Mountain Bikes

After you've hiked the trails for a few years it is only natural to want to be able to do them much faster. Of course no motorized vehicle is allowed on the trails but we figured no one would mind if we rode our bikes. Remember, this was decades before trail bikes became popular. I'd had never seen a bike on a hiking trail and after we left town I don't think I saw another one until here in San Diego more than thirty years later.

If I remember correctly, Lester and I were riding down the back alley above Cameron falls one day and we saw the trail head to Bertha Falls. It was a nice gentle slope for several miles so we figured why not? That was the beginning of many breath taking rides. We never did go up Bears Hump because that trail is just too steep but I believe we rode most every other trail that came anywhere near the town site. Two of my most memorable rides were riding down into Linnet Lake and a side trail off the bears hump trail. The trail from the highway (right by the start of the road up to the Prince of Wales) down into Linnet Lake is very steep with several sharp switch backs. I hit one of the switch backs way too fast and launched off the side of the trail. Normally that wouldn't have been such a big deal but the side of the mountain dropped off so fast that I must have dropped twenty feet (well that's what it seemed like to me) before I hit ground. The good thing is that when I did hit ground it was at such a sharp angle and there was so much underbrush that my fall was cushioned and I rolled for some distance.

In the picture you have a very good view of Linnet Lake in the foreground and Bertha Mountain in the back ground. The profile of Bears Hump is in front of Bertha Mountain. The water tower you see is up by the Prince of Wales. I have no idea if it is true or not but growing up in Waterton I was always told that Lake Linnet (a very tiny lake) was so deep that no one had ever found the bottom of it. I did notice that it is connected to the lower waterton lake because the water level in Linnet lake always matched that of the lower lake. That makes sense since the two lakes are only separated by a couple hundred feet.

My other exciting bike event was when we were riding along a trail that parallels the main road that drops down into the townsite. If you start on the trail going up to bears hump a trail forks off to the left, right near the start of the trail. This trail is forty or fifty feet above the road and the edge of the trail is a sheer drop down to the road below. The cliff is so high that you are well above the tops of the telephone poles. The trail is nice and wide though so there is no real fear of going over the cliff. The trail is fairly level and straight so you can go quite fast. One day we were boogying down that trail very fast when my pedal caught a tree stump on the side of the trail. My bike was immediatly whipped around and plummetted over the cliff falling to the road below. I had the sense of mind to grab some brush on the side of the trail and hung on. I have to admit that it did get my heart pumping a bit.

There are two bike stories that I think are worthy of mention. One I've already told but I will repeat it here so that it is included. We had headed up the road one day to Cameron Lake. I think it was me and Lester and our cousin David Lybbert was with us. Coming down was very exciting of course because after all, we are coming off a mountain. David took one of the corners too fast and lost control of his bike. It was real freaky because there he was laying in the middle of the road unconcious. Luckily a good samaritan stopped and gave him a ride to the motel while Lester and I rode hard to see how he was doing.

Probably the worst I've ever been hurt in my life happened one day when I was riding my bike down from Cameron Falls to the swimming pool. I don't remember who was with me but we turned into the swimming pool parking lot and I took the entrance so fast that my bike was launched into the air. Because I was air bound I couldn't steer (obviously) and I landed right before the curb. I can see it all now in my mind as clear as the day it happened. It was like I was flying in slow motion. I even remember thinking, "this is going to really hurt". The bike hit the curb and my body went flying. There was a grass median separating different sections of the parking lot. I flew entirely over the grass and landed on the asphalt on the other side. I was wearing my dads shirt and tore it to shreds. I peeled the skin off most of my shoulder, large sections of my arm was missing skin and most of one side of my face. I was very ugly (well uglier than normal) for a long time. Me and that bike had some very good times. It was a yellow ten speed that I had bought with my own money from the sears mail order catalogue. Thinking back, I'm quite surprised that no one ever said anything about riding bikes on the trails. I always thought it wasn't allowed but maybe there was no rule about it. It sure was fun.