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5: Alpine #7!

Each day, it seems. will have its unique cause of delay. Yesterday, it was berries and the awkward labor of pushing a bike through dense thickets of Flathead jungle. Today’s delay… the stunning landscape and wildflowers and wanting to soak it all in. I keep stopping, then stopping again, to take it all in—unwilling to pass up these blissful moments for the sake of making progress.

Yesterday was tough, with little joy in it beyond the berries. Today has been pure bliss—my most profound alpine experience since running along the Gallatin Crest to Yellowstone back in 2019. Alpine #7 is likely the hardest trail I’ve traveled with a bike, but also one of the most rewarding. I think it would make a better fastpack than bikepack, but it worthy of being on any Montanan’s destination list.

So far I’ve seen more porcupines than people out on the trails (and only one of the former).

Now playing: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

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4: Getting to Know the Bushes

The day started off on a high note, with a fast and fun 2000’ descent down trail recently cleared of brush by the Flathead Area Mountain Bikers trail crew. (I was curious what kind of implement might be used to clear the teeming brush: it turns out, a weed walker equipped with a circular saw blade at its end!)

Climbing back up from the valley floor proved a slow affair, primarily on account of the tremendous quantity of distracting thimble berries and huckleberries along the route and my utter inability to keep myself from stopping constantly to graze.

The Broken Leg segment of Alpine #7 was definitely less ridable than the northern portion—a circumstance not helped by traveling north to south. The last half mile was more grown over than anything I’d encountered to that point—though it turns out just a warmup for Posey Creek.

The last mile or so of climbing up Posey Creek to Alpine #7 really showed the full force of the Flathead’s brushy fecundity. The description I had read described this section as “passable” and indeed it was, though at a desultory pace of more than an hour to travel a mile. Regaining Alpine #7 (which is also overgrown in places, but at least gets regular use) was quite the relief.

This evening I observed several raptors hunting—one carrying a squirrel, and another successfully fishing any flying across the lake where I’m camped with a 6” fish clutched in its talons.

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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.

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