We made it!
Yesterday I rode the Beartooth Highway to the top of the pass. It was a beautiful day for a motorcycle ride and a beautiful road for a motorcycle ride. The road is a marvel. My admiration to the engineering and building of such an awesome stretch of highway. After winding up through miles of switchbacks and hairpin turns, it tops out at almost 11,000 feet, high above treeline in a landscape littered with rocks and tufts of tundra. I’m pretty sure the wind constantly blows and it is always cold at the top. I could see patches of snow on the shady slopes across the valley. While not as craggy or rugged, it reminded me of some of the passes we hiked through in the Sierra.
It is only a few miles to the town of Red Lodge. There is a supermarket there and good cell signal. Other than that, the town is a typical tourist haven with plenty of inns, shops, and restaurants to delight all vacationers with a pocket full of money.
Camp
The camp where I set up is in an open meadow, surrounded by mountains on two sides, and only a few feet from a roaring, mountain stream. There were only three other campers here when I arrived, but as the weekend draws near, more people pull in with there trailers.
My plans are to stay here through the weekend and then move up through Montana. I don’t dare move any more west because everything that way is on fire. I want to get up to Glacier National Park and see if I remember anything from the last time I was there 35 years ago.
Today I explored some backroads where people boondock along the Rock Creek. There were quite a few nice, secluded spots along the road, but as I drove deeper the road became filled with holes and rocks until it was not fun even on my Honda. I turned around when the road turned into a boulder field.
It is already starting to feel like Fall. Several nights have been in the 30’s and daytime highs in the 60’s. People here tell me this is not normal and the temperature usually would be in the 90’s. I have been lucky to adjust the climate by moving up in the forests, and I guess a little cool weather is better than hot. I can always turn on the furnace and put on a jacket. If it was hot, I would have to go to an RV park or suffer.
Yep, beautiful drive unless you are doing it on a scooter in a snowstorm.
What weather you must be enduring. If it ever gets down to 100ยบ here, I’ll brag about it. I don’t have to tell you that we all live in Phoenix!
What a beautiful place to camp! That’s the kind of place I’ll be looking for.
You could have gotten off your bike and hiked over those boulders and reminisced about the AT in White Mountains.
Driving that road was one of the scariest times of my life. Seeing there is a shear drop off on both sides up on top, driving in a blizzard when we couldn’t see more than a couple of feet ahead of us & knowing Richard’s glasses were fogging up thus making him a danger to himself & others (namely me!) just petrified me. Fortunately we had worn our cold weather gear, but we still froze.
My grandfather’s home is in Red Lodge. It’s now on the National Register of Historical Places. I forget the address, but there’s a sign out front saying indicating it was the Flager residence. It’s just a block or so off the main street. We were fortunate enough to be able to get a tour from the current owner when were there in 2010. Beautiful tin ceiling in the kitchen still. Gorgeous.
And yes, 90s this time of year is definitely the norm.