,000 miles in a single season. Which for a mountain biker is a lot? If I were a road cyclist, it would have probably been more like 10,000 a year. By now I would be biking every day, all day just to keep up.

Of course, now that I’m old. I’m wise. I can’t go back. So, What’re my goals now? I’m thinking 10% of how much I did last year. As I started the Enduro phase of my life my mileage has gone way down. So it is my concern that I am starting to slow down. It always bugs me.

I AM getting old though. It’s all an illusion I know but hey, I gotta have goals and I love goals. I love going out knowing that I gotta bike 10 miles a day or else. I always like to go faster farther or more of something than last year. And I really don’t like doing anything else … AT ALL.

I don’t wanna just lay down and die. I wanna obtain more. Right now. I’m on par with last year. I just have to do at least 10 miles a day to sustain that but at some point, as we reach the sixth month halfway point of the year I’ll have to think about what I have to do to be 10% over 2019.

Well, to think more about this I’ll just jump on my bike a pedal around Livingston.

The first time I saw it, I was afraid of it. I thought to myself that when I did encounter it that I would just go around.

But after a couple of days here I suddenly realized that I was looking forward to it. Even more so then the path to get to it. I am having issues with everything but it now. As I write this, I miss it.

That feeling of speed and flight. Going into it feeling peace and how everything will turn outright. The joy of seeing the landing zone pass underneath me.

What did you think I was talking about? This double jump in the middle of OwlBBack Run.

No critters were injured as I practiced for this jump.

This place is out in the middle of nowhere. From our front door, it is 2 hours, over 100 miles away. From the big metropolis known as Livingston to bum fudge Egypt, as the saying goes.

If it rains you stay thanks to peanut butter gumbo mud. Every day at 5 a huge storm hits you with high winds, hail, and sometimes a blizzard. It is hotter than death valley here. Sometimes 80 in the offseason. In the summer … well, you just don’t come here. Does anyone remember the 24 hours of Rapeljie? Yea, then you know about the evening tornado followed by days of searing heat. Rapeljie is just over the horizon from here. We can see Hailstorm Lake.

There are the occasional deer and plenty of bird watching but the most abundant creature is the rattlesnake. It is dry and there is no water for 20 miles. If you are someone that fears running out of toilet paper then stay away … there is none in these parts.

The land is BLM but it goes unmonitored. Motorheads have destroyed the only bathroom facility and in the evening can be heard ripping up the parking lot with their quads.

There are people here that will kill you if you don’t leave them alone, living among the sandstone cliffs they roam just enough to not raise any suspicion from BLM law enforcement. Again, not monitored although I did see a deputy come by once.

We have spent two weeks here. It is so peaceful, beautiful, and did I mention the bike park. I have to call it my favorite place in the spring. I love Acton Rec Area.