Finding Gratitude on Billings’ Secret Trails

Some mountain bike trails are harder to build than others.

This is part of my #shredlocal series.

I hoist my bike up on my shoulders and begin to pick my way up a steep, sandy slope strewn with boulders and cactus. My bike snags on scrubby desert bushes and giant sandstone slabs fallen from the cliffs above. I’m winded almost immediately. It’s a struggle to make it to the top, but it’s the price I pay for being able to access trails from my front door.

As I catch my breath, I look out over Billings’ neighborhoods, beyond the yellowing cottonwoods on the Yellowstone River, and out to the Beartooth Mountains in the distance. I’m stoked to be here–not just for the view but the riding I’m about to do. Because, just inside the trees, are trails that shouldn’t be here.

I mount my bike and pedal up a quick chute into a ponderosa forest punctuated by tall, sandstone hoodoos. The trail wanders along the ridgeline, smooth except for a few ankle-high rock drops and short, punchy climbs. I plunge like a roller-coaster into a ravine trying to keep enough speed to carry me up the other side.

It takes more than trailwork days to build great urban singletrack. A lot of trust and respect is essential to keeping trails (mostly) accessible.

I can’t tell you where these trails are. At least not in this blog. They may not be on your favorite trails app, even though they are some of the best trails in south-central Montana. They’re secret. More like an open secret. They aren’t hard to find. Stop into a bike shop and they might tell you where they are (you can say thank you by buying something). As part of the agreement to get access to this dirt, the trails can’t be publicized. The trails reside almost entirely on private land, and the local mountain bike association has spent years building trust with the landowners for these narrow ribbons of public space.

I follow the ridge for a few miles of swoopy singletrack that alternates from wide-open desert hard-pack to tight, rocky sections technical enough to have to check up. All along the way are views of pine-studded gullies, sandstone cliffs, and wide open Montana prairies. While these trails are perched on the edge of a city of 100,000, there are moments where it feels much more remote.

Eventually, I stop in front of a trail closure sign. This parcel of land which contains one of the quietest, most remote-feeling spots in the Billings area has been sold, and the new owner has chosen not to let a bunch of hikers and mountain bikers cross his land. There was a time when we mountain bikers would have risked getting busted by law enforcement to ride a trail like this.

We were an unruly bunch back then. Trails were scarce, and mountain biking as a sport was under siege. Times have changed. Even the name of the local mountain bike association changed from the Dert Jerx to the more inclusive and spellcheck friendly Pedal United.

We were an unruly bunch back then. Trails were scarce, and mountain biking as a sport was under siege. Times have changed.

Instead, I turn and ride up a short spur trail that skirts the edge of the landowner’s parcel, climbing to the top of the bluffs. I take a right and roll along another set of cliffs, heading back the way I came. I learned to ride a mountain bike on this dirt. It’s a trail we used to poach in the 90’s. It’s fast and flowy. Since this trail, and the others in this area became legal to ride, Pedal United has kept them well-maintained. I cross a fence on a fancy metal bridge. The heavy-gauge wire of an electric fence threads between a couple of cast-off mountain bike wheels to keep it in place. These bridges, welded together by volunteers out of steel and bike parts, are symbols of the relationship between Pedal United and landowners. We get a great riding experience, and their cattle don’t wander through open gates or worse, barbed wire cut in anger (yeah, that’s happened). Practical solutions and some serious effort on the part of the mountain bike community have kept these trails one of the best riding resources in the area. Trails that used to be crumbly, and washed out are now fast with tacky, hard-pack corners.

I hit another trail junction atop a steep, loose descent that, when climbed, is a trial by fire for ascending skills. This spur will spit me out on a street that will eventually lead me back to my house. I take in the solitude for a moment. Cars inch along the valley floor, and the soft hum of the city makes its way up to where I stand. The sun sinks behind the rocky ledge of the cliffs, and the sky lights up vibrant orange. I’ll have to haul ass to get back before dark, but I don’t want to move. I just breathe deeply and feel gratitude that a group of people worked hard to put a trail here, and that a few landowners took a chance on a bunch of Dert Jerx.

