Bozeman Adventures

Last weekend saw Tamara and me make another trip to visit Taylor in Bozeman.  Now that she's out of school, she decided to stick around Bozeman for a while.  I can't say that I'm disappointed as I really love that town.

After spending Thursday evening with my old college buddy, Phil, in Idaho Falls eating good grub, drinking beer, and reminiscing, we arrived in Bozeman around lunch on Friday.  Taylor suggested we meet her at I-Ho's, a little Korean place close to campus, for a bite to eat.  The plan was to float the Madison River that afternoon, but the building clouds during our excellent lunch caused us to change our minds.

Rather than risk floating the river in a thundershower, we opted to go for a little hike and postpone the float until Saturday.

Fifteen minutes later, we were at the trailhead for Drinking Horse Mountain.  I figured if were going to do a little hiking we might as well get a peak in - right? The weather had cooled and the clouds were building as we headed up the trail, and it wasn't long before we reach the top of the 5582 foot mountain.  The views from the top were outstanding!

Luckily, the rain held off until we were 50 yards from the car, and then the sky opened up!

After a quick shower we were off again.  First stop, a walk around downtown for the "Art Walk", where the shops serve wine and allow you to peruse their goods.  Dinner was at a great little pizza place called, Pizza Campania, and then it was over to Santa Fe Reds for a couple of margaritas.  For some reason Taylor had the bright idea that she and I should do a tequila shot, so after some thoughtful consideration I threw caution in the wind.  It never happened.

Figuring that Taylor needed to sleep off the margaritas, Tamara and I got up a little early for a mountain bike ride.  Since we didn't have any particular route planned, we spent some time on the web reading trail descriptions and finally opted for the Bozeman (Sourdough) Creek  trail.

The route started off on an old logging road following Bozeman's main drinking water source.  This is a pretty popular trail and we passed quite a few people heading back down.

At the five mile mark, we took a hard left off the logging road and onto a single track. Initially, this single track wound its way through thick brush and the morning dew chilled our legs. But, eventually the trail became steeper, and our legs started heating up as the trail turned more technical.

We eventually topped out at Mystic Lake - 8 miles from where we started.

After a few quick photos from the lake edge, we precariously crossed the creek using the log "bridge".  Luckily neither of us fell in.

After wandering around for a few minutes we eventually found the logging road again and screamed downhill back to the car.

Once back in Bozeman, we hooked up with Taylor again and then headed 30 miles West, to float the Madison River.  The weather that afternoon was markedly different than the previous day - minimal clouds and warmer.  It being Saturday afternoon, the launch point was pretty packed, but we did find a parking space. Unfortunately we didn't have anything to carry the camera while floating, so the only picture I have of the sweet ladies is below while they're getting ready.

The float was great!  Very relaxing as we chatted and slowly floated downstream.  Unfortunately, we had chosen the closer take out point and were finished floating in an hour.

That evening we enjoyed a great dinner at the Montana Ale Works.  We love getting over to Bozeman and seeing Taylor!