Monthly Archives: June 2025

Bitterroot National Forest, Idaho

June 7-9, 2025

Without much advance. planning, we look at the map each day for forests, bike trails and sometimes hot springs. Our map is a 2010 National Geographic Road Atlas (remember them?) given to us by Olivia before our last long trip, The Voyage of the Tramper, in 2012.

Our truly lovely host at the O’Hara campsite in far western Mountain Montana recommended a place called Warm Springs, farther into the Bitterroot Wilderness along the Lochsa River. We found it at the end of a two mile hike through the woods.

The river was at the bottom of the warm springs. The river was very cold, all I could manage there was a foot dip and some splashing. Such a beautiful place and so isolated from the world.

Our campsite later that day was on the Selway Meadows Creek.

Jane

Marshall Mountain, MT

Day 21, June 7, 2025

Miles: ??

We LOVED Missoula, Montana! Beautiful scenery, fun things to do, really nice people.

We’ve stayed in the area for a couple days. Yesterday was a ‘chores’ kind of day so not too many photos. We did laundry at a cute little laundromat called the Green Hanger, run by an aspiring author. David’s bike had an issue with the brakes. The “pistons were stuck in the caliper”, per David. We found the Big Sky bike shop and David fixed it at a convenient bike stand provided out front. Of course, not to take advantage and because it will be cool to have swag from a Montana bike shop, we bought a tee, a bike bottle and a sticker. We also hung out at a coffee shop called Clyde’s and met another nice local who is also a mountain biker. Emma was with her dog Stout, trying to get some work done. She told us about a trail called “Sound of Music”, up on a mountain just outside of town at a defunct ski resort called Marshall Mountain.

The trail was easy to find, unlike some trails that are in a place you’ve never been before.

We went up…

and up…

and up some more.

Heading back down:

Here’s the Trailforks map of the ride:

Stats: 6 miles, climbed 1280 ft in 1 hour, 44 minutes. We went up a blue trail and it was steep! Not an “IMBA Epic” ride but really fun and SO beautiful.

I was on my Orbea and was mostly able to keep up. Yay for e-bikes.

Jane

(Written in the Lolo Hot Springs Resort lobby)

Three Forks is where the Ringing Rocks were, Copper City halfway from Red Lodge, East of this map

Comparisons are innate to humans, we always look for differences, we so often look for bad traits or reasons to reject. Really, we’d likely be better off comparing less. (except when sniffing for spoiled food) Comparing people, places, things can take away from the experience. Cars, weather, blonds, brunettes, don’t bother. Comparing any ride to another is never fair. Each place you ride has its ups and downs, literally as hills are part of the sport’s joy.  I personally love climbing on a bike. The rootier, twistier and full of hidden surprises, the better. Put me on a moderate hill where you can see the whole thing stretched out ahead and I’m demoralized. Give me a woodsy technical challenge and the energy flows from an unknown source. I just want more. But, 57 years on skis (and bikes) have given me a comfort level descending that defies my description of myself as a cautious downhiller. Bikes have come a long way since my full-rigid Wicked Fat Chance with cantilever and rollercam brakes. As such, if you see me flying downhill with a smile, blame it on the bike and its suspension and disc brakes.

Anyway, the past three rides were certainly a contrast.

1) Alpine, chilly, cloudy, snowdrifts still in the first three hollows of the stream beds following the slope at about 8000ft. All benchcut and built into the side of steep slopes. I ended up climbing 2178′ to get to the base of Red Lodge Mountain ski area, then turned around for the return. (a bit more careful here with steep ridge drop offs, than on the dirt road blasting)

Bench cut, downhill delight! and there were three places where snowdrifts still blocked the trail (only one was a “carry”)

2) Then grasslands and foothills swooping about playfully with banked turns, berms and the joyful glee only quick, punchy hits can give. And, of course, a long killer climb to set you up for blasting back down through loose gravel switchbacks down to the swoopy, giddy turns below. Punchy ups and downs you hardly notice with your big smile, did 1060′ of climb and return down to the car.

Delightful weaving off into the distance

Kind of bermy for the downhills!

