After four nice days at Yellowstone we were due to depart, and there had been a big storm with lots of rain overnight. A wet start is never a pleasant prospect. By the way. it was bloody cold as well. Fortunately the rain had stopped at leaving time, but the street was slushy and the bike cover was packed up wet. We went northwards, straight out of town on US191, then took the turnoff to US 287. I had used this route last trip, and it was a spectacular ride, even though I copped a drenching, and got blinded by two big semis one behind the other in a cloud of spray. Not the kind of thing you forget. Shortly after passing Hebgen Lake, we ground to a halt due to roadworks. We had a long wait, and finally a pilot car appeared. It turned out that this was a very long stretch of roadworks, and just as we neared the other end of the section, a warning light appeared on the instrument panel. A light I had not seen before on this bike. It was the low temperature alert, which cuts in when the ambient air temp drops below 4 deg C, alerting the rider to the possibility of ice on the road. It was reading 2.5 and that funny stuff whipping around in the breeze was snow. At one stage it got down as low as 1 deg, and the clouds were so low I was concerned that we would be soon riding blind. We were also severely under-dressed for these conditions.
We had no option but to continue on towards Ennis, some 70 miles north of Yellowstone. I was wondering what the hell the weather was going to do next. I had the grip heaters on max, but my fingertips were numb, and I tried to heat them up on the grips. If you think that's easy, try it! Finally we got to Ennis, and went into the nearest gas station. After thawing out a bit with some hot coffee, we unpacked the luggage and put on anything we could find that was warm. We had to do this in the ladies toilet, a memorable experience. Remember all that stuff we posted home from Durango? Like thermal liners and winter gloves?? Some other riders came in soon after, and we compared notes. It appeared that the worst of it was over, and the system was moving away. Eventually we got moving again, but we both had so much clothing on that neither of us could move much at all. We must have looked like a couple of sumo wrestlers. When we left Ennis, the wind was fairly howling, and buffeting the bike all over the road. Very unpleasant riding. Goddamn the wind in this country, there's nothing like it anywhere, except maybe Patagonia and/or Antarctica.
Moving further up into Montana, we had planned to get up to Missoula via US 93, much further to the west, but under the circumstances decided to bolt up to the I-90 and seek refuge. The first town of any size was Butte, and we found a motel immediately. I would have been happy with a foxhole by this stage, and Kaz was turning blue. I think it was about 1 pm at this point, and we had fought for every mile.
Next morning, suitably thawed out and rested, we resumed our journey. The weather had improved greatly. So much so that we began with a look around Butte. Not as pretty town, but a hard, tough looking mining town which had seen better days. It reminded us of Broken Hill. As with many mining towns, there is a great contrast between the property owned by those who are making the big money, and those who are doing the dirty work. I wouldn't be a miner for love nor money. Nevertheless, we headed across to Anaconda for a bit more of the same. There is a huge brick chimney here, belonging to an old smelter. Apparently copper was the go in these parts, just as the world discovered electricity, and they produced a hell of a lot of the stuff right here. I imagine a lot of people suffered and died for it too, without sounding too left wing about the whole subject. By the time we arrived in Anaconda, we were cold again, so we put the Michelin man costumes back on for the next few hours while we headed up to Missoula, and found our way onto US12, the road heading for the hamlet of Lolo, and more importantly, the Lolo Pass, in the Bitterroot Range. One of the last crossings of the Rockies to to be made because of the difficult nature of the terrain, I'm lead to believe. The State line between Montana and Idaho runs right through the top of the Pass. It was a nice run up to the summit, not particularly high at some 5,000 ft. The road surface took a turn for the worse as soon as we crossed back into Idaho, suggesting some inequality in spending on road infrastructure. Not long afterwards, we spotted a sign saying the road was pretty twisty for the next 90 miles, and warning motorcyclists in particular to take care. Ah-der! That's why we were there, and we both let out a simultaneous Woo-Hoo.
Lolo is not your usual mountain pass, in as much as its not as steep and scary as many others we saw in say, Colorado. It felt to me like it pretty much has a gentle but relentless downward slope, which lasts for about the whole 90 miles. Most of it has nice sweeping bends, again making it ideal for cruisers, and making it as fast as you are prepared to take it. It just went on and on, and was even a little mesmerising. We had nice weather by this stage, and there was not a lot of traffic on it, so we hooked into it somewhat. Not too many gear changes, you could just blat the throttle and let the engine's grunt and gravity just propel the bike, then back off and let the engine braking do the work as you set up for the next bend, generating a nice smooth rhythm. Then repeat ad infinitum. Heaven on a stick! I was so busy having fun that I failed to notice how far it was between gas stations, and we only just made it into Kooskia, on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation, 30 litre tank notwithstanding.
