Summer in Whitefish

It's Thursday evening before the start of another Glacier-Banff-Jasper trip, so quick, where am I? That's the running joke for the guides assigned to the GBJ trips because our weekly schedules are so precise and regular its comical. A GBJ trip is going on right now in our "parallel universe" and I know that at Thursday at 6:45pm Mountain Standard Time they are at The Crossing, The Saskatchewan Crossing, having wine & cheese in the gazebo or the bar, weather depending.

Kyle and I are taking a different approach to this trip than my last with Drew: we are procrastinating, an easy thing to slip into when you've only got 9-guests and 4 bikes to prep. He's snorring in the bed next to me and I decide if I should get proactive on my own by driving out to the warehouse to hook up and pick up our bikes to prep back here in town this evening before the NRMMF (N Rocky Mtn Music Festival) kicks off for another night at Flanagan's. Normally I don't object to procrastination, its generally a code that I live by, but in this case it could impact our evening plans and my chance at a big ride tomorrow. Rather not!

Going on my 3rd GBJ trip and still one more to follow, and so I drove out the Tortuga and I'm setting up shop in Whitefish as my center of a summer life in Montana. This week I've done nothing but ride:

--Sunday: dropped off the guests at Grouse Mtn Lodge then got cracking on unprepping after a quick pick-us-up at MCF (Montana Coffee Traders). We were off and riding by 5pm. Drew rode out to GML to rent a MTB and then I caught up with him and we rode Iron Horse to the Big Mountain Resort, then took the Summit Trail to the top. 3200' to about 6500', then back down on the rode. Ate at Mama Blanca's which has become my new favorite haunt in town for authentic style latino food (Cuban, Puerto Rican, Carribeanish).

--Monday: escorted Drew to the airport then headed straight out to the Bigfork side of things and did a great out-and-back ride to the Alpine Trail, 3500' to 6500' in about 12-miles each way not including all those wrong turns. Big Black Bear sighting 3-miles in, and so I was pretty sketched the rest of the ride. Yelling "Bear" 10,000 times in 31/2-hours can take a lot more out of you than you can sometimes afford on such a hard ride and the psychological stress can be overwhelming. Made it back uneaten.

--Tuesday: rode up to Big Mtn via Iron Horse and then did the semipro mountain bike race, 3-laps of 4.4-miles, and finished 5th overall out of 12 and 2nd in my old man division. A few free beers at the post-race shindig which set me off for the first night of the Rocky Mtn Music Fest.

--Wednesday: late start but went out to Hungry Horse and took a shitty hike-a-bike trail up to the Alpine Trail and back down the front side. 3-hours going up, 3,300' to 7300' at Mt Colombia summit then only 45-minutes back to ground level. Yeah, dropped off quick. At the Festival it was Eric McFadden Trio followed by Galactic. Sweet!

Time to start gittin er done!