After a lengthy wait with some rather board and lonely customs officers we were finally given our passports back and allowed to cross the border into the US. Cameraman Josh has a new twist on his assignment. For the next 11 days Josh is filming Montana biking with two couples. Carena and myself, and Cory and Karen from Squamish B.C. Our first day was at the mountain resort in Whitefish. We did one warmup run on their new freeride trail called "runaway train". The trail snakes down through the huckleberries and is generally meant to be a fast and flowy ride with some opportunities to catch some air along the way. It hadn't rained in quite a while so we had to keep our speed in check and it made for some fun tire skidding corners.
Day two was a treat for the freeriders. Pete had told us that a young couple Katie and Jorden had built a real nice trail and that we would really like it. Turns out it was much better than any of us had expected. A real gem. The trail had been meticulously groomed and maintained by a small handfull of locals and the jumps and lines were perfectly thought out. We pushed our bikes up and scouted out all the goods and started filming right away. Each corner revealed another great feature or jump so we practically filmed the entire trail. It was great to have a third couple in the crew and follow them down their "labour of love". The second half of the day was focused on the cross-country riding. We were the lucky few that got to ride Whitefish's newest addition before it was open to the public. "A trail runs thru it" was extremely well built trail by some very ambitious locals. It was flowy both in and out and takes advantage of the great terrain and fabulous views that the mountainside has to offer. I am definitely stoked on the biking here at Whitefish. The riders here are very passionate about the sport and are strongly focused on progressing level of freeriding and XC trails to it's full potential. I see a great future for Whitefish and look forward to coming back.
