Morning Commute

This morning I took the "long" way to work, adding about 5 minutes to my 20 minute commute. For the time being I'm staying with an old friend in Gallatin Gateway until my apartment downtown is available. The drive to work passes a couple of huge ranches, wheat farms, and ranchettes. A lot of these larger parcels are in jeopardy right now. Property values have skyrocketed, even in the recession, and land owners are getting taxed off of their properties. The choices are tough - sell out to the developers and watch generations-old ranches get sliced into ranchettes and Louisville/Erie/Superior-like subdivisions, or sign the land over to the state in a conservation easement. On the surface the easement looks like a great choice. The state owns the land to be forever preserved as ranch land, habitat, or open space and your family gets to live there and continue to ranch. I like the permanent protection (the ranch-land equivalent to wilderness designation), but to me it sounds a bit too much like serfdom. Tough choices.

Leverich Canyon

I checked out Leverich Canyon on Sunday. It's a great trail with quick access from town. I've been fortunate for the past few years to have very good access to mountain bikeable single track. Paonia was an 8 minute ride to fast, flowing desert single track. Crested Butte was a 5 minute ride to sick trails, and 20 minutes to world class/IMBA Epic listed/mind blowing rides. I'm fairly spoiled and have realized how Colorado-centric my mindset has become. I have this assertion that every mountain town "should" have instantaneous access to world class goods. Now I don't want to complain - Bozeman has it all and the goods are very good; but it is an adjustment on the mountain bike side of things as many of the trails are drive-to, the trails involve some hike-a-bike and are more of a technical nature than "flowy". Leverich Canyon takes out a bit of the sting by being a quick trip from town (probably a 30 minute ride to the trail head if I committed) with some serious challenge. Montanans build their trails steep! Good luck on those 34/20 single-speeds, my friends. You'll want a little ring. Leverich is steep, fun, and fast. There's also some top notch trail management happening too, sending foot, horse, and uphill bike traffic in one direction and downhill bike traffic in the other. Gravity fed users are cordoned off, minimizing user conflict and giving some room to really open things up. I saw runners, hikers, equestrians, hard tails, downhill rigs, and department store bikes. Diversity is fun! Everyone seemed to be getting along. Mountain biking in these parts seems to be part of a fun hog's repertoire rather than "the thing". It will be an adjustment, but a welcome one, as I'm looking forward to spending more time on foot, accessing places that are not open to bikes, wilderness areas, and The Park.

Hyalite

Hyalite is to Bozeman what Mt. Tam is to San Francisco or Brainard Lake to Boulder; but instead of a population base in the millions or hundreds of thousands, Hyalite serves a valley of about 50,000. What would be a reasonable 17 mile drive to front country and some backcountry access in more populated areas provides big payoffs here. Hyalite offers a wilderness interface, some of the best ice climbing in the US, alpine peaks and ridges, waterfalls, wildlife migration corridor, and some seriously great hiking. I made a quick afternoon trip up toward the lake and peak but got turned around by the setting sun. The light wasn't great and I hesitate putting pics up because the area deserves a better photo representation and a lot more exploration.

Bridger Raptor Festival

A few weekends I was looking for something to do and headed up to the Bridger Raptor Festival at Bridger Bowl. I got there just as the live raptor presentation was ending and milled around the lodge looking at displays from all the non-profits. I was definitely interested, but not necessarily engaged. Then I started talking to a guy from the Montana Audubon Society and he suggested I hike the ridge to the top of the ski area and check out the raptor survey. MAS posts a couple of observers up there to count the migrating eagles and hawks. The hike up was fun, especially when I got to the little goat path that winds up to the knife edge that is The Ridge. Sure enough there were the staff with binocs turned northward...and the golden eagles were coming down in a steady stream. I was amazed to see about 20 eagles and 10 hawks in the hour I was there. Sometimes appearing out of nowhere, sometimes easily spotted from a mile out, they followed the crest of the Bridger Range from north to south. Most of them flew about 200 yards out from where we were. I met a lot of really cool people who knew more about birds than I could ever imagine. It was awe-inspiring to be sitting 3000 feet off the valley floor watching birds coast by. They were massive and their flight appeared effortless even into the fierce headwind. A good day in the mountains.