the imbroglio

I’ve only been here a few days but I’m really starting to like this place. It’s pretty, the people are friendly, the weather has been nice and temperate (though a bit on the wet side), and it’s the center of an amazing abundance of hiking and biking opportunities. What’s not to love?¹

On Saturday I took a ride on the Kim Williams Nature Trail that follows the Clark Fork River a couple of miles east of town. It’s your basic rail-to-trail gravel path with some spectacular river and mountain scenery. At the end there’s about a mile or so of single-track which provided me with a few great thrills. I was riding my “cafe racer” which isn’t really built for singletrack. The trail was also damp enough to make the clay soil greasy and slick, and my bike has slick tires on it so, although it was a short and easy stretch of trail, it was definitely a challenge and a thrill to ride. I’ve resolved to get the mountain bike tuned up (I haven’t ridden it in 4-5 years) and get it here so I can try out some of the more serious trails around. I’m totally out of shape, but the rides around here are totally worth getting in shape for.

Yesterday I took a study break in the late afternoon and headed up the “M” Trail—the switchback trail that departs from the edge of the U. of Montana campus to head up to the large concrete “M” 620 feet above the campus. The hike to the “M” is no big deal but I was definitely winded at times—again, I’m out of shape. However, the trail continues on to the top of Mt. Sentinel and I thought it would be a good idea to get to the top. What’s the point of going only halfway up a mountain? I quickly learned that not far above the “M” the trail gets much, much steeper. The trail also has many false summits so every time you think you have just one last push to the top, you find you’re very very wrong. I was making very slow progress when I reached the top of another false summit and saw what looked like a vertical wall of trail ahead of me. The rain was coming in from the South, I was tired, my heels were stinging with impending blisters, and I had no food or water, so I decided to give it up for the day. I’m going to try to make sure I make it to the top before I leave this place but next time I’ll take food and water and plan to make a loop out of it—you can go over the top of Sentinel and down the other side onto the Kim Williams Nature Trail. Cool.

Hikes and rides like these are exactly why I wanted to return to Montana. They’re what life is all about. Now why am I here in Missoula again? Oh yeah, the bar exam. Damn.

Other impressions: For a paper-pants-hippy town, it’s pretty surprising that they don’t make it easier to recycle. I’ve only seen a couple recycling receptacles on campus and nowhere else. It seems like this would be the perfect place for ubiquitous curbside recycling. Maybe they have it, but why wouldn’t the university’s student housing participate?

The cycling at which Missoulans excel is bicycling—people on bikes are everywhere at all hours of the day. Bike paths also appear plentiful in town such that you can get most anywhere by bike w/out excessive wrangling w/vehicles of the motorized variety. I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that the Adventure Cycling Association has its headquarters here.

Bottom line: Missoula is a cool place. [tags]hiking, biking, missoula, montana[/tags]

1. Oh, yeah, the fact that it’s a 5-hour drive from Billings!↩