Photo gallery of daily adventure is HERE!!
I'll add the map routes to this blog from Google Maps as I have time.
13 days, 7 States and 1 Province, 29 mountain passes and 4700 miles...
Sunday, 17 July 2011
Mrs. RedTigre and I decided to get a good start on a Sunday morning for a race through the Southeastern part of Washington State. Living at the foothills of the Cascades, one forgets that vast expanse of desert known as the Columbia Basin. It stretches way too far and way too East to do anything but crank though it and wish for diversion, any diversion, (and you will stop at them all) that will save you from dying of total boredom if you survive the heat. It isn't hell, but you can see it from there. and I have to get to the farthest SE region before my trip really begins to feel like vacation. Lunch in Lewiston/Clarkston (gee, who were these towns named after...?) and then a zigzag down the 95 though the heat of Whitebird to our nightly destination
Stopped for the night in Riggins, ID. I love Riggins as a stopover, several decent motels and wine and cheese at the river, just stay upwind of the dumpster the Steelhead fisherman seem to release all remains into.
Mountain Passes for the day (1): WhiteBird Pass
Monday, 18 July 2011
Decided to cut south on the 55 and then across the Boise and Challis National Forests on the 75 to Challis where the plan was to speed south down the 93 to Arco and end up up somewhere Southeast of Pocatello. It was hot again, and I as was taking a canyon cutoff I was passed by a couple kids on 600cc canyon zippers, so I played keep up for a little while and as I let off the throttle around one corner I saw an Idaho ST spin the lights on them and then turned around behind me as we passed. Those kids were doing probably 20 over and I was doing maybe 10 when we met the trooper but as I rounded the next corner the kids had pulled over and were waiting so I figured if the trooper wanted me I would go slow enough for him to catch up but not stop until I knew he was really interested... 10 miles later I figured those zippers had him entertained enough and with the wind being blast furnace hot we rode on, and while it took away from some of the interesting scenery, it was still nice. What was really odd was finding a conning tower from a nuclear attack sub in a town with a population of maybe 300 people. Arco was part of the nuclear weapons age and there are still many hushed operations taking place in that section of the Idaho desert.
Stopped for the night in Soda Springs, ID. We arrived into Soda Springs late and checked into the motel (there were only 2) that looked like the contractors liked. In these small towns, always choose a place that the professionals use. Contractors will not stay in a place that isn't safe for their tools and other valuables or can't get a decent nights sleep.
Mountain Passes for the day (4): Mores Creek, Banner Creek, Beaver Creek, Willow Creek.
Tuesday, 19 July 2011
So we continued south on the 30 and shot east into Wyoming passing the Fossil Butte National Monument and through Kemmerer-Diamondville (Home of the first JC Penney store for those who are interested -who would have thought such a chain started in Wyoming!) down to I-80 for a burst to Purple Sage and the 191 South, through the Flaming Gorge and hit the 40 east. What incredible colors the layers of different rocks made to the hillsides!
Stopped for the night in Rangely, CO where I noticed I had taken a bulls-eye to my headlamp from a semi passing us on new chip-seal Ugh! I got some storm window tape from the True Value that night and slapped a strip across it until I could get home to pull it for repair.
Mountain Passes for the day(3): Geneva Summit, Georgetown Summit, Border Summit
Wednesday, 20 July 2011
We shot down the 139 from Rangely to Grand Junction for another Freeway shot over to the 65 and the Mesa Scenic Byway...wow. Not the best road because of all the recent storm damage but the view over the byway was a must. Hit the 50 east and over Monarch Pass and our first of several continental divide overruns.
Stopped for the night in Salida, CO where sometimes the cheap places are the most interesting! The cabin had 5 beds, real pine log built from the 1940's, and next to a liquor store (is my bike going to be in one piece the next morning?). Settling in I let Mrs. RedTigre know I am going to find a car-wash. I had to think about what I said because the look on her face made me think I was speaking Swahili, or Mandarin Chinese, or something Martian maybe. It's a BMW, It will be washed THOROUGHLY every 4th day... sheesh! I come back to find her Googling "Mental Health Facilities in Colorado" and ignoring her cautious looks my direction I change into my evening strait-jacket pajamas.
Mountain Passes for the day (5): Douglas Pass, Grand Mesa Summit, Cerro Summit, Blue Mesa Summit, Monarch Pass.
