A Day riding Battle Ridge Pass

Distant mountain ranges...Absaroka and/or Gallatin

Saddle Peak, Bridger Bowl & Ross Peak

While Bridger was off to his play date we headed to Battle Ridge Pass for ride in the mountains. It has actually gotten 'hot' this week so we decided we'd head to the nearby Bridger Range for a mountain bike ride. Battle Ridge Trail (official name Fairy Lake FS #500) has some amazing views of the surrounding mountains of the Bridger Range as well as a distant view of either Absaroka and/or Gallatin Ranges. 

At least we think that's what we're seeing from the trail...

The Bridger Ski Resort is also visible from the trail which means we had phone signal. It is good in case of emergency, but bad when the darn thing rings while riding which it did...twice. 

Sacagawea Peak

Wildfire smoke has moved into the area over the last couple of days & with the heat the view was a bit more hazy. Even in the haze the mountains were spectacular. The surrounding mountains have been getting a fair amount of rainfall which has led to lots of wildflowers. One of the reasons we enjoy mountain biking so much are the wildflowers as well as the view. Sometimes it is hard to pay attention to the trail and not the scenery...difficult spotting critters too. We do stop a good bit to take in the view so we don't visit the ER. No one wants that view!

Found a few flowers I could not readily ID, but I do enjoy the research almost as much as the photography. Between a couple of field guides, a flower app on the phone & a wildflower site I can usually figure out what the flower is called. 

A few of the flowers:

Bessey's locoweed

Common self-heal

False Sunflower

Silvery lupine & clover

Streamside globemallow

Tall Larkspur

Thimbleberry

White bog orchid

Narrow-leaved collomia

Cindi 

We biked up the trail until it narrowed and got quite rocky. Last year we pushed past the rocky patches & rode all the way to Fairy Lake. Neither of us felt like biking something that difficult so we only biked 5 miles of trail & then turned back.

Today we biked a total of 10 miles in 1 hour 19 minutes, and an elevation gain of 1296 feet.

North Brackett Creek