Aug 21st-24th: After a full day of bike repairs, we decided it was finally time to give Monica a break and move out for a little bit. We went up to Hyalite canyon, only 10 miles out of town, and filled our times with some excellent riding. Unfortunately we were there for the weekend so the trails were pretty crowded, but we still had a really good time.
Another unfortunate was the state of our campsite when we first found it. Free yes, but trashed. I guess there is just some appeal I don't understand to throwing beer cans into a fire pit and then shooting at them, there was a sock too...
On our last day in Hyalite we decided we would try a ride that was a little calmer, so we decided to do a 6 mile trail up to Hyalite lake, that Vince and Monica had not ridden before, but had hiked and figured it would probably be "pretty mellow". Little did we know, but we found out pretty fast, I think it was probably one of the most constant technical rides I've done, but was still able to do most of it-most definitely a blast.
The reward at the top, a very scenic alpine lake with mountain goats and everything. And then we got to go back down, even more of a reward.
Thinking that we were gonna have this nice calm ride, this was the only ride where we actually took our real camera along, luckily no mishaps befell it.
One of the best part of the ride was all the waterfalls. I think there were at least 9 right along the trail, and they all were beautiful.
Aug 25th-26th: That night we decided to go back to the Gallatins and have another go at the river. We found a place to camp right next to the river and even had a nice boulder to climb around on. Even better, there was a trail we wanted to ride another 2 miles down the road. Pretty much the perfect place.
Another nice, scenic, free campsite. Don't worry this one was trashed too, but we picked up what we could....sooo frustrating.
Then we hit the river
Here she is- a certain spot called house rock...well that at least is the river we did, we are still working up to that exact rapid
But here are a couple of the rapids we actually did go down. We just took some drive-by pictures on the way up the river.
Not quite as impressive as house rock, but trust me, they look plenty big when you're in the water
The scenery is alright too I guess.
This time we both managed to get down the river without flipping at all- although we did a couple of practices just in case, and managed to get plenty wet. Michael made me go first for most of it, which added another element of terror. He said every time we came up to a rapid he would hear "EEE EEE EEE EEee ee eeeee" and so on fading down the river. It was a little on the terrifying side, but in the end I was glad.
The vanagon all outfitted for adventure- notice the Tupperware box on the top- that's our kayaking stuff box, which was an excellent idea so we don't have another giant bag of stuff laying around the van. We still have been getting over 17 mpg which really isn't too bad.
Sunset from our perfect site
The next morning we got up and pedaled down the road to Garnet Mountain. It starts off as a long gradual climb that goes for about 10 miles up a road getting steeper and much less road-like the closer you get to the top. Then you go down 3 miles on some crazy narrow single track. If you can imagine covering the same elevation of 10 miles in 3, yeah it was pretty crazy.
There was a point where Mike and I both stopped on the trail, and I went to pass him. We had to maneuver the bike pedals so there was enough room to fit both bikes on the trail...
Overall a very great ride...although Mike created a new sound affect to accompany the narrow abyss which we traversed. It was something close to a bleating sheep- trying to find the mountain goat in him, cause if you slid off this stuff, you were in trouble.
Aug 27th: After an early morning shower in the Gallatin we headed back to town to get our alternator belt replaced. Nothing crazy just $90, and not entirely necessary at this exact moment, but it was cracking, and we would really be in trouble if it would decide to go when we were, say anywhere else, so we thought it was best to play it safe.
A nice wake up dip
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