Thursday, 21 July 2011
Thursday morning had us heading North on the 285 to the 24/285 where we split off onto the 24 at Antero Junction. Breakfast is always an adventure as we often stopped in saloons that had been around over 100 years and used to host dance halls, of which most had a breakfast worth every small penny. Heading into Colorado Spring brought many memories, but not many memories of the roads! :D I realized quickly how much the Springs had grown in the last 25 years and I was again a stranger as we headed for a Garden of the Gods entrance and ominous clouds hanging around Pikes Peak. We encountered our first real rainstorm there as we were in the Garden of the Gods visitor center and let it hammer on and around us while we watched from the observation deck. The lightening was as prominent as I remember it, and you felt like you could reach out and touch it at times with Pike Peak it's primary target.... no ride up there to the PP summit this trip. The Garden of the Gods was as beautiful as I remember it and Joan enjoyed the colours of the park.
So we headed out the way we came on the 24 but decided to take a shortcut at Woodland Park on the 67 North to Deckers Road, and then connecting back to the 285 West, for a run North on the 9 to Breckenridge. Entering from the South outside of Breckenridge as we were coming out of yet another mountain pass we hit a flooded road that cars were traversing though. I watched the car ahead of me and figured it only about 10 inches of water and the road looked like it had been built for flooding so through it it went, where is a GS when you need it! Crossing was fun and Joan was so excited about the crossing she forgot pictures, but I wasn't willing to do it again just for photos so off we went into Breckenridge.
Breckenridge is a tourist town with probably a billion $$$ worth of building value per block and another billion $$$ of people net value to accompany it. The streets were paved perfectly, except for the 6" deep tank-trap inset manhole covers that are set to kill motorcyclist in their fair town, of which I hit one as I was following traffic and broke a mirror from the jolting impact. I was surprised the suspension held without problems, but it did and I was wary from then on until I left the city limits.
We continued North on the 9 stopping for the night in Kremming, CO
Mountain Passes for the day (7): Trout Creek Pass, Wilkerson Pass, Ute Pass (Teller), Crow Hill, Kenosha Pass, Red Hill Pass, Hoosier Pass
Friday, 22 July 2011
Mapping out BMW dealerships is what a beemer rider does for no other reason than to get tyres installed when you need them along the trip. I knew I was going to be getting low on tread so I planned on new tires in Colorado at one of 4 dealerships. The time came when I was going to be close to Ft Collins, CO and the whine of Metzlers on heavy cornering called for new rubber. So leaving Kremming, CO to pass a mounted AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter outside the high school there (I love the West) on 40 East to have Breakfast at Arnold's Chuckwagon Cafe Near Granby. Turning onto the 34 East, it was a beautiful run over through the Rocky Mountain National Park and into Estes Park to swing North at Loveland and head to Ft Collins and the BMW dealership there (Northern Colorado Euro Motorcycles). I called ahead so they knew we were coming and had them replace both front and rear tyres, do a full safety check, inspect the front telelever suspension, and oh, and pull out the bird I hit cutting across from the zig-zag way I came in across the frontage roads.
I love BMW service waiting areas, they have the best couches and comforts. While there, I got to sit on and talk to sales about the new K1600GTL they had there (but wouldn't sell). It is obviously the replacement for the K1300GT, but the GTL is still mostly GT. When they come out with the K1600LT, then we'll talk. I do like the power plant though.
So we left outfitted well for the rest of our trip with new tires and courtesy bottled water and checked out to head West a little and finish our last mountain pass in Colorado on the 14 and through the Roosevelt National Forest on the Poudre Canyon Highway, which was our favorite pass of the trip.
Mountain Passes for the day (4): Milner Pass, Fall River Pass, Iceberg Pass, Cameron Pass
Stopped for the night in Walden, CO
Saturday, 23 July 2011
We decided to zigzag North on the 125 and 127/230 into Wyoming where we had breakfast at the Woods Landing Dance Hall and then up through Laramie where we saw the territorial prison there, then North on the 30/287 and then onto the 34 East to Wheatland for a break in the community park where there were several family gatherings going on. I ride with a guy from time to time (TH) that I admire greatly for his friendly and engaging manners with any stranger he meets and in the first 15 minutes would have known half the family by first name, showed them 3 different ways to throw horseshoes, and had 10 places for is to stay if we ever rode through there again!
So we left Wheatland on a state/county/who knows road that wound around a very large coal-fired power plant and the Greyrocks reservoir, changed names and numbers more than I and the GPS could keep up, at times wondering when the road was going to change to gravel/dirt, finding a coal power plant, getting caught in a free-range herd, and winding up the South side of a firing range that was OBVIOUSLY military and then passing a major training center while dodging tank crossings (Camp Guernsey, WY National Guard) to go North on the 270 up to the 18/85, onto the 18East and into HotSprings, SD.
