Category: Blog Posts

It is so cool when you discover a new love. You suddenly realize that “this is f’n cool”.  And then you propose to do it again.  A lot. Last Saturday I met Mo at Battle Ridge for a bike pack trip up to Fairy Lake. I choose my fatty bike just to see if I could load it down and see what it could do.  I discovered it could do just about anything.  And I discovered that it was f’n cool.

We started out on a gravel road which kind of sucked because of the traffic.  Included with the traffic was the Bozeman gun fetish crowd. For some reason Bozeman area folks love to take their shotguns and automatic anti armor tank weaponry and shoot the freaking hell out of a hill side.  The particular group we encountered was shooting at bright orange clay pigeons.  Which they left on the hillside.  It looked like a dump when they were done.  But soon enough we encountered a locked gate.  Once  around we were free of the motorized loving freaks.

 

Then we encountered the climb. For me no problem. Well … except it was like pedaling a tank uphill.  Which I don’t mind. really!  But for Mo who has just come off of ACL surgery it was a challenge.  Slow and steady she was fine.   am a big proponent of not reinjuring an injury … which I do all the time.

While Mo took her time I left the road and explored all kinds of terrain on my fully loaded fatty.  I crushed through woods. Lofted along green grassy meadows. Did ski like turns down snow fields. Even crossed streams and mud bogs. I guess you could say I was off the beaten path.  And it was fantastic.

When we were within a mile or so from our destination we encountered the reason for the closed road.  It started with a small patch of snow but by the time we reached the lake it was full on snow slogging.  I didn’t mind though. It was a blast.

Would I have had fun on my 29er Salsa?  I don’t think so. My choice to go with the fatty on this particular weekend trip was spot on. The mixture of snow riding, off road exploration, and dirt roads were a perfect match for the “floatation bike”. For obvious reasons.

I did fall in love with fatty packing.  And I was ecstatic to be back out in the woods camping and surviving out of a couple small bags.  Most of all, though, doing all of this and sharing the experience was the most rewarding. I give the trip up to Fairy lake 20 thumbs up. 10 from me, 10 from Mo, 4 from a goat (later disqualified for using hooves).

The plan today is to ride up Bridger Canyon to Battle Ridge Pass. From there I will meet up with Mo for a ride up to Fairy Lake.  We will camp at the lake and bike back to Battle Ridge tomorrow.  I will then bike home of course.  The goals are two fold. One, to re-introduce Mo’s new knee to bike packing and two, for me to have a couple low intensity endurance rides.  OK, three fold.  Number three to see how much I can carry with Larry my fatty and how much elegance the ol fat bike can ride cross country with said loads.  And I am off …o/o

A big nap made all the difference. So much so that I felt good enough to do a core sessions and bike out to the M trail last night. I then proceeded to do a spiritual trail run. The sun was setting and a big storm was wrapping around the mountain.  Just interfacing with it, struggling against it, felt so pure. No bike, just my feet. Pure form and contrast. The pure form of exercise.

Changing subjects, black and white photography takes away all the distractions.  So you see form and contrast.  I think it is the pure form of expression. Like trail running.

It rained last weekend. Not to be held out of the woods Mo and I gladly received a big dose of hypothermia to go waterfall watching.

I took twenty photos but the best two are not what you call traditionally “good”. One has water spots and the other a panorama with the waterfall totally ignored.  I guess much like life it is not the aesthetic but the feel.  And the feelings that “feel” invoke. If it is good, it is good.

Yesterday was a great ride but actually I was unsuccessful at completing my goal of riding from Middle Cottonwood to Truman Gulch. So today I tried again … in reverse.

So I rode up Truman Gulch Trail. IT started out the exact opposite as yesterday.  It was nice out in the morning and the weather deteriorated as I continued.

 

When I hit the 18th mile it was obvious I was not going to be successful today either.  It was a full out blizzard around 7000 feet and at 34 degrees quite dangerous if I broke down.

 

So just 400 feet higher, which took me 30 minutes to slog I turned around. I shivered violently the last hour descending into town in a downpour.  Again I had a date at noon.  Always good to have a date when your done adventuring.

I woke up, wrote down my itinerary for the day, and said goodbye to a sleepy Mo. My plans were to to ride up Middle Cottonwood and then North on the Bridger Foothills Trail. From there I would come out at Truman Gulch. The ride to the trailhead was wet and it looked like storms were moving in.  I was optimistic as I headed up Middle Cottonwood because it appeared that it was going to clear.

As the trail turned upward it started to hail … then snow.  I was riding with a new device to hold food.  One of the goals were to see how easy it would be to eat from this thing. I found it difficult but it is not the bag’s fault. The side hill single-track was so exposed and steep I was consistently getting vertigo. Scary stuff … but tremendously fun. I encountered a half dozen ultra runners who told me I was in the wrong place.  I suggested that I was indeed at the right place. The last runner by said the “Bostwick” was impassable.

Then I went up into the clouds. It was 7500 feet and 35 degrees so the occasional pushes were welcome to warm me back up. I tried to save my warm gear for the delicious bike ride down but I discovered that I was so cold that if I didn’t put them on I would be jeopardizing the plan. It was now full out snow so I wasn’t getting any wetter except for the sweating part.

The views and terrain just kept getting better and better. The clouds were ripping through the trees and snow stuck to their appendages.  It was quite a surreal sight.

As I topped out at a saddle a couple ultra runners named “Bostwick” I thought I saw the trail curl up the ridge. Later I would discover that this trail I saw was off my usual plan.  But at the time I figured I was still on the Foothills trail. It went up … straight up. I packed my bike on my back and schemed that I could do this on the actual Great Divide Trail in the wilderness areas.

At 8500 feet I am abandoned plan & turned around. The snow was picking up and a new friends arrived. High Winds.  It was time to go home. Besides all that I had a date at noon.

As I hiked the bike down I stopped a couple times to regain balance. The drops on the South side of the ridge was dizzying with the clouds rolling up the slopes and a eerie black and white near vertical landscape looked more like a crater on Mars.

As soon as I mounted the bike I was in my element.  On any other bike maybe I would have been sketched out by some of the steep rocky and muddy sections but with the 29er Salsa I felt more centered and felt really comfortable coming down off any drop.  The bike is awesome.

As the clouds broke I could see sun in the valley. My spirits already lifted with the excitement of the decent topped out at a very high grin inducing level. I rode through gorges, past waterfalls, and around steep slopes. Green alpine meadows greeted me with budding flowers and a unreal immense green.

Descending 4000 feet is fun. Period.

What is on tap for this weekend?  I wonder this. And at the same time try and draw from last weekend’s ride around Hyalite Lake. I have been posting photos from this trip so maybe I should give a little narration.  And by doing this maybe can come up with some adventure ideas for this weekend.

It was getting late so we just parked at the main parking lot by the dam and headed out. At first I thought it would be too much for a recovering ACL patient but walking is no problem so we walked most of the trail. The West side is all single track while the East side is dirt road. So we started off with the desert first … the single-track. It want long before we broke out into our first grand view.

IT is so nice to be out on the bike exploring together again.  I wanted to frame the moment.

Nothing brings two adventurers together more then a grand view. In a week this field will be strewn with wild flowers.  Maybe we will come back here this week and camp.

As we neared the end of our ride it rained … hard … on us.  We were moments from the car and instincts said to make a run for it.  Instead I stopped to enjoy it.  The outdoors. Nature.  And snap off a photo of a rainbow.  Maybe we will camp up here this weekend.