Pryor - St. Xavier - Hardin Loop

April 7, 2022

It was a busy day before I ever hit the road.  I grabbed swim early and did a 1,000 yards before I went to school and de-installed some of my art from the outer gallery, then took the dog to the dog park for a major fetch session, and back up to school for my oral defense/faculty revue of my capstone exhibition for my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.  All of that went well and by 1:30pm or so I was hitting the road.

I’ve wanted to explore Hwy 91 that runs from Pryor to St. Xavier and with the weather a beautiful 75 degrees this has to be the day.  I gassed up and worked my way through through Billings to South Billings Blvd. which heads out of town and becomes Blue Creek Road, rising up to the high prairie.  Here’s a view along the way:

This road eventually connects up to Pryor Road, AKA Hwy 418.  I took this south for 20 miles or so to the town of Pryor on the Crow Indian Reservation.  I stopped at the high school for a few photos.

From here it was time to head east.

Before I hit the first mile marker a sign informed me that I had a rough road ahead for the next 44 miles.  Great.  I wondered what a “rough road” would be and I soon found out.  Pot holes, lots of them.  Some were 3-4 inches deep but keeping my speed at 50mph or less I could spot them and navigate around them.  The other “rough” feature was that it appears that all the cattle guards had been removed and those spots backfilled with loose earth and topped with a cold patch.  This means that there was a definite depression at each former crossing and reducing speed and standing up on the pegs was required to comfortably negotiate them.

That said, the scenery was great.

At another stop or two along the way…

Eventually, I arrived in St. Xavier.  The town is in decline but picturesque in its own way.

I’d thought about heading to the recreation area around Yellowtail Dam but that will have to remain an excursion when I leave earlier in the day.  Today was about exploring this road from Pryor to St. X and I’ve done that so I’ll head north to Hardin and then back to Billings.  I’m on Hwy 313 and about 20 miles south of Hardin I see this:

I had encountered one these last summer on another highway and there was nothing about that road that made it an issue for motorcycles so I decided to forge ahead and see what this one was like.  About a mile ahead the pavement ended and a sign said it would be like this for the next 8 miles.  The road looked like loose gravel with some compacted earth and I considered giving it a go until I saw an oncoming semi and a group of cars creating a dust cloud.  No thanks.  I turned around and went back to that warning sign and turned on Hwy 1 which promise to take me to Crow Agency.  It turned out to be a good move.  The road was great.

When I arrived in Crow Agency I decided to "grab the slab" and took Interstate 90 back to Billings.  Very little traffic.  I set the cruise control at 80 mph and just enjoyed the ride.

It was a great route and one I would consider doing again.  Aside from the pot holes in the road, the only other downside was that after I was about 15 miles east of Pryor I picked up a cross wind.  While annoying, it is also good practice and I took it in stride.

It was a 178 mile day.

Pompeys - Custer - Hardin Loop

April 3, 2022

It was a pretty nice day and after I finished up installing art for my upcoming show I hit the road.  I had a rough idea of where I wanted to go and figured I’d sort out the details along the way.

I left about 1:15pm on the road out through Billings Heights, taking the Bitterroot-Dover route to get to Hwy 312 and avoiding the mess that Main Street can be.  I saw a bunch of Harleys ahead of me (I could tell they were Harleys because I could hear them) and they were meeting up at Dover Park.  I went past them and headed northeast on Hwy 312 to Pompeys Pillar.  This is a good route, all 2-lane, and once past Worden there are rarely any other vehicles.  I stopped across from the monument to get a sweatshirt on under my jacket.  While it was in the mid-50s, I was feeling chilled.  Time for a photo or two.

I got on the frontage road and took that to the small town of Custer. There is a nice hill with some curves on that route but places to safely pull off for photos are limited but I did grab these two.

There are a few options at this point.  One that I have done several times is to get on Pease Bottom Road and take that to Hysham.  Another is to head to Melstone but I think a large section of that road is yet to be paved.  Today I wanted to head south toward Hardin but took a few pictures before leaving Custer.

The road out of town looks promising.

However, the twisty part is pretty short and I am quickly on top of the prairie.  After a few miles I connect with Hwy 47 that will take me south to Hardin.  It’s a nice 2-lane road and in pretty good condition.  Although it is mostly straight, it did curve through some rimrocks that had interesting formations.

Some miles north of Hardin, I pulled over to check out the Grant Marsh Wildlife Management Area.  I needed a break and wanted to shoot some pictures so I parked and did a short hike.

The Big Horn River runs past here and I walked to where a tributary goes past.

It was quiet and beautiful BUT I can tell you that the ticks have come out of their winter hibernation.

I got to Hardin and pulled over to look at my map because it was decision time.  I’ve wanted to explore the road from Hardin to Pryor which, from what I can tell on Google maps satellite view, is paved but it is nearly 4:30pm so the day is slipping away.  The issue is that I’d be heading west into the low sun and that is not how I want to check out that road.  I’ve had a good ride so why push it?  I still have the Lockwood twisties up ahead so there is plenty to look forward to on this route so away I went on Old Hwy 87.

It’s a straight ride for the most part and a matter of setting the cruise control and just letting the miles goes by.  At one point I saw an animal cross the road ahead of me, maybe 500 yards or so.  At first I thought it was a dog because I’d had seen some dogs running loose in Hardin but as I got closer I realized it wasn’t a dog.  A fox?  No, this animal had a very distinct feline form to its gate.  As I got closer I could see that it had crossed to road into a prairie dog neighborhood and was clearly a cougar of some kind.  

A bit farther up the road I pulled over for my final pictures of the day to record what the terrain looked like on this route.

I successfully negotiated the twisties into Lockwood and got past the usual mess that is traffic around Billings Metra fairgrounds and arrived at home at 5:27pm with 150.2 miles for the day.