Yesterday felt like waking up from a bad dream, today was a dream come true.
We had good trail. All day long. Switchbacks, good grades, sustainable design. I wouldn’t say it’s “mountain bike trail” because I guarantee that the CDT hikers love it and appreciate it too. Who doesn’t like good trail?
It sure is fun to ride. I’m so happy to see that this trail exists and that this new CDT ended up open to bikes. What a fantastic asset to a community that sorely needs it. It will help economically, and hopefully get more people into human powered, quiet and immensely rewarding outdoor recreation. How incredibly short-sighted it would have been to listen to curmudgeons that live on the east coast and have bicycle-phobia.
It’s ironic that many (most?) of the thru-hikers aren’t even using it — taking a cutoff through Anaconda instead. I think is is the best continuous (30+ mile) piece of singletrack we have ridden yet. Even better than any portion of the Colorado Trail. And there’s still more to go.
Hiker-mail. Some hikers are hitting this section, cool!
Say what you will about ‘the facebook’ but it ends up making some cool connections sometimes.
We had planned a short day, cutting out at Pipestone Pass, since taking the divide route into Butte looked preferable to the next pass (Homestake) which is I-90. As I studied the maps at camp, it sure looked better to ride to I-90 and get closer to Butte before going in to resupply. We had plenty of food, and the weather was supposed to be bluebird — why not take advantage?
I posted to Facebook asking about a shoulder on I-90. Within a few minutes Jerry Brown of Bear Creek Survey responded that we could take *trail* into Butte, from I-90. Sold. We planned for more riding.
It was a good choice. 4 miles before Pipestone the trail went from good trail to FANTASTIC trail. And that continued for 13 more miles all the way to Homestake. We even saw two girls day riding it! We haven’t seen *anyone* riding a bike on the CDT since… Colorado, south of Winter Park.
The trail weaved through stone monoliths and plates. Switched through thin forests. Dove in and out of minor drainages. Bermed its way along the continental divide. A decomposed granite base, nary a hike-a-bike or pitch too steep.
Absolute dream riding. Dream weather. We had plenty of food, plenty of time, and even a fair amount of energy for being on the third day out of Wisdom.
Thank you.
At Homestake there was a map that told us the trail into Butte would be 13.5 miles and feature a 2000 foot climb. Oye. We had figured it would be mostly a drop into town. Energy was not quite that high. We also wanted to make it into town before the Outdoorsman and the Post Office closed.
Also on Facebook, by this time, was a post by Outdoorsman owner and Levi’s brother, Rob Leipheimer. He told us we could descend the old rail tracks into town. Sure enough, we spied a little singletrack and bike tracks next to the rails. Let’s see what happens!
A gentle coast straight into town, with huge views — that was exactly what we needed. Social media is pretty dang cool sometimes. (It has also recently led to CDT by Schultz Pass being cut out — thanks Bitteroot Backcountry Cyclists — and not to mention the energy boost for Ez back by Slag-a-Melt).
Very cool. Literally.
Wow. The power of local knowledge.
We are in good hands at the Outdoorsman (thanks Rob!) and the adjacent motel. Bikes are getting some love. Legs some recovery. Computers are getting a workout. Catching up with work and planning the rest of the trail. We have maybe 150 more bike-legal CDT miles, then we are on our own to get creative and make it to the terminus at Canada!
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