By this point, it was actually hot, and we were finally able to shed some clothing. a great relief. The plan at this point was to ride to Lewiston, ID, right on the border with Washington, grab a motel and enjoy a well earned break after a pretty good day's riding. This took us through some interesting countryside. You could see where those famous potatoes grow. The soil was deep and dark, and paddocks stretched to the horizon in some places. And in other places, some steep gorges straddled by very old trestle bridges carried the railroad. Progress can be hard fought for, no doubt about that. As we came into Lewiston, we passed a massive factory of some kind. Pretty soon, as we routinely walked in the front door of a Motel 6 looking forward to a shower and a well earned coldie, we found out that it was a paper mill. And the bad news was that the factory was in shutdown mode. And that meant that all the available accommodation in Lewiston, and neighbouring towns, had been swallowed up by an army of contractors doing shutdown maintenance on the mill. Talk about "trooble at Mill". We were buggered.
Allright then, we'll move on. We had planned to ride from here to Enterprise, Oregon the following day, on OR3, about 100 miles south. This somewhat obscure road had made it onto my list of the fifteen best motorcycle roads in America, at number fifteen. We would have preferred to tackle it fresh, first thing in the morning, but we had no option but to keep going. Still, not too much of a drama, said I. Its midweek, we should have no trouble getting a motel down there. Well, this road turned out to be wild. The initial climb out of Clarkston, WA was almost helical. Then we had a little daylight, followed by sunset and twighlight before it became dark. Manageable, in my humble opinion. Once we climbed onto the plateau, we started to see deer on the road. Shit, I forgot about them. So I slowed down a bit, and asked Kaz to ride shotgun and keep a lookout too. Soon we were spotting the bastards on a regular basis, but at least they were on the sides of the road, or out in paddocks, and seemed content just to look at us. The countryside changed to precipitous hills and deep valleys, and demanded respect. We were making slow progress. Then it started to get dark, and the temperature began to drop noticeably. I began to grind my teeth. We stopped to rug up, and I tried to reassure Kaz, "No problem, I do this all the time" I lied. Well, Brian Cullinan and I did ride 80 km in the dark on gravel road, dodging roos and cattle, to get into Birdsville a few years back after an outback trip went pear shaped. That counts, doesn't it?
Well, pretty soon it was really dark, but luckily there was a full moon adding a little to the illumination. This allowed us to spot even more deer. Finally the road evened out a bit, and we saw lights in the distance. Whew, we made it. There were several motels in Enterprise, and we headed straight to the biggest one, the aptly named Ponderosa. I thought the car park was fairly full for a weeknight in the middle of bloody nowhere. More bad news. Didn't we know about the annual conference of the local hopscotch umpires association or some such, asked the manager. How did I miss that?? He at least had the decency to ring around for us, but every goddamn motel was full.
By this stage, its about 8 pm, and we were both pretty cranky. Ok, lets go to Subway and eat something while we consider our options. The guy behind the counter soon learned of our plight, and even made a few more calls to various people, but to no avail. After the coffee kicked in, I realised there was no option but to continue about a further 60 miles to La Grande. At least it was a sizeable town on the Interstate, and time was wasting. The Subway guy was horrified, telling us we had to ride through a gorge full of deer. Kaz was frozen, and not a little scared, but went with me on this one. I decided to keep the speed down to 80 kph, and had the fog lights on, confident I could see well enough, and that I could stop in time if I had to. Away we went. It didn't take long to see more deer. When we reached the first of several villages, I thought I could at least relax a little as we rode through the deserted streets. Wrong. There were more deer wandering around the front yards of houses than there were out in the paddocks! Not long after this we approached what looked like the gorge. Almost immediately we both spotted deer on different sides of the road. On my side stood a massive stag, with an impressive set of very pointy antlers. All he had to do was take one step and he would have been right in front of me. Lucky for us he didn't flinch. I dropped the speed a bit more. Jeezus, what next?? This is like the Twilight Zone, I thought to myself.
Well, the rest of the ride was relatively uneventful, although we did see a lot more deer around. We finally hit La Grande and went into the first motel we saw. It was around 11 pm. Yes they had a room, and I've rarely, if ever, been happier to find one. (Thailand, Chris? or Pakistan?) We were spent. It had been a long, long day. We both went out like lights.
The following morning, we walked to a Denny's diner next to the motel, and ordered a humungous breakfast. I'd like to say we both lived happily ever after. But wait, there's more. We both felt a little cheated because the Universe conspired to make life difficult the previous day. So we decided to make a running change to the itinerary. The luggage was removed from the bike and we decided to retrace our steps and see what we had missed in the dark. Check this lot out! These were all taken between Lewiston and Enterprise. The section between Enterprise and La Grande was less spectacular, but a beautiful, fast bike road nonetheless, particularly through the gorge region along the river.
