The Montana Trip - Day 7

Everyone was a bit worn out today, electing to all stay in close proximity of the cabin.

Bobskoot, Bluekat and Ron left early in the morning, in search of 99 miles of twisting roads starting at Lolo Pass near Missoula MT and ending up in Orofino, ID.  More details here on Bobskoot's blog: LINK

I spent the morning with my oldest son Patrick, ferrying him in the sidecar rig to a "fun center" where he successfully challenged the maze and completely lost to me in a game of mini-golf.

Afterwards, we got some Internet time at the local cafe and then we went and did something fun for me.  We both rode up the dirt road that led to the top of nearby Desert Mountain.  The guy who'd clued us in on the best way to do the "Going to the Sun Highway" had told me of the road which led all the way up to some comm gear and antennas on top.

Vikki did great running up the 7% slope or so of dirt/rocky trail, the whole 8 miles or so, until we were at the very top:

At the top

The last 1/2 mile or so was steeper than the rest of the road.  The camber was really bad in some areas which had us leaning a bit more than I liked, still, it was all good.

The mountain is very heavily forested, in fact we found some guys harvesting a fallen tree for the wood along with a couple out riding their mountain bikes.

 You can see some of the peaks located within the Glacier National Park

Going back down was a bit on the hairy until I got past the first mile down, lots of usage of engine braking and the brakes themselves.  After that, it was just straight up cruising down the trail all the way back to the cabin.

A mellow day, very little riding.