Winter is coming and the number of days that can be used to travel over the Beartooths are waning. The "when" that the pass gets closed is always a gamble and depends, of course, on snow, how much and when. With clear skies and a good forcast today was a good day to go again. My friend Keith brought up the chance of a ride a week ago and texted the other day that Tuesday or Wednesday looks pretty good. I voted for Tuesday and we agreed on that.
I started off the day by meeting my friend Jerry for our weekly 7-1/2 mile run at the Four Dances Recreation Area. We've been doing a weekly run like this for over 20 years. While our times have increased, we've kept to the same distance. Jerry lives near that route so it works well for him if we meet at 6:30am so he can get the run in before he has to go to work. However, it's getting dark in the mornings and since most of the run is on trails, this was our last week of morning outings. Next week we switch to afternoons and will do that all through the winter with routes more in the city.
It was a beautiful morning.
We finished right at 9am and I headed for home. I got a shower, dressed out in my riding gear, made and ate a sandwich, and got my bike out right after Keith pulled up. I loaded my gear on the bike and we pulled away right at 10am as planned. Keith led and we took the western route to Laurel via Buffalo Trail.
The temperature was in the mid-50s and I was plenty comfortable with my riding pants over my jeans, a short-sleeve shirt under a long-sleeve one plus a sweat shirt. I had on my summer mesh jacket which still had the rain liner in from my recent trip. Heavier gloves rounded out the apparel.
The ride to Red Lodge was pretty normal and uneventful. There was a bit of wind which is never surprising. We both topped up our tanks in Red Lodge and then Keith led us up to the pass. I didn't take many photos today and, instead, decided to use lots of video from my dash cam. Here is most of the complete ride to the pass, broken into 7 segments. That's Keith ahead of me on his Goldwing.
We headed down the other side, more or less to the west with the plan to get on the Chief Joseph Scenic Byway. The ride was, of course, gorgeous. Here's some video from that portion.
At the bottom we turned on the Chief Joseph.
When we crossed the Sunlight Bridge we pulled over to the parking area.
While there we met another rider, Isaac, who was on an '05 Triumph, traveling from Oregon to Wisconsin. He told us some tales of woe like when he broke down on Hwy 12 near Kosskia, ID and had to wait for 12 hours for his dad to come retrieve him and the bike. He set up his tent in a nearby pull out. I've ridden that road a lot, as recently as 2 weeks ago, and I wouldn't want to break down on it. He said that his ignition module had fried. He switched to an aftermarket one and all has been well since. Uhmmmm, this is why I ride a Japanese bike.
When we left there, Keith told me to lead and I did. From there it's straight up to Dead Indian Pass. I really like going up this one rather than down and it was just great until I came in behind an RV. It's a very curvy road with no passing lane but I wasn't going to sit behind that guy all the way to the top and neither was Keith.
At the top I stopped for a quick photo.
We headed out right away before the RV caught up with us.
The ride down is completely different from the ride up as it is way more open country, dropping down to a pretty sparse and barren part of Wyoming.
We got to the bottom and turned north on Hwy 120 and rode through what my map says is Badger Basin. I didn't see a badgers but we cruised back into Montana, stopped in Bridger for a moment and then back to Billings. We separated over by the zoo.
It was 255 mile day. BTW, my bike turned 61,000 miles today.
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