We got off to a very early start today from Powell WY at 6:32 AM! There was a nice full moon still showing, but the sun was rising fast. It wasn't too cold at 58 degrees, but as soon as we got away from the toen it dropped another 4 degrees so we were glad we had out liners on. We ran the 25 miles over 14A to Cody, WY where we fueled up and headed on up he road towards out intended roads of interest today - the Chief Joseph Hwy and Beartooth Hwy the latter of which would cross us over the WY/MT border.
We made it to the start of the Chief Joseph highway by 7:30 AM and after getting the required photos we headed in. Neither Larry nor I had ever ridden these roads before so were were peaked with anticipation. It was so early there would be little or no traffic to impede our ride so were were psyched. But even at that, there were sections that were almost freshly paved so overall a huge thumbs up!
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| Start of the Chief Joseph Hwy |
We stopped at an overlook near the start and here's a sample of what we saw -
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| View off to the left |
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| View off the right |
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| View straight below - check out that twisting roadway! |
So after taking the above pictures we ran the Chief Joseph Hwy and it was every bit as much fun as it looks and we anticipated! Even after we got to the bottom it still meandered through and around quite a bit and it was never a dull moment as the following photo shows:
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| Yes, that is a COW and shortly after I took this photo, he and a few of his friends sauntered leisurely across the road |
The above photo was taken when we stopped at the end of the Chief Joseph and the start of the Beartooth Hwy.
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| Intersection of the Chief Joseph and Beartooth highways |
From ther we headed up the Beartooth highway. We made it about 13 miles until we came upon a major construction site. The road was down to one lane only with a pilot car leading cars back and forth. It was here that we were told by a forest service worker that the Beartooth was closed in both direction just a mile after the construction zone due to forest fire. Rather than drive across a 3/4 mile of unpaved construction just to have to turn around anyway, we opted to reverse here and head back the way we came. We did stop at Beartooth Lake on the way back down for an awesome scenic view there.
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| Beartooth Lake |
So the GOOD news of this scenario was that we got to run the Chief Joseph Hwy twice - once in each direction. Yahoo!
We ended up getting back out on WY 120 which turns into MT 72 when we crossed the state border and then we turned up 308 to take us up to Red Lodge MT which is where we would have ended up after crossing Beartooth Pass had it not been closed. As soon as we turned up the road we could see what was causing the road closures.
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| Smoke tells the story! |
After taking the above photo we continued up to Red Lodge. Immediately upon entering town we saw up 212 where it was closed at that end so we rode up to chat with the officers there, and to get photos documenting that the road was, in fact, closed.
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| The "other end" of the closure just south of Red Lodge MT |
After chatting with the police and knowing the road wasn't going to re-open anytime soon, we stopped in town for another fuel stop and also stopped for lunch as well. From there we headed on out towards our planned overnight destination in Great FAlls, MT which was still another 258 miles away. We pressed on running mostly secondary roads, with the exception of a 30 mile stretch of I-90. We arrived in Great Falls by 4:15 PM Having run 465 miles for the day in 8:00 Hrs moving time and 10:15 Hrs elapsed time.
Tomorrow - Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National park, with a planned overnight in Missoula MT.
Added GPS Track for the day:
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