We made some 25 trail miles today, leaving town at 1 pm and with an hour of climbing on the railroad grade just to rejoin the trail. That’s great CDT time. Sure, half was on roads, but there was still hike-a-bike and other challenges in there.
Like rain. 50 percent chance in Butte means 100 percent near the divide. We successfully dodged a big thunder cell, but ended up taking 3 or 4 rain delay breaks under trees. Luckily none were too long.
Just enough to cover our new and clean drive trains with grit, briefly rendering my granny ring inoperable.
It kind of felt like we were being lazy with the morning, but there’s always a lot to do when leaving town. We weren’t watching TV or twiddling our thumbs, that’s for sure.
The timing was perfect. Not 30 second after we rejoined the CDT, we saw two hikers ahead. It’s Chimp and Tootise! We haven’t seen them since the basin. They took a big shortcut from yellowstone, skipping the entire brutal border section and had just rejoined the cdt after hundreds of miles off it. It was great to see them still in the game and with positive attitudes. So cool the way we keep bumping into our friends out here.
After Delmoe lake the trail got steep and we pushed big hills as the thunder cracked behind us. Then we mercifully turned onto moto singletrack. It began with some hiking then got good . Real good. We ran into a group of 4 motos riders that were very curious what we were doing or how far we were going, so late in the day. They were blown away when they figured out what we were up to.
The rest of the Nez Perce trail was great riding. Bikepack tech, only a little mud and minimal erosion. It was good knowing we were on moto trail … meaning it would continue to exist and be logged out.
We still have some good descending on the trail to do in the morning. Then we cross I 15 again and on towards Lincoln! Here’s hoping to clear skies and minimal rain.
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