Bangtail Divide Trail

Well it was finally not raining here when we got up, WOO HOO! Our plan was to check in with another bike shop to get an opinion on the Bangtail Divide trail, if it would be dry enough to ride. So into town we went, stopping at the Bangtail Bike Shop. These guys really know their stuff, bikes and trails. They assured us we would be go to go on the trail, it would have some grease spots and be a little muddy in spots but it would be a good ride and we wouldn't do any damage to the trail. We made a quick stop at the oil change place to prep the truck for the big ride back then up the road to the final trail head. One of the guys at the shop suggested doing the road portion first and that made sense to us. It was 8 miles to the start of the single track, a bit of climb up the first couple miles then downhill for the next 4 and up a dirt road for less than a mile, total of just 30 minutes riding. We ran into some chick with about 10 dogs at the trail head, the bus she was driving said something about doggy hiking program or something, she also happend to be orginially from Pittsburgh. So up we went, a series of over 20 switchbacks then more straight stuff, total climb of a little over 2000 feet in 5 miles, all graded that kept us on the bikes. The next bunch of miles was up and down, through meadows, forested sections, and the occational amazing view, sometimes almost 360 degrees.


We were only upto about 8000 feet at our highest but we saw a number of ranges in the distance that were obviously a good bit higher since they had a bunch of new snow on them. The track was in really great condition for having had some much rain lately, just the occational puddle and some of the high forested stuff was still a little soft.
About 19 miles after we started on the single track we hit the final downhill, about 4 miles of well graded benchcut fun back to the truck losing about 1600 feet, thats like doing Sassafrass from Kettle down to rag hollow rd twice in a row. Total millage about 33 including the 8 road miles and we were out about 5.5 hours.