By the time we returned to La Grande, we had ridden this stretch three times, including once in the dark. If it isn't one of the best bike roads in the country, I don't know what you have to do to get on the list. There is even a cafe at the lowest point, named Boggans Oasis. Despite the extra G, no Aussie could fail to see the humour in the name. One could consider this appropriate!
Great stuff. Now all we had to do was get back to Seattle. But that's a story for next time.
We had no option but to continue on towards Ennis, some 70 miles north of Yellowstone. I was wondering what the hell the weather was going to do next. I had the grip heaters on max, but my fingertips were numb, and I tried to heat them up on the grips. If you think that's easy, try it! Finally we got to Ennis, and went into the nearest gas station. After thawing out a bit with some hot coffee, we unpacked the luggage and put on anything we could find that was warm. We had to do this in the ladies toilet, a memorable experience. Remember all that stuff we posted home from Durango? Like thermal liners and winter gloves?? Some other riders came in soon after, and we compared notes. It appeared that the worst of it was over, and the system was moving away. Eventually we got moving again, but we both had so much clothing on that neither of us could move much at all. We must have looked like a couple of sumo wrestlers. When we left Ennis, the wind was fairly howling, and buffeting the bike all over the road. Very unpleasant riding. Goddamn the wind in this country, there's nothing like it anywhere, except maybe Patagonia and/or Antarctica.
Moving further up into Montana, we had planned to get up to Missoula via US 93, much further to the west, but under the circumstances decided to bolt up to the I-90 and seek refuge. The first town of any size was Butte, and we found a motel immediately. I would have been happy with a foxhole by this stage, and Kaz was turning blue. I think it was about 1 pm at this point, and we had fought for every mile.
Next morning, suitably thawed out and rested, we resumed our journey. The weather had improved greatly. So much so that we began with a look around Butte. Not as pretty town, but a hard, tough looking mining town which had seen better days. It reminded us of Broken Hill. As with many mining towns, there is a great contrast between the property owned by those who are making the big money, and those who are doing the dirty work. I wouldn't be a miner for love nor money. Nevertheless, we headed across to Anaconda for a bit more of the same. There is a huge brick chimney here, belonging to an old smelter. Apparently copper was the go in these parts, just as the world discovered electricity, and they produced a hell of a lot of the stuff right here. I imagine a lot of people suffered and died for it too, without sounding too left wing about the whole subject. By the time we arrived in Anaconda, we were cold again, so we put the Michelin man costumes back on for the next few hours while we headed up to Missoula, and found our way onto US12, the road heading for the hamlet of Lolo, and more importantly, the Lolo Pass, in the Bitterroot Range. One of the last crossings of the Rockies to to be made because of the difficult nature of the terrain, I'm lead to believe. The State line between Montana and Idaho runs right through the top of the Pass. It was a nice run up to the summit, not particularly high at some 5,000 ft. The road surface took a turn for the worse as soon as we crossed back into Idaho, suggesting some inequality in spending on road infrastructure. Not long afterwards, we spotted a sign saying the road was pretty twisty for the next 90 miles, and warning motorcyclists in particular to take care. Ah-der! That's why we were there, and we both let out a simultaneous Woo-Hoo.
Lolo is not your usual mountain pass, in as much as its not as steep and scary as many others we saw in say, Colorado. It felt to me like it pretty much has a gentle but relentless downward slope, which lasts for about the whole 90 miles. Most of it has nice sweeping bends, again making it ideal for cruisers, and making it as fast as you are prepared to take it. It just went on and on, and was even a little mesmerising. We had nice weather by this stage, and there was not a lot of traffic on it, so we hooked into it somewhat. Not too many gear changes, you could just blat the throttle and let the engine's grunt and gravity just propel the bike, then back off and let the engine braking do the work as you set up for the next bend, generating a nice smooth rhythm. Then repeat ad infinitum. Heaven on a stick! I was so busy having fun that I failed to notice how far it was between gas stations, and we only just made it into Kooskia, on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation, 30 litre tank notwithstanding.
By this point, it was actually hot, and we were finally able to shed some clothing. a great relief. The plan at this point was to ride to Lewiston, ID, right on the border with Washington, grab a motel and enjoy a well earned break after a pretty good day's riding. This took us through some interesting countryside. You could see where those famous potatoes grow. The soil was deep and dark, and paddocks stretched to the horizon in some places. And in other places, some steep gorges straddled by very old trestle bridges carried the railroad. Progress can be hard fought for, no doubt about that. As we came into Lewiston, we passed a massive factory of some kind. Pretty soon, as we routinely walked in the front door of a Motel 6 looking forward to a shower and a well earned coldie, we found out that it was a paper mill. And the bad news was that the factory was in shutdown mode. And that meant that all the available accommodation in Lewiston, and neighbouring towns, had been swallowed up by an army of contractors doing shutdown maintenance on the mill. Talk about "trooble at Mill". We were buggered.
