This, I now know, is beargrass. On sunny slopes above 5k there’s a lot of it. It’s very nice and dramatic, but I’m not really sure why it’s called beargrass.

I rode up the Stuart Peak trail to the wilderness boundary at 7k, and hiked on a bit from there. I didn’t leave home until after 1300, because I was waiting to talk with my sister before she caught her flight to India, and because I’m lazy and enjoy drinking coffee, eating waffles, and geeking out on all the Sunday political shows. We’ll return to two of these subjects in a bit.

It was darn hot climbing in granny gear in the sun, and I was dogging it a bit on the lower reaches today. In retrospect, I’m pretty sure that last night’s 10 30 second intervals combined with my poor food plan (PB, nutella, and banana sammiches and plain water) were responsible, but at the time it was difficult to not make a sweeping, systemic diagnosis of weakness.

But I kept going, which is the important part. Soon, through the sweat pouring down from inside my helmet, I saw another cyclist going the other way. I first thought, “how nice that he’s slowing down so I don’t have to stop,” but quickly added “Who the hell else is up here on a bike?”

“I probably know them.”

It was Garland, mister sheephead hisself. The only person I know who regularly rides this trail. We chatted briefly about riding, races, and so on, but were each on a mission. He continued descending, I continued crawling upwards, but in a more inspired manner.

The trail itself exceeded all expectations. I had presumed it would involve what all obscurish Missoula trails have, lots of fall line. Instead the whole thing was easily rideable, contoured, bench cut, and smooth. Amazing, and quite a nice way to gain 2k of vert. The switchbacks were even well put.

It’s a pity the wilderness boundary is where it is, or that bikes are allowed, as 7k is right where the fun (rocks) starts. The hike over to the lake view was nice anyway.

A surprising amount of snow still up there. You could ski the north face of Stuart all the way to the lake. I was chatting with two hikers on the virtues of bikes, specifically for going downhill. I told them that, 90 minutes after I started walking back, I’d be in Rattlesnake Gardens drinking a soda.

This was not true. I drank my soda and was home in ninety minutes. A smooth, swoopy, 3k+ vert descent is a wonderful thing. I felt great later in the day, and chucked some quick blasts in on the way home. The engine seems like it’s coming around.

I need to mention my sister. She’s a med student, which we try to not hold against her. But she has a grant to go study rural women’s health in northern India this summer, so it’s easy. Her research question: does the presence of a maternal grandmother in the home predict lower rates of infant mortality?

The main problem of the day is that I’m still lazy. I like doing stuff, but mainly so that I can feel fine about not doing stuff. I’ll to talk more about this later