Day 6.4 Beartooth Pass-Red Lodge, MT.

After riding a bit further up into this fantastic new terrain, we had to stop it was down to about 40 degrees and we were both getting a little chilly. Â We were stunned by how beautiful the scenery was

The road just cut back and forth as it went up, and up. Â While we stopped to put on warmer clothes I walked over to the edge of the road, and got this view…

It was just breathtaking to look down through the rocks to the valley floor a couple thousand feet down. Â There was even a little lake down there.

We started out again, and switchback after switchback our eyes were treated to wide open expanses and rugged views. Â The pictures can say more than I can.

We finally reached the summit, and stopped for a couple photos.

We were really enjoying the views, but we knew that it would only be light another couple hours and we had no idea how long it would take to get down with the quantity of stops we were making, and we still didn’t know how far we were going to ride or where we were going to stop for the night. Â We did end up stopping several times on the way down and also for a couple minutes at the Rock Creek Vista Point, in the Custer National forest.

We continued down the mountain, on some absolutely crazy hairpin turns, with some pretty sheer drops off down the sides of the canyon.  Click on the next picture and check out the road.

We finally made it down the pass, it was dusk by the time we reached Red Lodge, MT. Â We drove through the town, which was really quite busy, lots of people out and about, motorcycles everywhere, people cruising around. Â It looked like a pretty cool town that we wouldnt’ mind going back to. Â Anyway, we stopped for a minute I asked Stacey if she wanted to keep going, she said she was good to go, so off we went. Â Several minutes later, after seeing several deer along the side of the road, I turned off into a KOA Kampground for the evening. Â I just wasn’t about to tempt fate…

We pitched our tent, took showers, and went to bed with the sound of laughter from our drunk, partying, Harley-riding neighbors.

Day 06.3 Beartooth Scenic Byway

The view at the start into the mountains looked quite promising, but I wondered if it would be worth the trouble.  We left Yellowstone N.P. and started up US212, stopping only to take photos at the beginning of the Beartooth Scenic Byway.

We stopped in Cooke City to grab something to eat.  We selected the Beartooth Cafe, as it looked like a pretty cool place.  There I actually asked the owner of this bike if i could take a photo of his bike.  It was an interesting bike for sure.

We were seated on the wooden porch, with high hopes and ferocious hunger.  We scoured the menu looking for something that we thought would satisfy our appitites.  I settled on the Super Nacho plate, and Stacey selected the Vegetarian Wrap.  High hopes, and enthusiastic bellys awaited our meal.  We were both rather tired at this point in the day and really just wanted some tasty food and a short break before getting back on the road.  I didn’t know how far away we were from the big mountain pass, so I didn’t want to dilly dally around and waste good riding weather.

After our placing our order, we waited, and waited.  We waited at least half and hour before our food finally arrived.  During that time, no waitperson came to our table, filled our water, or anything else.  In addition, our table seemed to be the annual meeting place of the Black Fly’s of Montana.  They were everywhere, and after our food arrived it was a constant battle to keep them off our plates.

Stacey Waiting

Our food arrived.  This picture should explain a lot…

Stacey looked at her wrap, and thought it might be ok, however, after a few bites she asked if she could have some of my nachos. The wrap may have looked pretty, but it didn’t taste good. It was totally bland, and not remotely worth the money it cost. My nachos weren’t much better, but at least had a little bit of taste. They were ridiculous though, basically a large pile of tortilla chips that most likely came straight out of a cheap bag of chips, a small amount of cheese sprinkled on top and a huge lump of refried beans, straight from the can. I think you could even see the rings from the middle of the can! It was pretty bad. Soon after our food arrived, some guy brought our check over and left, we never saw him again. After finishing and waiting someone to come back to collect our bill, finally i walked inside to pay. After being disappointed by our food, and the service, leaving no tip was a no brainer.

We needed to hurry! We walked out to the bike, and were ecstatic that another biker, a cool Sturgis-type, had parked so close to the right side of the bike, that with the extreme lean of his bike we couldn’t get the side luggage open or stand the bike up so we could move it around to get more space. They were actually leaving right then too, and he apologized and started talking to me. That would have been all fine and dandy, but we couldn’t get to our rain gear in preparation of the rain that had almost reached us.

It started sprinkling before we got our gear all on making us feel crap, and draining our optimism. We had noticed that while eating cars were queuing up further down the road in the direction we were going. We found out that there was construction ahead, and that they were waiting for the pilot vehicle. By the time we got the gear on, it was pouring rain, and we still had to fuel up quickly. We got fueled up, and rode back up the street, and arrived just in time to get stuck, three vehicles back in the new queue. There we sat for half an hour.

Before the pilot car returned, the rain eased off, and it not being very cool out we started sweating in our rain gear. We decided to keep the gear on, and when the pilot car returned we were satisfied in our decision. We started up the road, now dirt and gravel in preparation for repaving. It may not have been so bad in a perfect world, but there we are two up on a bike made for one, with three full (overloaded) luggage cases, and full riding gear. Oh yeah, and because of the rain, the dirt had turned to mud. The next twenty, were among the most nail-bitingly nervous ones of my motorcycling life so far. I rarely feel like i could loose control on my bike, but on the slop with a line of cars pushing us along, I was tense! The road got quite steep, and the rear tire was constantly on the verge of loosing its grip. We finally reached the highest area where it flattened out, which made things a little more relaxing, before the final distance downhill to paved road. After we hit paved road we were so excited, and I had to pull over to not only let cars pass us, but to get off the bike and relax for a second.

Then the road started climbing….