16th June - A day of three halves

It had rained heavily overnight, but this had cleared by the time we got on the road. We took of up the Beartooth Highway that we had heard so much about. Sixty three miles away at the end of the highway was the town of Red Lodge, and the weather was perfect.

The highway crosses Beartooth Pass at 10947 ft and promised some great riding. Not long after we started the climb we came to a lake, still largely covered with ice. The land, the water and the ice make a beautiful combination at that hour of the morning.

The higher we climbed, the more spectacular the views and the more snow we encountered. the road zig-zagged up to the pass, then did the same on the way down - so many U-turns as the road crossed back and forth along the side of the mountain. I'm not even going to try to describe this... I'll just let these few photos speak for me. They barely hint at the experience.

Part way up to the pass we met a couple of BMW riders, Randy and Larry, at an overlook. We spent some time talking about destinations, bikes and adventures. They were on a trip from Tennessee, hoping to get to Canada, but were turned back by the weather we endured.

There was another motor bike driver all black and chrome, with white hair and beard flying behind him. He leaned over very low as he turned a bend, stretching his hand out low to the ground in the bikers "Hi". If anyone sees him tell him to do it again. Wanda wanted to take that photo.

Riding down the back of the pass there was much less snow.

In Red Lodge we stopped at the perfectly located Red Box Car diner (right next to a fast running river) for breakfast before taking a lap up and down the main street of this unpretentiously charming town.

The best news of the day was that we had to return back across this road. A road ridden in the opposite direction is like another road altogether... and we got to see it both ways. So ended the spectacular first half of our day.

Back near Cooke City we turned onto the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway. As we burned up the miles, bad weather caught up with us, and as we crossed the incredibly deep and narrow canyon over the Clarks River, the rain started.

We changed into our weather gear and rode on up to the top of Dead Indian Pass where we were greeted by a community of playful chipmunks and hugely expansive views back over the mountains and the road leading up to the pass. The Indians defended this pass. When you look at it you wonder how it was crossed without modern vehicles. The road twisted many times before reaching the summit. Incedibly beautiful.

The highway finally took us into Cody where we stopped for lunch. It was dry and warm and so we struggled out of our wet weather gear and packed it away. Cody's a bleak sort of place whose main claim to fame is the Buffalo Bill Museum. A friend in Australia recommended this to us in glowing terms, so we turned down the main street towards it. We were faced with an incoming storm - the most foreboding skies imagineable, lit occassionly by intense flashes of lightening.

We decided to give up on the museum and cut and run to our planned overnight stop of Worland. In our haste to take off, we forgot to check the fuel.  As we rode out of town we could see rain and storms all around us. When we got past the point of returning to Cody, the winds blew up - strong and gusty. Then the fuel reserve warning light came on we had no idea how far it was to the new petrol stop. The further we went, the worse the weather and our fuel situation became. Rain started spitting down, and the winds became stronger and gustier. We were blown all over the road. We stopped at an intersection to check the GPS to find where the nearest petrol station was, and it told us it was over 64 miles away. We knew the town of Greybull was 13 miles ahead, but it was touch and go if we could make it, and we weren't even sure there was petrol there. Wanda stopped a car to see if they could tell us where the nearest petrol station was. A second car that stopped offered to lead us into the tiny town of Burlington (Population 250), 4 miles away, where the motor repair business had 2 pumps outside - one for diesel, one for regular unleaded. Thus ended the second half of our day.

The BMW owners manual says the bike needs 89 octane minimum, but I can tell you it runs just fine on 87 (or whatever it was we got). With the worry of running out of petrol in the middle of nowhere in a storm lifted from our shoulders the world got brighter - and so did the weather. The horrific winds died down slightly, and while there were still rain storms all around, our path tracked under the clear patches of sky as the road to Worland led south, then east and south again.

We arrived without further incident, and so ended the third half of our day.