Devil's Tower

August 11:  Today was the day of the trip that I was dreading most.  Today marked the point of the trip where the riding was going to change drastically and the fact that I was really heading home was going to be sinking in...  But first, we were going to stop by and see the rest of the HVR group that was already in Sturgis, and hopefully rest up a bit before making the final push towards Lawrenceburg and the surrounding area.

We were already (way) behind schedule, but today offered up a mostly highway route to make up some time.  It was 9:00AM and we had about 40 miles to travel on US-212, which offered some nice rolling hills and mild curves through the Bighorns before we hit I-94 and, eventually, I-90.  Once on the highway, the speed limit rode 75MPH, and we did hit a few constuction pockets (surprise!) that slowed us to 55MPH.  I was leading the group today and, realizing that Tom was not comfortable cranking his bike's RPM too high, I relented on the speed as we traveled about 72MPH for most of the trip.  Man, that 6th gear is nice, if only I could open it up!

The highway traveled through barren ranch land that was somewhat parched, and we saw nothing but herds of cattle for much of the ride.  The ranches span for miles and miles, and I wasn't sure how much of the land was privately owned or was federal land.  In the high plains, I just can't imagine that individuals can own that much property, and we did see a lot of areas previously that were posted with 'Free Range Cattle' signs.  I wondered if the "free" part meant that the range was in my price range.

Gravesites at Little Big Horn

Our first stop for gas just happened to be where Custer made his last stand at Little Big Horn.  Barry had always wanted to visit this hill, but never had the chance to previously and we decided on the small detour (about 1/4 mile away from the gas station).  I never counted the gravesites, but I suspect there were thousands, which included some Indian graves of those who fought alongside the white man.  The stop was worthwhile, but short-lived, as we needed to make up some ground.  We hustled back to the bikes after about 15 minutes only to find that Scott and Barry were no where to be found.  We left quick phone messages that we were off to find some oil for Steve's bike and we were off again.  Barry caught up with us, but Scott was missing.  We found him before we did the oil, so we were a group of seven again, before heading out again... 

Indian gravesite at Little Big Horn

At about 1:00PM, we arrived for a gas stop in Sheridan, WY., and I commented to Jeff that this was the town we were suppose to stop in the previous evening.  The temperature had risen considerably since we left the hotel.  As I was peeling off the my jacket and long-sleeved t-shirt, I could see that Jeff looked a little weary.  Maybe he hadn't realized that the original planned also called for us to pull into Sturgis sometime before 3:00PM.  We were making good time.

We were back on the bikes and traveled a few more miles before we exited the highway again for the road to the Devil's Tower monument in eastern Wyoming.  It is quite understandable why this rock rising from the praries was sacred to the Indians who roamed the area a while ago, as it is an impressive site.  From the monument, it was a short, winding road down to the town of Huwlett, where we stopped to have a drink and visit the vendors.

Three bikers blocking the view of Devil's Tower

We were stopped by someone directing traffic as we entered town, and were told that we would have to check back with them before we left, because the road back to Sturgis was closed due to a bad accident involving five motorcycles.  Lovely...

The town of Huwlett is just about ten blocks long, and lined with buildings that you would expect to see in a western town.  It was really quaint and, by the time that we had arrived, was not so crowded with the bikers I had expected.  It seems that we got there a little bit too late for the 'No-Panties Wednesday' festivities (boo!)

After about an hour or so, we decided to head out to Sturgis.  Checking in with the traffic directors, we learned that the road we wanted to travel was now open.  Once we traveled the few blocks to get to that road, the state troopers had closed it again, and we were told it would be 15 minutes before it was re-opened.  We waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Going back the way we came in would have added time to the ride to Sturgis, and we were not looking forward to going backward.  After about 45 minutes, I was almost ready to suggest just that when the road opened back up.  By this time, there was a line of about 200 bikes waiting.  We got in line about 1/2 way through the pack and headed east following some very cautious bikers...