We were going to go on up into Custer, but dickered a bit about whether to stay in Hot Springs, Rapid City, or Custer, so we decided to go a little further to Hermosa and then figure it out only to become frustrated at the costs of billeting anywhere in the area. If you start calling around to what shows on your Maps App on your phone, you will be sorry. Just go into the town you are looking at and you will always find the less expensive places that are not showing on your App list. So what if run down a little bit, being clean, a bed, and shower is all we wanted and found a place for $49 and allowed us to start the day close to the sights.
Stopped for the night in Custer, SD
Mountain Passes for the day (0): Minor withdrawals...
Sunday, 24 July 2011
Crazy Horse... wow. If you are in the area do yourself a favor and see Rushmore first, because Crazy Horse will blow you away. I won't see it completed in my lifetime, but what an undertaking and tribute to Native Americans nationally (I am 1/8th Cherokee, my Great Grandmother being full). Rushmore, while very cool itself, would fit into a fraction of the horse's mane and the face of Crazy Horse itself is 9 stories high. So Mt Rushmore seemed pretty diminutive compared to the other, so see it first.
As we wound through the park on the 16a we went North up the 16 to the 385 to the 44 East and then up the Norris Park Road to Nemo Road to Vanocker Canyon Road and into Sturgis. Ok, I can now say I've been there and ridden down Main Street, Joan didn't get me into a fight with the Harley guys by telling them "that horribly noisy thing is better off parked" and it was uneventful, 'nuff said. ;)
So we are now in the "Go West" mode and headed West on the Boulder Canyon Highway (14) through Deadwood, Lead and then Southwest on the 14/85 and onto the 85 into Wyoming. At Newcastle, WY we hopped onto the 16 West where the plains winds were brutal and followed it to the freeway where we followed frontage roads for a bit until we could get onto the 51 and into Gilette for the night.
Stopped for the night in Gilette, WY
Mountain Passes for the day (0): Wahhhhh!
Monday, 25 July 2011
Heading North first thing in the morning on the 14/16 to Sheridan was a nice ride with rolling plains and an interesting assortment of abandonment's along the way. Nothing says forgotten homesteads like Wyoming, and seems like they take a long time to finally fall. We tried a couple shortcuts that would have been a kick on a GS, but the LT takes to dirt like an ice cream cone would to a blow torch... not pretty and gets messy really quickly, so we backtracked about 15 miles and ended up running up I-90 10 miles to the 14 again heading west over a fantastic climb up Medicine Wheel Passage. Sections of this road tell you where the plates have moved the landscape all the way from the East Coast. As we came down the other side on the 14 the damage from the winter washouts was obvious and dropped you into Bighorn Lake and Lovell where the temperature rose from 65°f at the summit to a mean hot at over 105°f where we took a break at the USFS ranger station in Lovell (Ranger Stations are some of the BEST rest areas!) before heading Southwest on the 32 to the 295 and connecting back again to the 14 which led us into Cody.
Not wanting to stay in Cody the night, we ventured North on the 120 into Montana and then west on State Hwy 308 passing the former Smith Mine, which was the worst coal mine disaster in Montana History with the loss of 74 men.
We pulled into Red Lodge and found a nice place to stay with detached cabins and rested up from a very warm day.
Stopped for the night in Red Lodge, MT
Mountain Passes for the day (1): Medicine Wheel Passage
Tuesday, 26 July 2011
Beartooth Pass. Do it, do it now. If you ever get the chance to ride this pass I doubt you will find few that measure up to the phrase "it just goes on forever". On the 212, you will climb, and then climb some more. Start it early because you will spend half your riding day going up, over, and looking at thousands different switchbacks and perspectives of the range and view of Beartooth Mountain, coming down is just as fun and runs you into the Northeast entrance of Yellowstone. There was so little traffic I wondered if there was road construction coming up but it was so quiet for a summer week that you can tell travel is way down for the season. Swinging around Northwest and coming out of Yellowstone at Mammoth Hot Springs we took the 89 North all the way to the 12/287 and through Helena on the 12 and having to shoot down to Deer Lodge for the night because the iPhone Maps App listed motels in Elliston, MT that hadn't been opened for oh, 5 years or so. Deer Lodge has a Prison Museum which was an old state prison opened for tourism but I couldn't get Mrs. RedTigre to come with me to see it... makes me wonder what she has hidden in her past, maybe I shouldn't know for my own safety (why do we keep getting newsletters from the Scottish Liberation Front?). Funny what towns spring up around (although I would guess a prison to be pretty stable work).
