Montana - July 5, 2005
The yellow line is our GPS track for the day.
This graph shows today's elevation changes.
This is what I woke up to today.
Time to pack up and hit the trail.
The Trail.
You come over this bump and between these rocks and it's like you entered the Magic Forest or something.
Finally. Some singletrack!
Some tree-huggin' bicyclists tried to block the trail at Glacier Creek Bridge with some big rocks. I guess we showed them, didn't we!
I had to take one of my panniers off to clear that rock. No biggie.
WooHoo! We're back in business!...
...for a while. OK, the pannier comes off one more time. Stinkin' pedal pushers.
Somewhere on FR9591, 8 or 10 miles before highway 83, my back tire went flat. Apparently when I mounted the new tire the little washer around the valve stem fell in between the tire and the tube, and eventually it wore a little round hole in the tube. No biggie, it's all part of the game, right? Then Jim and I pulled the tube and broke out the patch kit only to discover that all of my patch glue had dried up. And, you may recall, Jim's patch kit bounced off of his fender yesterday. Luckily I had a couple of those 'scabs' along that don't require any glue. That's what they tell you anyway.
The whole time we were mounting the wheel back on the bike I could here "sssssssss." I was hoping it was just a rattle snake, but no such luck. The scab didn't hold. Plan B; Jim rode to Seeley Lake (~35 miles away) for supplies while I, once again, removed the perforated inner-tube. Trusty ol' Jim made it back with a new tube and off we went.
The trail was gated here at N47 24.678 W113 37.925. We probably could have gotten around the gate, but it appeared to be private land so we made a short detour down to highway 83 and we were able to get back on the trail at West Morrell Road.
FR4353 somewhere above Grisly Basin. Some of the fire roads in the area are closed off to preserve the Grisly Bear habitat.
I like Montana a lot.
We camped at Big Larch Campground, near Seeley Lake. I must have laid awake for at least 10 minutes wondering just exactly what, or who, a Larch is, and just how big it really is.