Passes & Canyons Blog

In the fourth year of our OFMC trips we were starting to get our act together. At least we were a little more prepared. Mainly we were learning to make our decisions contrary to what most people do. The benefit is avoiding crowds.

We headed up to Laramie that first day not at all tuned into the fact that Frontier Days was going on in Cheyenne at that time and, just as with the Sturgis rally, the crowds fill up accommodations far beyond the one town. There was not one motel room available in Laramie. But in those days we carried tents and sleeping bags so we found a KOA, and they always have a spot of grass you can claim as your own.

Next day we blazed across Wyoming, just burning up miles, stopping that night in Lander. We cruised the next day to Jackson but even in those days Jackson was getting out of hand. I had last been there in 1976 and it was then just a small town and not yet the tourist Mecca it became later. By the time we got there it was well on its way toward Mecca. So rather than stay there we headed over Teton Pass down to Victor, Idaho.

That was our first really good decision. No hustle, no bustle, rooms cheap, good food. Plus, the pass was a nice ride. We liked Victor so much that we stayed there again a few years later, this time by planned intent. I will note, however, that these days, Victor has now seen much of the same sort of expansion and development that Jackson was going through then. A sleepy little town no more.

Most of the tourists to the Tetons head for the east face of the mountains, over at Jackson and in the park. Coming to the west side we got to enjoy a view of the mountains that most tourists never see, and there were zero crowds. And really pretty country.

We headed north along the west side of the mountains and got to West Yellowstone. We didn’t want to get into the thick of the crowds in Yellowstone so we stayed in the northern part of the park, crossing over to the northeast exit out of the park. Another good choice.

We came out of the park at Silver Gate and went on to Cooke City and here we had a decision to make. It was the middle of the afternoon and there were hours of sunlight left but we wondered if we wanted to push on over the Beartooth Pass today or spend the night and go tomorrow. The decision was almost made for us by the fact that we were having trouble finding an available room in town. But finally we spoke with a woman who told us she did have a cabin that she didn’t normally rent out and it wasn’t made up but if we just wanted a place to roll our sleeping bags out on bare beds we could have it quite inexpensively. We took it.

The next day we bundled up with all the warm clothes we had and started up the pass. Up at the top of the pass there is a little store and we stopped there to warm up and stretch a bit. Talking with the proprietor we learned what a very good choice we had made the night before.

He said the night before they were just closing up shop for the night when a group of riders on Gold Wings had stopped in. It was starting to be dusk and the road was starting to ice up. Would it be OK, they asked, if the proprietor and his wife could drive down into Cooke City behind them, slowly, so they could take advantage of their headlights to help see the road, and the ice on the road, better? Sure, you bet.

So down they went, slowly, white-knuckled. He said they winced numerous times as they saw one bike or another slipping on the icy road, but they all made it down safely. And this was exactly what we would have encountered at the other end if we had gone over the night before. Except we wouldn’t have had the benefit of his headlights. We were learning a good lesson: Don’t be in a hurry. Don’t push it.

The next couple days were uneventful until we got into Nebraska and were bending toward home. At a rest stop we met another guy on a bike who informed us that Nebraska was “a bucket state.” Oh, we didn’t know that, and we had not been wearing our helmets. Thanks. And then we rode on further till we pulled off on a wider area of shoulder to stretch our legs. There was a hedgerow of trees on the east side of the highway and the shade was welcome.

But Bill thought he saw something odd through the trees and wanted to go investigate. We followed a path through and came out onto the most amazing sight we could have imagined. Here were all these cars, planted upright in the ground, and a few spanning other upright cars. We had stumbled onto Car Henge, outside of Alliance. What craziness was this?!

Nowadays if you visit Car Henge it is a well-known tourist stop and there is a shop and toilets and it’s all developed. Back when we first found it, it was just out there in a field. No signs to explain it, nothing. Just a bunch of cars painted gray and half buried in the ground. We only learned what it was all about when we got into Alliance and asked somebody. If someone asked me what is the strangest thing you ever stumbled onto it would be Car Henge hands down. And the trees are all gone now so it’s plainly visible from the road. But not back then.

No more adventures the rest of this trip. But we still talk about this one. What a great trip.

Biker Quote for Today

Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime. Teach a man to ride a motorcycle and he will realize fishing is stupid and boring.

Carhenge the first time we saw it. It doesn’t look like this today.

Motorcycle touring is not like traveling in a car. A car is like a magic carpet: you just sit there and after a while you’re somewhere else. Riding a bike takes much more concentration and physical involvement. Consequently, for many of us, 200-300 miles is often a full day’s ride.

Motorcycle touring is more about discovering great places than it is about burning miles. Sure, there are the Iron Butt guys who go out and ride 1,000 miles in a day, but that’s not what I’d call touring. The beauty of the relaxed, easy-going riding approach is that you stop a lot, and sometimes those stops are the best part of the trip.

Case in point: My riding buddies and I were cruising down from the Black Hills, through western Nebraska near Alliance, and saw a place to pull off. (We’re really big on places to pull off – after an hour or so on the bike your legs are getting stiff, your butt is getting numb, and what could be better than to bask in the sun somewhere out in the middle of nowhere?) Looking around, we noticed there were trails heading into the trees, and somewhere off in there was something odd sticking up. We decided to go investigate, and then, our jaws dropped. “Oh my god, what is this?” we asked.

This was Carhenge. Imagine if you will, a farmer with a playful bent gathering a bunch of dead cars, planting them in the ground, stacking them up, and then painting them gray, to imitate Stonehenge, the Druid relic in England. And not just in haphazard fashion – the positioning of this oddball piece of art was carefully measured out to make Carhenge as true to the original as possible.

And we stumbled right into it. If we’d been in a car we would have just blasted on past.

Jerome, Arizona, was another of those serendipitous finds. Sure, today Jerome has been “discovered” and reborn with galleries, restaurants, and all the other things that come when a town becomes trendy. But we found it first.

A number of years ago, having spent the night in Sedona, Arizona, a trendy town that had already been discovered, we were heading to Las Vegas. Anyone whose intent was to get to Vegas would have taken the road to Flagstaff and flown west on I-40. That was not our intent; we were on motorcycles.

Instead, we headed west on 89A toward Clarkdale because the map showed some mountains and some twisty roads going over to Prescott. For a biker, twisty roads equals heaven. But we never dreamed we would find ourselves winding through switchbacks up the sheer face of a mountain, to find ourselves in a town built vertically on that face. This was Jerome, an old, nearly-abandoned, mining town.

Jerome has one main street that comes up the face of the hill, switches back and climbs higher, then switches back and climbs higher still. Some buildings have their front door on the same street as their back door, just at a different elevation. And of course the views are spectacular. We fell in love with this place. Apparently a lot of other people did too.

It’s not necessary, however, to stumble onto some unexpected gem to have a great stop on the bike trip. Just this summer my friends and I were heading toward Kamas, Utah, about to go over a pass, and there were black clouds up ahead. Prudence convinced us we’d better stop and put on rain gear. (Even though putting on rain gear is a pain and we try to avoid it unless it’s really necessary.)

In this case, as most of the guys were pulling on their rain pants, one guy suggested that if we just took a break there for a while the rain would pass and we could ride on without the gear. There was no shade where we were, and the sun was beating down, but just about then a cloud came over and the idea of waiting became very appealing.

Off came the rain gear, out came the cold beers, and for 45 minutes we sat and relaxed and reveled in the soul-fulfilling sweetness of just hanging out in some beautiful middle of nowhere. And then we rode on under clear skies. Beautiful indeed.

Biker Quote for Today

You don’t have to be a cowboy to ride off into the sunset.