Cool 🥶 Ride

[Freedomflyer]

8hrs

Had the opportunity to get out for a ride yesterday.  A friend came for Thanksgiving from North Dakota so since I had a 5 day weekend this weekend, we headed to one of the few trailheads that are still open this time of year about an hour away. Was a fairly blustery day and only 28 degrees when we left the house. Pipestone (our destination) is about the same elevation at we are but for some reason doesn't seem to get the same amount of snow. Always seems to be bare there when we have snow on the ground. We got unloaded and on the trail at roughly 8:45 a.m. was only about 33 degrees, wind was a steady 20mph which makes it feel like it's around 22.   I don't think he was too excited as we were unloading as the wind was   biting at us in the parking area. I told him it would get better as we got down the trail and into the hills, and it did as we moved on.  Took him to one of the places here that is very unique, even by world's standards    We have a place called the ringing rocks and it is really strange how it works. It's a huge pile of rocks that are just sitting on one another, they are called sonorous rocks and resonate sound like a bell when struck with a metal object.  Very unique areas, and very few places in the world, 4 or so that have these rock fields. There are only 2 areas in the U.S., one here in Montana, an area in Pennsylvania,  an area in the United Kingdom,  and one in Australia. 

 

Although a pretty cold day there were bits of sunshine that showed through throughout the day. Trails were pretty much dry and sandy.  We had 3 small water crossings of about 14 or 15" deep where ice has started to dam up small creeks. These are fairly small and only 20' or so across. At 1 point we thought maybe we might have to turn back as skies were getting pretty black and dark but decided to push through and only ended up with a few flurries of snow that disappeared and then followed by  patches of sun. We put on about 40 miles and had a great day stopping for lunch with some turkey sandwiches. One of my favorite places to go and would like to do a bit more exploring as there are hundreds of different trails there are hundreds of different trails that crisscross and connect. Lot of history here with mines and trestle bridges,  there is also a spot where an airplane crashed and they never did remove the plane, that one I would really like to find.  The landscape is just cool as there are huge house sized, and larger, Granite rock slabs throughout the Trees and hills. Another benefit is most of the trails are sandy type soil and pretty smooth. With all of the granite here they actually had a quarry that they cut huge slabs for the court houses in the surrounding counties. Unlike the trails that are close to us that have sharp protruding rocks,  in a lot of our area, different type of rock. Was a great day as it always is when you're on the trails