Sleeping quarters in Sturgis

We finally pulled into Sturgis about 8:00, but by the time we greeted those awaiting us, it was dusk.  We got the tents set up using flashlights and, amazingly, all six of them (Barry slept in an available camper bed) were in a neat little row when we finished!

Somehow, Tom had enough energy left in him to suggest going to the Full Throttle Saloon, and I had enough ignorance in me to agree to go with him.  Scott joined us as we got on the bus to town, but before we got to the saloon, we decided a better plan would be to just visit downtown Sturgis.  It made for a long day and, since the beer kept getting more expensive with each round, we called it a night at about 2:30AM.

Whew...

Old Faithful

We got our kickstands up after packing up our wet tents, and our destination for today was to take us to Sheridan, Wyoming to get us back on schedule. It was really an unachievable goal, since the route had to take us through busy Yellowstone and over the curvy Beartooth Highway, but we were off anyway...

Grizzly

The road out of Grand Teton Park led us to the John D. Rockerfeller Highway and into Yellowstone Park. We were to have stopped by Old Faithful on the previous day, but with the weather we were unable to make it which meant a stop the was required on the route today. The views on this leg were pretty much the same as the day before when we got into Grand Teton Park: rolling hills and stands of pine, with a small segment riding along the shores of Lewis Lake on our left. Somehow, Jeff and I got split up from the rest of the group and pulled into th eparking area of Old Faithful just as it was putting on it's show. I really wasn't sure that we had missed it until we saw the crowds piling out as we were walking into the viewing area. This meant we had an hour and a half delay if we wanted to see it up close and personal... We met up with the rest of the group later and waited for the show, of which I was able to record as a video (very cool) on the camera I found earlier in the year at the Bockfest in downtown Cincinnati (also very cool).

Elk

After the show, we had about a 4-1/2 hour ride out of the park to the northeast entrance, which included a construction delay (boo!) and an encounter with a grizzly bear (yay!). The construction delay was not much to write home about, but the grizzly was exciting. The van in front of us stopped in the middle of the road to start taking pictures of the bear, which was about 75 yards away from us. This gave me the opportunity to get out the camera and start snapping photos before a ranger came up to the van to hussle him along because of the unprotected bikers in back of him. I quickly confirmed with the ranger that it was, indeed, a grizzly and we were on our way again.

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Many geysers along our route in Yellowstone

The road to the Beartooth Highway summit

After exiting the park, we were almost immediately on the Beartooth Highway. Earlier, we had confirmed the summit of the road to be 10,947 feet, so we had stopped to put on warmer gear before the ascent. I had researched this route in the past, hoping to ride it, but never getting the chance. Up until this point of the entire trip, Jeff and I have been riding in a postcard, and today was no different. Again, the pictures I took will do this route no justice. There were times when I took a photo loooking nearly straight down, but you cannot tell. The entire way to the top of the mountain, rain clouds were off to our left, and we were traveling on wet roads. About half way up, we stopped along the side of the road after I heard rushing waters. Although anywhere along this road would have made an excellent photo opportunity, this stop was especially nice, as it offered a waterfall that went beneath a bridge and into the river below. After we passed 10,000 feet, I counted four lakes, and the terrain was barren of trees. Tom, Barry, Scott, and Jeff had stopped to take some pictures along the way and Ken, Steve and I were stopped to wait for another pilot car through construction. I was a little leary of the "Fresh Oil" signs that were on the side of the wet road, but they turned out to be not-so-bad. We stopped at the summit to take some pictures and to relieve ourselves (just to say we did), and I could see the rest of our group waiting for the pilot car that had brought us to the top. They were probably a few miles behind us, but I think I could have thrown a rock and hit them. I think they owe me since I refrained...

The desent offered me the opportunity to try out the new bike on some serious switchbacks, and I left Ken and steve behind a bit as I took them as fast has I felt I safely could (which was not very fast). I love this bike!

