Another day of driving got us to Missoula, MT at sunset. Finding Heidi & John's place would have much easier if the sun wasn't in our eyes, but the directions were good. The dogs were ecstatic to see us (you know how labs are, and Tazu isn't much better for all she's a 'mute).
We
all headed out for dinner at a restaurant also named the Iron Horse. Rita
was a little zonked from the drive in the sun and dehydration, John was also
a little out of it due to bad fish from a previous meal and having done heavy
trailwork that day with the IMBA Trail
Care Crew. We hadn't known that Joey was in town, had hadn't met Lisa
yet, so John got us in touch with them the next day.
We
were planning on riding to Snowball Overlook in the Rattlesnake
Recreation Area, but John hadn't recovered yet, so Heidi took us over
to visit with the Trail Care Crew on the way to the trailhead. It turned out
that we did know Lisa, from the trailwork weekend we did in Crested Butte
in '97. After chatting in the hallway for a while, we headed out, expecting
them to catch us on the same trail in an hour or so (Joey is a much faster
rider then we are).
The
weather was threatening, but Heidi led us up the dirt road. And up. And up.
We made her walk more then she was want too, but got a chance to talk as we
headed up the mountain. Heidi and John would be heading back to Madison to
pick up their stored stuff and for the Chequamegon
40, and Heidi was worried about Fire Tower Hill. Gasping as we tried to
keep up with her, we said not to worry.
The
pines and shrubs made the area look much more humid then Medora, but when
we finally crested to the overlook, Rita was low and Heidi was out of water.
We did a transfer from Scott's bladder to Heidi's, took the requisite group
photo, and headed for the singletrack downhill. Wow. It was much faster going
down then up.
The
first chunk was technical, with a couple fall line rooty descents, and then
it was just swoopy. Pines and aspen lined the trail that Heidi rightly described
as "butter", the buff hardpack allowed for zooming.
It was getting dark, so we headed back into town and picked up some groceries. The Good Food Store had some interesting dried stuff so we picked up the fixings for more gorp with mango and pineapple. Back at the house, we cooked dinner for our hosts, and then set them up to watch a movie on the Ti-book (their TV was still in storage, and they hadn't seen a movie since they moved to MT) - Grosse Point Blank was a pile of giggles.
The next morning, after cleaning up after ourselves and taking Lisa out to her birthday breakfast, we decided to skip Idaho and head in to Yellowstone.