Striking Gold – Exploring the Wealth of Trails in Helena, Montana

WITHIN FIVE MINUTES of rolling into Helena, Montana, I come face-to-face with one of the “local personalities”. I’d met up with my Missoula-based riding mates Dan Poole and Tyler Hibbard at Dan’s mom’s house. Dan’s mom wasn’t there. Instead, local artist and family friend Ken DeRosa meets us at the door. A flannel shirt hangs off his slight frame and he speaks in excited bursts through a matted gray beard.

DeRosa erupts into a story of how his 7,000-mile road trip around the southwest was cut short by a chemical spill on his leg. He holds out his hands, his fingers making a circle the size of a tennis ball. “Got a little on my britches, and the next day I had a hole in my leg this big,” he says.

He spends the better part of fifteen minutes talking about the curative powers of Israeli Frankincense. “The same stuff as from Jesus’ time,” he says. “I put no more than a couple drops on my leg, and the next day, it was half-way healed.”

In some towns, you have to hit the local watering hole to meet the eccentrics. In Helena, they might show up in your house.