MTB: Helena Nat Forest CDT

We headed up to the Helena Nat Forest on Sunday and did a point to point ride with the Helena crew.  It was awesome to ride with new faces and explore a new segment of the CDT.  The views were incredible and ride proper was short but stout.

Garmin Connect is currently giving me errors so I don't have the link to the ride (apparently my account is hosed up as I have been escalated to level 2 support and they are saying it will be 3 business days for resolution).

In the interim, the old fashioned data points will have to suffice....

Mileage:  13.6 miles

Elevation Gain: 3,100 ft

Ride Time: 1 hour, 54 mins

We were in grizz country so we made sure to make lots of noise and wear bear/dinner bells to warn the bears.  OK, so the reality is more about the bear bells making enough noise to not surprise the bear - if anything, it probably just piques their curiosity and they subsequently come over to investigate.  Kidding aside, we did see a HUGE bear dookie in the middle of the trail.  All I can say is that it had to be one BIG OLE' bear that created that mess.

The ride proper started with steep climb right out of the gate with no time to warm up and ease the legs into the grunt that lay ahead.  The heart rate climbed quickly and did not get a chance to settle back down for a while.  I stopped at the first false summit and snapped a few pix:

The ride snaked along the ridgelines which opened up into spectacular views to either side.  Instead of peaking, the trail winds around just below the peaks and offers up some super fun riding with a little bit of everything thrown in for good measure.  There were some punchy climbs, some talus, some sweet singletrack in the trees, some sweet singletrack on loose trail, some double track, even a smidge of dirt road, some tree hopping, some stopping to take in the views, and yes more stopping to take in the views....it was a great day to be out on the bike.  The legs felt a little on the tired side but it was easy to forget as soon as you looked around you to breathe it all in.

and some more throughout the day:

All in all, it was a great day to be out exploring new trail with a new crew.  Thanks to the Helena posse for letting us Butte interlopers tag along!  

I took the Go Pro and have been putting together a video of the ride - video to be posted on the next blog post....