Allright then, we'll move on. We had planned to ride from here to Enterprise, Oregon the following day, on OR3, about 100 miles south. This somewhat obscure road had made it onto my list of the fifteen best motorcycle roads in America, at number fifteen. We would have preferred to tackle it fresh, first thing in the morning, but we had no option but to keep going. Still, not too much of a drama, said I. Its midweek, we should have no trouble getting a motel down there. Well, this road turned out to be wild. The initial climb out of Clarkston, WA was almost helical. Then we had a little daylight, followed by sunset and twighlight before it became dark. Manageable, in my humble opinion. Once we climbed onto the plateau, we started to see deer on the road. Shit, I forgot about them. So I slowed down a bit, and asked Kaz to ride shotgun and keep a lookout too. Soon we were spotting the bastards on a regular basis, but at least they were on the sides of the road, or out in paddocks, and seemed content just to look at us. The countryside changed to precipitous hills and deep valleys, and demanded respect. We were making slow progress. Then it started to get dark, and the temperature began to drop noticeably. I began to grind my teeth. We stopped to rug up, and I tried to reassure Kaz, "No problem, I do this all the time" I lied. Well, Brian Cullinan and I did ride 80 km in the dark on gravel road, dodging roos and cattle, to get into Birdsville a few years back after an outback trip went pear shaped. That counts, doesn't it?
Well, pretty soon it was really dark, but luckily there was a full moon adding a little to the illumination. This allowed us to spot even more deer. Finally the road evened out a bit, and we saw lights in the distance. Whew, we made it. There were several motels in Enterprise, and we headed straight to the biggest one, the aptly named Ponderosa. I thought the car park was fairly full for a weeknight in the middle of bloody nowhere. More bad news. Didn't we know about the annual conference of the local hopscotch umpires association or some such, asked the manager. How did I miss that?? He at least had the decency to ring around for us, but every goddamn motel was full.
By this stage, its about 8 pm, and we were both pretty cranky. Ok, lets go to Subway and eat something while we consider our options. The guy behind the counter soon learned of our plight, and even made a few more calls to various people, but to no avail. After the coffee kicked in, I realised there was no option but to continue about a further 60 miles to La Grande. At least it was a sizeable town on the Interstate, and time was wasting. The Subway guy was horrified, telling us we had to ride through a gorge full of deer. Kaz was frozen, and not a little scared, but went with me on this one. I decided to keep the speed down to 80 kph, and had the fog lights on, confident I could see well enough, and that I could stop in time if I had to. Away we went. It didn't take long to see more deer. When we reached the first of several villages, I thought I could at least relax a little as we rode through the deserted streets. Wrong. There were more deer wandering around the front yards of houses than there were out in the paddocks! Not long after this we approached what looked like the gorge. Almost immediately we both spotted deer on different sides of the road. On my side stood a massive stag, with an impressive set of very pointy antlers. All he had to do was take one step and he would have been right in front of me. Lucky for us he didn't flinch. I dropped the speed a bit more. Jeezus, what next?? This is like the Twilight Zone, I thought to myself.
Well, the rest of the ride was relatively uneventful, although we did see a lot more deer around. We finally hit La Grande and went into the first motel we saw. It was around 11 pm. Yes they had a room, and I've rarely, if ever, been happier to find one. (Thailand, Chris? or Pakistan?) We were spent. It had been a long, long day. We both went out like lights.
The following morning, we walked to a Denny's diner next to the motel, and ordered a humungous breakfast. I'd like to say we both lived happily ever after. But wait, there's more. We both felt a little cheated because the Universe conspired to make life difficult the previous day. So we decided to make a running change to the itinerary. The luggage was removed from the bike and we decided to retrace our steps and see what we had missed in the dark. Check this lot out! These were all taken between Lewiston and Enterprise. The section between Enterprise and La Grande was less spectacular, but a beautiful, fast bike road nonetheless, particularly through the gorge region along the river.
By the time we returned to La Grande, we had ridden this stretch three times, including once in the dark. If it isn't one of the best bike roads in the country, I don't know what you have to do to get on the list. There is even a cafe at the lowest point, named Boggans Oasis. Despite the extra G, no Aussie could fail to see the humour in the name. One could consider this appropriate!
Great stuff. Now all we had to do was get back to Seattle. But that's a story for next time.
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