Passes & Canyons Blog

I left to go on a motorcycle trip with Kevin very suddenly. Kevin has a way of calling and making me offers I can’t refuse. One time he called out of the blue and asked, “Do you want to buy a V-Strom?” So I did.

Last week Kevin called and told me he was meeting a friend from Boise at the Flaming Gorge and they were just going somewhere north. Would I like to join them? Well here I am in Cooke City, Montana, so you guess what my answer was.

The whole idea just thrilled me. It would be just like the early days of the OFMC: three guys, no plans, frequent camping. I have missed those trips for as long as it has been that we’ve had way too many guys on the OFMC trip to be able to just roll into some small town and expect to find enough motel rooms.

I rode to Grand Junction on Friday to spend the night at my brother’s, and then Kevin and I met up at the City Market in Fruita on Saturday morning. We rode on up over Douglas Pass, caught US 40 west at Dinosaur, turned north at Vernal, Utah, and cruised to the Flaming Gorge.

Kevin and I are both on our 650 V-Stroms and Jeff showed up later on his Moto Guzzi Le Mans. It was old home week for those guys, having known each other for 40 years, and I soon found myself looking closely for opportunities to get a word in myself.

Up the next morning and we came up with a general idea of heading to the Beartooth Pass. Planning beyond today was forbidden but as a general goal that’s a starting point. We’ll head in that direction. We cruised north into Wyoming, crossed over into Idaho, and ran up some roads none of us had ever been on. Heading back into Wyoming, to the Star Valley, there was the sweetest campground on this pass and we were all tempted. But we didn’t have any food so we needed to press on, even if we came back.

We reached a store and got food and beverages but decided to push on past Alpine Junction to some campgrounds the map showed along the Snake River. We ended up high up the canyon wall on a road of loose gravel that our V-Stroms are made for. As for Jeff’s Guzzi, as Kevin told me early on, “he’s not allergic to gravel.” He’s actually a heck of a lot better on gravel than I am.

So that made it Monday. We cruised on up to Estes Park, passed through Grand Teton and on into Yellowstone. We weren’t really there to see the park but both of those guys had to pay $25 to get in so we might as well do some touristing. (Of course, my senior pass got me in free. Jeff now has something to look forward to when he turns 62 next year.)

We exited the northeast entrance to the to Silver Gate and Cooke City and found a sign telling us that none of the campgrounds in the area allowed tent camping. The girl at the store in Cooke City told us someone got messed up by a bear several years ago and they still haven’t gotten past that. So it was time for a motel. Which is why I now have wi-fi.

Tomorrow we ride the Beartooth. From there the plan is to go north heading toward Missoula and Lolo Pass. We don’t know how long it will take us to get there or where we’ll be staying, but it’s a direction. The OFMC used to be like this. Now I get to be here and in another three weeks after I get home I’ll go out with the OFMC boys on that trip. The summer is shaping up very nicely.

Biker Quote for Today

Adventure is what happens when you thought you were going to have a good time.

Tags: motorcycle trip

This entry was posted on Monday, June 29th, 2015 at 7:54 pm and is filed under V-Strom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.