Montana’s Backcountry Trails Need Your Help!

Comments needed by November 19th to save over 100 miles of the best backcountry mountain biking in the US.

Two years ago, the US Forest Service closed 110 miles of trails in the Sapphire and Blue Joint Wilderness Study Areas* in the Bitterroot Mountains, near Hamilton, Montana. A couple of months ago, Judge Dana Christensen ruled that the Forest Service’s review process insufficient and ordered the comment period extended. The trails re-opened while the comment period remained open. On November 19th, the comment period (and potentially the future of the trails) is ending.

Please take a moment to submit your objection to the closure here. Thanks to the San Diego Mountain Biking Association for the simple, quick-to-fill-out form.

Since the trails reopened earlier this year, volunteers from Bitterroot Backcountry Cyclists have been out clearing and maintaining the trails. The trails needed the work. In the two years that the trails were closed, almost no one had used them. “These areas are Wilderness Study Areas for a reason,” BBC President Lance Pysher said. “They are wild, remote places and the trails should reflect that adventurous spirit.” And that’s exactly why the trails are so important to mountain bikers**.

Mountain biking in Montana’s Bitterroot Mountains is a unique wilderness adventure.

Riding in truly wild places is magical. Backcountry trails are rugged. You have to carry your bike over downed trees and unridable sections of trail. Route finding is a critical skill, as are bike repair and self-reliance. Taking a fall can have very real consequences. This isn’t the kind of glory-riding you get at a lift-operated resort or on carefully sculpted trails near populated areas. People who ride in the backcountry are out there because of the wilderness character. We want to feel the same unpredictable wildness that backpackers and horse-packers experience.

The trail itself is a part of the biking experience in a way that it may not be for other users. It’s important enough that mountain bikers turn out in numbers to remove deadfall and do other types of trail maintenance. As the Forest Service continues to endure shrinking budgets, their partnerships with organizations like BBC have provided better experiences for all trail users. We love our special places and are willing to put in the work to keep them accessible.

Today, the trail-work isn’t sawing a two-ton log in half, it’s filling out this form and objecting to permanently closing over 100 miles of amazing backcountry singletrack. Thank you!

Read the Forest Service’s 10-year travel plan here.

And learn more about the process here.

Check out the trails in the Bitterroot Valley here.

Follow Bitterroot Backcountry Cyclists here.

Quotes used in this post were taken from two Bike Magazine posts. Read them here and here.

*Here’s a story I wrote about allowing bikes in Wilderness Areas.

**Here’s a story I wrote about the dangers Wilderness Study Areas pose to mountain biking.

HB 1349 – One Step Closer to Mountain Biking in Wilderness Areas

Are We One Step Closer to Legal Mountain Biking in Wilderness Areas, or a Step Closer to Losing Wilderness Altogether?

The controversy surrounding whether or not mountain biking should be allowed in designated wilderness areas has been going long before I started riding, and has recently seemed to ramp up its intensity. It’s a complicated issue and one that might be a step closer to being settled through congressional action. HB1349 has passed out of the Natural Resources Committee on a 22-18 vote and will move to the House Floor. While it hasn’t made the transition unscathed, it still remains a clearer standard for accepting mountain biking as the human-powered recreation that it is.

Remote trails are some of the most enjoyable trails to ride.

While I believe the bike ban in wilderness is fundamentally flawed and unfair, I have long-since made peace with bike-free wilderness. In the end, I would prefer the land protected and off-limits to riding than open for exploitation. That said, all of my best mountain biking memories were made on trails like the Morrison Jeep Trail, Monture Trail, and Sheep Mountain Trail which were either grandfathered into wilderness areas, cut out from wilderness areas as the area was being designated, or are in Wilderness Study Areas, likely to be shut down. The trails I like best are more akin to primitive backpacking trails to remote areas than the local trails built to shred.

As the fight for trail access continues, a few lines from one of Aaron Teasdale’s fantastic articles on this subject keep coming back to me:

“…bikers have more in common with the purists than the latter may realize. Backcountry mountain bikers heading deep into wild mountains are compass-carrying, self-sufficient types, earning every mile with sweat and carrying provisions, maps, and emergency supplies on their backs. They’re more akin to hikers than the adrenaline fiends going too fast on near-town trails.”