It was getting dark as we reached the bottom of the mountain, so we pulled in the Beartooth Hideway Inn to stop for the night and frshen our clothes at the local laundrymat... 175 miles short of schedule.

National Parks Day

Grand Tetons National Park and Yellowstone were on the slate for today's ride.  We packed up the bikes and headed out about 8:30 with high hopes of seeing some wildlife.  We pulled into the Grand Tetons at Moose, Wyoming, where the road followed Jackson Lake on our left and tall stands of pine on our right.  This was the only through road inside the park, but we were not successful in our wildlife search.

Our destination was to be West Yellowstone in Montana, but there were rain clouds forming in front of us.  With the crowds in the park, we wanted to start looking for a place to put the tents up before it got too late.  We stopped for gas a Summit Mountain in the park, and found the campground full, but were also directed to a campground 17 miles north that still had sites available.  We proceeded to Lizard Creek Campground, a primitive one with no showers, and found a few sites.  I was successful in getting the tent up before the skies opened up and drenched Steve, Ken, and Barry who had yet not tried to set up their new tents.  I felt a little bad has I sat in my tent staying dry while they were getting soaked.  I'd be less than truthful if I told you that I did not chuckle a little bit at the profanities coming from their direction.

After the rains ended, the campground hosts came to meet us and collect the site fees.  They told us of an encounter with a grizzly in the area the night before and explained the campground rules of storing food.  When we asked were the bear encountered happened, they told the story of how the sow was within 20 feet of them right where we were standing!.  I think the night's sleep would had been better had we had that conversation the next morning.  With every twig snap and between Schaller's snoring episodes, I did not get very much sleep.  We survived the night without a grizzly episode, to which I was disappointed and satisfied all at the same time.
 

Some Familiar Faces.

Today was day to meet up with a few other friends from Lawrenceburg. Tom Schaller led a group consisting of Ken Wilson, Scott King, Steve Zerkle, and Barry Hansel out to Pinedale, Wyoming. But first, since we were in Butte, we had to visit Evel Kneivel. Or, at least his gravesite. I had put the coordinates I had found on the Internet into the GPS, which actually took us to a shopping center. I am so glad I brought that thing on this trip. It has been invaluable. I went in a store and asked for directions, and finally found the cemetary. A few laps around the place, and that little jaunt came to a successful end.


From there, it was onto Pinedale as quickly as we could. We jumped on I-15 and headed south until we hit US-26. This section of the ride took us through ranchland and grazing grounds until we ran up against the Palisades Mountains. Here, we followed the Snake River to the Palisades Resevior. We acsended the Snake River range and picked up US-191 down into Pinedale. Tom and Scott had already secured a campsite for us at the Pinedale Campground, while the others holed up at the Pinedale Lodge. It was pretty much and uneventful ride, but still much more scenic than the roads back home.

Riding to the Sun

We wanted to start off the day early, so we could get through Glacier National Park via the Road to the Sun and Logan's pass before the rush of traffice. I guess that we succeeded somewhat, as we began the ride at about 9:00. There was still quite a bit of traffic, but it we were still able to go at our own pace without being held up by all of the tourists stopping and taking pictures :)


We entered the park through the west entrance, and the route proceeded alongside Lake McDonald on our left. At times, the lake shoreline was right against the road, while tall stands of pine were on our right. The road soon began to wind and slowly ascend, but we really could not enjoy the ride as much as I would have like since we were limited by the speed limit. Once we hit about 4100 feet, the rate of rise and twists increased until we reached the summit at Logan's Pass and 6646 feet (Logan's Pass also marks a spot on the Continental Divide). We stopped where we could on the narrow road, but the pictures do not do this road justice. There were points along the road where drops of hundreds of feet were unguarded. Rains from the day before rewarded us with waterfalls that were channeled under the road and made shear rock walls weep. At Logan's Pass, there is a visitors center where people start day hikes either going up (some destinations reached 10000 feet) or down. The initial decent from the summit was in stark contrast to the ride up. It was maked by two stretches of virtually straight road before it reached grassland below and began to wind. I noticed on the way down that there were hundreds of acres of pine that had died by some other cause than fire. I suspect it was because of infestation or disease. We rode the 50 miles and made it to the east entrance in about 90 minutes.

