2: Wettest I’ve Ever Been
I anticipated from the outset that downed trees, hike-a-bike and weather would be the principal hardships of the trail. I wasn’t quite prepared for such an intense concentration of all three at once. A nicely timed to break in the rain facilitated breakfast and getting packed before settling into a constant rain that lasted the rest of the day.
The railroad grade section of the Pacific Northwest Trail was great until the end of the maintenance. The next four hours was predominantly walking and wrestling my bike over trees (and a fair bit of standing around and saying “huh“ while puzzling paths through downed clusters of trees). I transferred a fair bit of weight from my bike to my backpack, which helped.
The Highline Trail would have been predominantly ridable if not for the trees. I expect the views are awesome—there are some extended sections of ridge crest trail.
I stopped counting downed trees at 100 for the day… probably ended up being 2x that before I hit the well maintained and fun Whitefish Divide trail above Red Meadow Creek Road. Pouring rain and chilly temps drove me into Whitefish on gravel rather than riding the rest of the Whitefish Divide trail.
Minor delays caused by the biggest huckleberries I’ve ever seen and perfectly ripe thimble berries.