Those of us hitting the trail for “epic” mountain biking, meaning long rides deep in the backcountry, are not looking for the same thrills as the bikers shuttling downhill runs or ripping the perfect line at the local park. We are out there for the same solitude, self-reliance, and communing with nature that other backcountry users are. We just want to experience it in the saddle of a mountain bike rather than on foot (although there are a lot of sections where carrying your bike is part of the experience.) The reality is that most wilderness trails are a hell of a lot of work to ride. They’re not made for speed. There’s a lot of going slow, and a lot of carrying your bike. And, yes, that’s part of the fun. Getting up to that stunning vista with no human structures in sight or that perfect campsite is, in some ways, even more rewarding on a bike. And those sections where you feel like you’ve completely become one with the flow of the trail and the landscape, those are unique to cycling. That’s the icing on an otherwise perfect wilderness experience.

Wilderness trails aren’t build for speed, but for exploration and solitude–two things that backcountry cyclists seek.

Of course, this is an incredibly complicated issue with real concerns that HB1349 may be the crack in the Wilderness Act’s armor that extraction interests may be able to use to invade, bringing logging, mining, and drilling. The republicans who sponsored this bill have a worse-than-dismal track record on conservation. And in the upside-down world of the current administration, anything can and will be used to sell-off our public lands for the profit of the few. These are messy, dangerous times for public land.

If you’re interested in unpacking this debate, I can’t recommend Arron Teasdale’s Lowell Thomas Award-winning pieces enough. They’re a machete through the thicket of controversy.

Wilderness Wars – National Geographic Adventure
The Problem With Wilderness – Mountains.com

Shred Local

2017 may be the year of local trails.

There’s a scene in The Empire Strikes Back where Luke Skywalker realizes he’s been talking to Yoda, and saying all the wrong things. He wants to be a Jedi, but Yoda’s just not that into him. Luke promises he’ll take the training seriously. Even with Obi Wan in his corner, Yoda doesn’t seem swayed.

Yoda’s criticism: “All his life has he looked away. At the future. The horizon. Never his mind on where he was. What he was doing!”

With trails like this on all sides, why go anywhere else?

I feel you, Luke. It’s easy to get caught up thinking there’s so much rad shit out there, and miss what’s in your own backyard. This really hit me when I ran into a guy from Absarokee, Montana, a town about an hour away from my home. When he found out I was a mountain biker, he started to fill me in on all of the trail building that has been going on out there. What? While Absarokee is in the foothills of the Beartooths, it’s better known for its annual BBQ festival than its outdoor recreation scene. I’d also heard rumors that nearby Red Lodge, MT, has also been on a building spree.

I can see five mountain ranges from where I live. I’ve only ridden two of them. Yoda’s disappointment would be palpable.

It’s time to start exploring my own area like I would a fresh destination. While I can’t promise that my wanderlust won’t take me out of the state, I can say that 2017 is going to be the year of exploring new local* trails. I still plan on posting about the trails I hit around the country last year, so keep watching for those stories to appear.

*Local is relative in Montana. Some of the mountain ranges visible from Billings take three hours to get to.

Trail ‘Grams 2016 – Another Year in Pictures

Trail inspiration from the year past.

2016 holds a questionable record as far as years go. And while I won’t be singing its praises any time soon, it was a pretty decent year for hitting new trails. I explored a range of trails from the hero-dirt and dizzying flow of Pacific Northwest singletrack, to the stark, wheel-eating ruggedness of the Colorado Plateau.

Going through the images of the last year has been equal parts nostalgia and stoke. I’m gearing up to make 2017 the year of maximum enthusiasm. And maybe I’ll hit some new trails while I’m at it.

2016 started out without much going for it. I was dealing with a debilitating spine injury. I wondered if I would ever ride again. After a few months of physical therapy, I hit this little rock-drop, proving to myself that I would be back to shredding trails again. At least as much as I’ve ever shredded trails.

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.