We keep on coming upon roads that have been awesome to ride, and I keep calling the current one the best of the trip. This was no exception. If you ever have the opportunity to ride or drive the Road to the Sun, you will have to first determine the type of person you are. If you are the type who like to save the best for last, start at the east entrance to the park. If you are a person who likes to eat the desert first, begin at the west entrance.

We then decided to take the long way to our next stop in Butte, Montana and visit the festival in Missoula that we were told about earlier in the trip. The festival celebrate the castration of bulls and has the moniker of the Testicle Festival. Actully, that name is a misnomer, since the main activity is the celebration of vice. There was one booth that sold fried balls, but there were many more that sold beer and other foods. There was also a stage where the females in the crowd were given the opportunity to show what god had given them. Basically, this was a pre-Sturgis party for all the bikers heading east from the western states.

We did run into Pat and Butch from Oregon again (they were the broke-down bikers we ran into in Whitehorse in the Yukon the first of four times on the trip). We had about 120 miles to go until we hit Butte, so we left the festival after a couple of hours. We jumped onto I-90, and cranked the bikes up to 75MPH, the legal speed limit. After about 50 miles, we saw rain off to our left so we pulled in to a gas station to put on the rain gear. When we got back on the road, there was a huge storm that had formed off to our right. The road trip gods must have been watching out for us, because we again stayed dry. I knew that would not last long, so about 10 miles from our destination, we pulled into the next town and made the decision to stay in a hotel for the first time since the first day of the trip. Yes, life has been good. Every day has been a full-leather day of riding, with crisp mornings and mild afternoons. That should change tomorrow, when we will ride to meet the rest of the group from Lawrenceburg in Pinedale, Wyoming. The forecast is for the tempuratures to rise to nearly 90.

Sorry there are no pictures again today.  The internet here is horrible and it is all I can do to post this text...

Back in the USA (and, Finally, to Civilization)

If you have been following this blog, my apologies for not having updated in several days. I have spend the time well, wandering the wilderness in remote areas of Canada. Very limited cell service and no reliable Internet access.


I have posted the missed days, and will post pictures soon.

The ride today was a ride to make up a little bit of time. So far, we are about 125 miles behind schedule and we need to make some of that up so we are not stuck with a real hard day (for Jeff) of riding. It didn't start off too well, as the GPS instructed us to go to the beginning of the planned route. I didn't realize the gaffe until we were about 20 miles out of our way. We also had to back track another time becuase we were not sure about which port of entry we were to take to cross the border. Jeff was leading, and he had two choices. He chose the wrong one.

To make up the distance, it helped that Alberta 93 out of Banff, US-93 and US-40 toward Glacier National Park are all major roads with speed limits of up to 70MPH. The start of the ride offered steep ascents, and then wound down to the town of Radium at an 8% grade (wow!) before leveling off somewhat. I think that the route here is still in the Rockies, but offered only rolling hills and some nice curves at about 3200 feet above sea level. We were able to see some mountains, but they were off in the distance. After about 1/2 hour waiting to get across the border, it was smooth sailing to get to the entrance to Glacier National Park, with one exception. Coming into the town of Whitefish, I could see in storm clouds the distance. I changed the radio to the weather band and heard that a thunderstorm was passing through that had hail the size of pennies. On the north side of town, I saw there was a rest area and, if it had cover, we were making a stop. Jeff was already with me, as he was beeping his horn and waving behind me. Another biker was already there, as were the pea-sized hail he had been riding through. I guess the delays earlier in the day did serve a purpose after all. Otherwise, we may have been riding in the middle of the storm!

