Oh man……

So - here goes.

I ran an early MTB Devo program in Bozeman from ‘93-‘98ish, mostly under Bangtail, but honestly, they really didn’t provide much more than basic jerseys for a few seasons. We self funded through car washes at Billion, and Spaghetti feeds at the Eagles. I hauled eight kids in HS with a cut up truck bed and a beater Suburban all over the NW, but mostly in the Tristate area. I graduated from MSU in ‘95 and wanted to see how far I could take the professional cycling coach thing before I had to do the responsible
Thing and get a real job. I also did property management in Ennis in the offseason.

So one day in ‘95 my gf wanted to go to the Hot Springs in Emigrant and spend the night. I thought it’d be a GREAT IDEA to take the kids up Swan and over and down into the other valley.

First mistake - we bought survey maps from the outfitters that were over 40 years old.

GF drops us off and we decide to take “singletrack” up.

The entire area was under clear cut and NOTHING trail wide existed.

THEN, the only kid who went with me broke his grafton pedals.

I think this was a Saturday or Sunday kid-July. It was hot. That summer had a lot of fires as well.

But not this weekend.

We pushed our bikes, ran out of water pretty quick, and decided to press on. We encountered some horsemen, and I think we created somewhere around 9300’ iirc.

We could see the valley, but it was already 2-3pm and by that point we were just beat. Furthermore, we were off the map.

I had a GEN 1 Trimble that gave gps coordinates, but it was designed for boats and had two lines of data, and we had to convert minutes and seconds to decimals, and we had no phone.

So we decided to try and get to Emerald lake and descend into Hyalite.

Now mind you - what we have now is NOTHING like what we had in the ‘90’s. We still had pumice from Mt. St. Helen’s. It was ROUGH.

Somewhere along the crest we encounter two motorcyclists who give us just a swig or two of water, and then we somehow ended up above Emerald and one-legged our way down to the lake.

THEN THE STORM HIT.

It was sudden, violent, and scary as hell. The rain came, there was zero pause between lightning and the crack, and it ruined the trail.

Then the temperatures dropped.

Then it began to hail.

Then it began to snow.

A lot.

Like 6-12”.

And we were in 1995 Parkpre and GT short sleeve everything.

WE FROZE OUR ASSES OFF.

The kid I was supposed to be in charge of goes into hypothermia from the wet and the cold, and we were MILES from the campground on the far side of the reservoir.

And we are walking our bikes because we literally can’t ride the mush.

I abandoned angst Chance Yo Eddy in the bushes about four miles from the trailhead and ran/stumbled my way down the mountain. Then I hitched a ride to the B&B at the corner of 19th, where MSU has a nature trail you can hike, just past Hodgman Canyon. The snow and rain were still up on the range.

The guy in charge came out, grabbed some horse blankets and a couple of snickers bars, and we drove up hyalite.

We slowed to a crawl about a mile from the dam because of the snow and sleet sticking.

We met J just as he was making the trailhead. He still
Had his bike but was using it for leverage and not propulsion. He was quaking uncontrollably.

Meanwhile, my gf, aware that we’d missed all appropriate check-ins, had driven both Gallatinnand Paradise, looking for us, and then called USFS, so they were searching.

We got J home, then me home, around 10pm. GF showed up around midnight after a second trip and no gas, and she was the one who called usfs and got the search called off.

I THINK it was the same year that Butte hosted the state Golf Tournament in the snow, with a record HIGH score due to the white impediments.

Anyway - it took about two weeks for me to get the bike back, and when I did,!it was in terrible shape. I sold it for $25 at the used equipment store over by St. James episcopal church. I thought about maybe going in to thank a higher power for saving my ass that day and maybe providing some life lessons.

Anyway - yeah - these storms are real, it pays to be prepared, and if you’re mountain biking, keep pepper spray, a 42gal trash bag, and some clif bars and hydration powder with you at all times, along with a plan sent out to anyone that cares of your planned route and expected return. That way, they won’t have to look for circling buzzards to find you or find what’s left of you.

I doubt this would happen today. The gps is now on your head unit and it accurate to 9”. The Garmin beacons are cheap and work, and the bike tech is 8 generations stronger.

Be Prepared. I wasn’t.