3) Then shared use OHV trail (where someone believes E-bikes belong), dusty, really dusty rutted crap with evidence of mud holes and trenched out, widened ditches. Gravel roads with no attention to terrain or slope use. Only a few rolling dips thrown in to slow erosion of storms out in this baked prairie. We had a Yamaha 2 stroke pass us, he was polite and slowed down to pass. Bunches of 20-30 somethings on ATV’s without helmets, and a handful of 80 something hunter-like guys plunking along with a quick wave. The riding was brutal. My rear brake was truly rubbing hard with new pads installed at the last campsite. Really rubbing, wheel wouldn’t spin a half revolution, bike was hard to push with one hand. Jane and I agreed it was an anti E-bike…a workout machine. I just trudged it along crawling up the switchbacks that were cut for a motocross or 100HP crawler. To make the climbs worse, I could see the entire 1227′ stretching ahead. Yep, I breathed hard.

Shared use, <50″ wide vehicles, no jeeps, but plenty of Moto and Can Am (as seen on trucks and trailers)

Beauty but not a trail, definitely a gravel road downhill (30mph flying down 1227′ vertical)

This way ->

Crappy, dusty climbing but What A View!!

Ringing Rocks, each a different tone, hammers included. And a small storm approaching.

David

Day 17 – June 3, 2025

Miles traveled – 3058

A hike in the wilderness of Montana

Today is our third day of rain. Fortunately, the rain has been intermittent not constant. We’ve had stretches of no rain and even a small amount of sunshine but, as you can imagine, everything is getting a bit soggy. Not the van, though. Our sleeping space is still dry.

It’s simply fantastic to be in some of the wild places in Montana! Every vista is breathtaking. We are in the Custer-Gallatin National Forest next to the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness. Together, they are vast. Wilderness and forests are measured in millions of acres out here.

Plant life is just bursting out with the arrival of spring in the mountains. We were in the dry Badlands in North Dakota, but now are in the mountain forests of Montana.

A couple of days ago, we were on an alpaca farm at a Harvest Host. I don’t want to be negative but, let’s just say that we’re probably done with Harvest Hosts. Especially here out west where there are plenty of places to primitive camp. We did meet some really cute alpacas, though.

We’ll get to the hike in a moment but first, a brief health check. So you can skip down to the next part if you want.

I, Jane, had COVID very early on in the pandemic in early February 2020. How do I know I had COVID before there was any testing for it? I don’t know positively but it was the worst ‘cold’ I’ve ever had. Lots of really deep coughing that took my breath away. Had to take a few days off from work even. Also, in 2020, I worked in health care. I had a patient who was recently arrived from China with illness and spoke no English. As per normal practice at that time, I sat in a room with her for 30 minutes, using an interpreter phone we passed back and forth so that I could get consent for the test we were about to perform. No mask, no PPE at all. Not to mention it was a 3 hour test! Anyhoo, the long term outcome of that ‘cold’ is that my breathing is compromised. I worried before this trip that I would not be able to do much activity at altitude. I am pleasantly surprised! I don’t seem to be doing any worse than back in Baltimore. David is still much, much more fit and capable than I am. But my worries did not materialize after all. Maybe it’s because we came to altitude gradually as we drove across the country instead of hopping out of a plane and being a mile higher than home. I’m very happy about that.

And David’s health check? Turns out, he’s a bit of a Tick Magnet but other than that, he’s his normal robust self.❤️

THE HIKE:

We started out this morning in a light rain from our primitive camp in the Palisades section of the Custer-Gallatin National Forest in southwestern Montana.

There is wildness for miles around. It’s quite an amazing experience for folks from the East Coast. Some hardy souls here are ranchers and we are not too far from the Red Lodge Mountain ski resort. It’s a small resort near a small town of the same name. Even the large towns of Bozeman and Billings are small by comparison. The whole of Montana only has a population of one million souls!

Because I am still acclimating to altitude, we hiked just 2 miles with a 271 ft elevation to 6200 ft. I’m so glad David decided to also do a mountain bike ride. He’s up there now, trying to find the highest places.

Jane

Day 16, June 2, 2025

Miles: 3,011

We had a glorious long week in and around Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I’m a bit of a TR fan so going to the place that meant so much to him was meaningful to me too. We hiked, biked, camped and admired the spectacular scenery all around. Below are some highlights that didn’t make it into previous posts.

Jane