We stopped at the KOA about 5 miles from the west entrance to the park, only to find that they were full. I asked about availabe spots inside the park. Nope, they were full, too. It really wasn't a surprise to me, since there was an awful lot of traffic on the road (something we will have to get used to after the past week). They knew of another campground with tent sites available, and we traveled another mile towards the park to get the last site they had. As a special treat, they were roasting barbeque at the time we pulled in, so we did not have to go far. Too bad that the nearest adult beverage was about 14 miles back they way we came.

We were successful in making up over half of what was needed, and now stand 50 miles shy of our goal. It may become problematic, since those 50 miles are suppose to cover the "Road to the Sun" road over Logan's Pass through the park. I suspect that it will be heavily traveled so we are going to try and get an early start and put off breakfast until that part of the trip is complete. If all goes as planned, we will try to stop in at the festival in Missoula Pat and Butch from Oregon told us about before we end in Butte for the night.

Hello Rockies, Again!

We left Grande Prarie at about 10:00 and headed down Alberta 40 south towards Jasper. The road is a logging road and it atarted out fairly straight and flat, and I thought that we may be having the same kind of ride we had the day before. But after about ten miles, began rolling over small hills and we were soon twisting through tall stands of pine trees. The forest was right next to the road on my left, and trimmed back to maybe 150 yards on my right which made it easier to scan for wildlife. We seldom saw other vehicles, maybe a few motorcycles and about twice as many logging trucks. I thought it was odd that there were not any RVs on this road, has it cuts off about 100 miles heading to Jasper than the route through Calgary.

Before too long, the grades on the hills began to increase and the road overlooked the valley below. I could see some mountains far off to my left, but they were shrouded in a fairly thick fog, even though the sun was trying to shine through and it was after noon. As we approached Grand Cache, our first fuel stop, we decended into the valley quite quickly. The road met up with a river on the left, and a major power plant on its shores. This was another oddity for me, since we had traveled nearly 100 miles with seeing any houses. The onlt thin I could think of is that no one wanted a power plant in their backyard, so this is where they put it. While fueling up, we talked to the gas station attendant (no self-serve in Canada) about the fog. Turns out that it wasn't fog, but smoke from wildfires burning in British Columbia.

We saddled back up and continued south for about 40 miles before the smoke cleared and we regained the views we had been used to. This section of the highway was pretty much the same has the first section, although we did begin to see motorhomes heading north. Soon, we hit Alberta 93 and headed towards the park. Almost immediately after entering the park, we saw an elk eating right along the side of the road and two more maybe 50 yards off. A family of goats were grazing a few miles down. Each time, we had to wait for all of the tourists to get out of the way so that we could get a picture.

Jasper National Park is just simply spectacular. We went through the Northern Rockies on the Alaska Highway, but the Rocky Mountains here were not the same. They are truely rocky, and at times it seemed you could reach out and touch them while riding down the road. We were treated to snow capped mountains, glaciers, turquios-colored streams and lakes. I am sure the pictures I took (so many as we road down the road that I drained the camera battery again) are not going to do the park any justice. You will just have to take my word that it was another splendid day of riding!

The park joins Banff National Park, with no real markings that you have entered it. Towards the southern end of Banff National Park is Lake Louise, where we had planned to camp for the night. We pulled in to set up camp earlier than we had in previous days, only to learn that the campground was full. We were given the option of staying at the bear-infested Protection Mountain campground, which has no shower but does have a central food locker to store all the stuff a bear would want to eat. Great, now what will a bear chose to eat now that all of the food is locked up? It can't hurt that Jeff is a lawyer (great bear food), and he was told that he could accompany me on this trip only if he slept in his tent with his boots on and the laces tied together if we were to run into this situation. There will be no litigation on this point...

We are off to cross the border, where gas is sure to be less than the $4.00+ a gallon we have been spending since arriving in Canada.