Stopped for the night in Deer Lodge, MT
Mountain Passes for the day (2): Beartooth Pass, MacDonald Pass
Wednesday, 27 July 2011
Waking up Wednesday had us realizing 1) We didn't know what day it was and 2) we don't have to be back in Wenatchee until Friday night whenever that is and hoping it wasn't today! Heads Canada, or tails to be hitting the Luftwaffe Lane on the Interstate system. Wednesday and heads it was so we backtracked a few miles back to the 12 and went East to Avon and then North on the 141, East on the 200 to the 83/82/93 Northwest to Whitefish.
On the 200 is a small town called Ovando where we stopped for breakfast at the Stray Bullet Cafe. This town had maybe 4 buildings to it and combined were a restaurant and tackle shop, hotel and general store, post office, and town hall. The restaurant had the best biscuits and gravy I have ever had on the road, and comparable to what I put together myself... perfect blend of seasoned sausage, milk, and flour and homemade biscuits. I love these places and will ride just for the MAC-PAC experience.
Full and wondering how I am going to stay awake for the next hour after such a fine breakfast, we continued and wound up North on the 93 somehow in my sausage gravy fueled delirium. From Whitefish had us heading into BC and crossing at Roosville and following the 93/3 to the Crowsnest Highway past Cranbrook and onto a Bavarian themed town of Kimberly,BC. Stayed there several times, small, quiet and clean rooms over the pub make for an excellent experience.
Stopped for the night in Kimberly, BC
Mountain Passes for the day (who cares, I'm in BC)
Thursday, 28 July 2011
Leaving Kimberly, we headed North on the Kimberly Highway to the 93/95 and North past Radium Hot Springs on the 95 to Golden, BC for breakfast/brunch where I had the most incredible Salmon Hash (thinly sliced smoked Salmon with 2 poached eggs, grilled potatoes with onions mushrooms and asparagus... another MAC-PAC moment) that I will learn to do in my own kitchen.
Connecting with the 1 (Trans-Canada Highway), we continued over Rogers Pass (another favourite) and swung down to Revelstoke and dropped down the Nakusp/Mica Creek Highway (23) to the Shelter Bay/Galena Ferry continuing down the 23 to the 6 South and a shot over to Nelson. Joan liked Nelson, but the Summer rates totally had her (and thus, us) back on the bike and heading back on the 6 and down to Castlegar where we encountered River Moths.
At first I thought they were bees shooting overhead until it became LAX over the top of us and impacting on the windscreen at a rate reminiscent of raindrops. Swarming would be calming to what we were hitting and when we stopped in Castlegar they were immediately attracted to the heat of the Bike and I totally bagged the idea of staying there. It was already a very long day but we headed South to Trail and found an off the road motel around 9:15 PM. Having not eaten for 7 hours had me famished and we found an incredible Pizzeria to take out back to our flat for the night. We stayed in more rooms that had full kitchenettes at no extra cost this trip, probably more than half, and then some of those were like small apartments, this was one of those places.
Stopped for the night in Trail, BC
Mountain Passes for the day (1) Rogers Pass
Friday, 29 July 201
Got up that morning (better phrased "mourning" because we had to head home) and had breakfast in Trail before heading over to the Trail Wal-Mart to load up on as many bags or Wine-Gums and Peak-Freens Biscuits as we could shove into the compartments, headed over the border at Northport (where we were lain up last year because Joan 1) accidentally had her expired Resident Alien card instead of her current one and 2) hassled the Border Patrol Agents because once they approved her passage in she quite insistantly wanted her expired card back for sentimental value, which with hands on truncheons they refused to return to her. This passage was far less eventful as I locked her flip-up on her helmet as we left the Wal-Mart and disconnected the communication so she couldn't hear my answers to the Border Agents questions, a trick I will use again for all border crossings until she reads this post! :)
Heading South on the 25, we took the Gifford-Incheliem Ferry, over the Bridge Creek Road to the 21, down the 21 to the Cache Creek Road into Nespelem (another great find!), up and over 155 West to Omak, the Old 97 to Brewester, down the 97 past Pateros to Apple Acres Road into Chelan and then down the 97a and...
Home!
Mountain Passes for the day (1) Disautel Pass
