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.
Glad you had a good safe ride! Nothing better than being on a motorcycle. I know it would add a layer of work, but would it be possible to add a map of your routes for those of us who don’t know the area?
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