This was a cruisy, mellow, and relaxing road ride that I did with Kassy after work. Great evening ride, about 30 miles.
Pictures:
This is the land of milk and honey.
Coming back on Cottonwood, looking North/Northeast towards Bozeman.
Map
Saturday - Fairy Lake Rd.
Kyle, Kyle and Sam were camping up at Fairy Lake. I thought it would be a great thing to show up on bikes and say hi. I dragged Kassy along as soon as I got off work. We only made it out to the beginning of the Fairy Lake Rd., at which point we faced seven miles of reasonably steep, loose, gravelly mess. We were tired at this point, didn't have enough light to make it up and back to town in time, and our bikes had skinny tires, which would have made the ride hellish. We turned back and stopped for lunch at Battle Ridge campground. All told, it was 46 miles of fairly hilly highway riding that completely destroyed me on my fixed gear.
Pictures:
Lunchtime at Battle Ridge.
Fast.Map
Sunday Morning - Hike: Arch Falls
As a sort of cool down, I agreed to go on a hike (instead of a bike ride, which is rare) with Kassy. We went up Hyalite Canyon, the road to which recently opened, and saw more people than I would have expected to see at a movie theater. Once we got past Grotto Falls (the main attraction and only about a mile in) the crowd thinned, but it wasn't until we got past Arch Falls at about 2.2 miles that we felt like we had the trail to ourselves. We turned back at around 3 miles since I wanted to be back by early afternoon to grill meat with Sam, Kyle and Kyle. We picked up some beef on the way home and grilled up some tasty burgers, I wished Kyle a happy birthday, and they promptly left.
Pictures of the hike:
Grotto Falls.
The rare photograph of me, standing in front of Arch Falls.
Sunday Afternoon - Alleycat
For the uninitiated, an alleycat is a bicycle race involving (usually) fixed gear bikes and beer. It's like a scavenger hunt. The rider is given a list of stops that he will have to visit about fifteen minutes before the start of the race, and he must first figure out where they all are, and then decide in which order he will visit them. A map is invaluable.
Alfred was out of town, so I went solo on this one. I forgot to bring a map, so I teamed up with a guy named Tom who had a phone book with a bunch of maps in the back of it. We figured out our route, and we rode it.
Map
Tom and I were second and first, respectively. I won a cool watch and thirty dollars.
We then proceeded to eat pizza and watch monster trucks at the finish line, which was conveniently located at a bar directly opposite a pizza shop. I didn't get any photos.
Monday - Bozeman Creek to Leverich Canyon
I wanted to do a good loop mountain bike ride today, and I wanted to see how reasonable it would be to mountain bike from my home, instead of driving to a trailhead.
The original plan was to go up to Mystic Lake via the Wall of Death, loop around the back side of Mount Ellis, and come down New World Gulch into Bear Canyon. I ran into a nice guy who's name I forget (sorry) on the way up. We got to talking, and he recommended against New World Gulch. He said that it was blown out (the sign at the base of the trail in Bear Canyon says the same thing), and he said that his buddy ruined his bike trying to ride it. Lots of sloppy mud and downed trees. It's been warm, but sunshine doesn't remove trees.
I had a map, a lunch, and plenty of water, so I decided to try to connect to Leverich Canyon from Bozeman Creek, which was what the guy I met said he was planning on doing. He was long gone in search of his riding partner, so when I got to the bridge at about five miles, I checked out the map to see how feasible the ride was.
Turns out that it's pretty feasible. I rode about fifteen miles (best guestimate, based on mile markers and my map) of fire roads, abandoned 4x4 roads, and improved dirt roads, all of which gradually went up. As I was getting towards the end, I started wondering when the road was going to start heading downhill. It didn't, really, until the junction with the Leverich Canyon trail, where I lost all of the elevation I had just gained in about two miles. It was steep, sheer, and scary, but surprisingly well maintained. I was on the brakes the whole time and it was still one of the faster descents I've taken. I coasted away from the trailhead with my heart and adrenaline pumping. I didn't get any pictures of this part because, well, I was holding on pretty tight.
Anyway, here are some pictures.
The bridge over Bozeman Creek. This is about 4-5 miles up
Then another five or so miles of this.
This is on the ridge between the Hyalite and the Bozeman Creek drainages. Those peaks are in the Gallatin range, I think.
A few more miles of this improved dirt road, complete with a shooting range and many 4x4 trails jutting from the main road.
Aha. Here's where it starts going downhill. This ride was awesome.
