Curly Lakes Trail, Tobacco Roots: One of Montana's Best Mountain Bike Rides

Jen at the saddle above Curly Lakes

One of my goals for summer was to do some big mountain bike rides in the high country with Jen. This was going to happen during August, and we started out good with our annual Sheep Mountain ride, but then during the following week my mountain bike frame broke, and our plans went haywire. However, as luck would have it, last weekend, Ellie raced cross country in Bozeman and Alex had just moved into town, so we decided to head over to see them both on Saturday and then rent a bike for me, camp in the Tobacco Roots Saturday night, and do the ride on Sunday. We got an early-ish start at 9:30am, and it took us six hours. The ride doesn't disappoint: fun climbs and really challenging descending. In fact, one thing to be ready for on this ride is technical descending - nothing like the smooth stuff we've got in Missoula - and a total body workout. An enduro bike would actually be ideal on this ride. Anyway, it was a fun adventure with Jen. My dream would be to get in one more high country ride before the snow flies, but we'll see.  

A GPS route of the ride can be found here.

Curly Lakes (not Curly Creek!) Trailhead.

Resting at the junction of Curly Creek and Curly Lakes trails.

Cresting the rise to the saddle above Curly Lakes.

Looking west from the saddle into the Jefferson River Valley.

Looking east to the saddle at the Hollowtop Mountain (at Jen's head) ridge. Would love to trek this.

Continuing up.

Nearing the top.

Highcountry scenery.

Again.

That's me bagging the 10,000+ summit near the highpoint of the trail.

Jen at the top.

Beginning the technical descent.

Nearing the end on the last descent. Great day!!