Great day – Friggin’ cold start.  Woke up in the middle of the night and put on more clothes.  Chatting with Felix (neighbour across the way from Netherlands), he claimed it ‘wasn’t bad’.  His thermometer apparently said it was -4C.  Packing up the tent, there was frost and ice on everything.

But once you were in the sun, it was a beautiful day.  Some good bits of pavement… And some nice dirt roads packing a small lesson.  Then more random highways down south and winding up in Flaming Gorge.   Much of the day was thoughts of Red Dead Redemption and World of Warcraft…

Signal Mountain panoramic shot looking east.

To the dirt!

Back up. She’s a bit too heavy for me to lift with the roll and top case on.  I still had to dig down into the very deep gravel to back her out.   Once on solid ground, I foolishly tried again and went up the hill…  Promptly getting myself stuck again a third of the way up.  Spinning the back tire, I dug down until her belly stopped me from digging any deeper.   That took some more time to dig out and then I just gave up and turned around.

Never good when a stop requires access to tools. Good thing I bought that Hex key set!

The final resting place of “The Sundance Kid”

Cold day for the Travelling Salesman.  Crazy winds in the night making the tent smack me in the face again.  Hard to sleep through that.  Very cold, put on all my clothes and tried to go back to sleep.  Woke up to gusting winds and hail.  Very unpleasant.

Today was a day riding with all my thermal gear – including the down vest.  Made moving around very cumbersome.  And even that wasn’t enough – eventually I resorted to putting on my rain mitts just to keep the wind off.   That helped a lot – the heated grips were able to keep up after that.  I think I made a lot more stops than I normally would have – just to

Tried to ‘finish off’ the roads in Yellowstone.  Had to double over a few paths, but very glad that I did.  Especially the last bit along the lake.  The skies had cleared up and it was almost warm and the scenic byway off US20 puts you right on the water.

Not sure why it’s ‘Chinese’…

Old Faithful!

Riding on Water.

Day 5 was all over the map as far as riding goes.  Temperatures ranged from 2C – 35C.  Sunny calm mornings to gusty afternoon winds.  Clean dry pavement to snowmelt-wet asphalt.

The goal was to swing out and do the ‘fun’ sections of US212 and WY296.  Unfortunately, I didn’t stick to my original plan and enter Yellowstone from the Billings and coming out of the North-East exit would mean I would have to double up one of the sections. Is it bad that all I kept thinking about for these 2 days is the Travelling Salesman Problem?  I chose to do WY296 twice since it was shorter.  I wasted a lot of time getting back onto 212 at the 310 Junction instead of going through 308 at Red Lodge.

Beartooth Highway(US 212) and Chief Joseph Scenic Highway (WY 296) are definitely ‘must do’ highways if you like to drive, ride, enjoy scenery or just road engineering.

WY296 – See all those twisties?  Beware the tar snakes, they will bite you!  Too bad, otherwise it would be just so much better.

US212 – Cold and gusts of wind when I went.  Still amazing.

Before a big trip, it’s usually a good idea to go on a ‘shake down’ trip.   This can be as simple as going down the block to see if anything falls off, or as involved as a full blown trip  not too far from home just to see what you’ve missed.

With the trip coming up at the end of May, the original plan was to do a quick trip/loop during May-Long.  Scheduling and equipment complications meant as the week drew to a close, the other candidates had to pull out.  Having picked up a new sleeping bag and camp mat, I still needed to test my gear.  The weather forecast suggested rain, I thought it best to sneak out for an overnight trip somewhere nearby.  Jones Lake is a BC Hydro dam that just so happens to have free camping – provided you can find a spot.

6pm:  Figuring that finding a site should be a snap since it was a Thursday, I loaded up the bike, turned on the GPS and GoPro and headed out towards Hope.  I caught the tail end of rush hour traffic.  The tail roll as packed is quite uncomfortable.  Mental note to reconfigure so it’s more vertical and not digging into my back.  Getting to the base of Jones Lake was uneventful, with a stop in Sardis to gas up and pick up some snacks.

At the base of Jones Lake, I switched the GoPro into video mode and ride up the dirt road – in case I binned it, I’d have some video evidence of my shame.  With the sun setting, it was quite pretty the odd time I managed to look up.  But light was running out I had no recollection of how far I needed to go.  There was a brief thought about making it up there and not having any site to stay – but trying to come down that road in the dark quickly repressed that thought.  Next time, I won’t cut things so close.

It wasn’t so bad, aside from dodging a truck or two going the other way, I was able to find one of the camp sites.  Definitely got faster on the dirt as the ride went on – forcing myself to relax helped a lot.

 

Setting up camp took 25mins – same as my practice run on the front lawn.  Dinner consisted of instant noodles, bread and some pepperoni.  Cleaning up was a bit of a nuisance since I didn’t have any spare rags or paper towels.  Without a fire, there’s really not much for me to do.  Nothing to drink either – will need to pack some teabags or hot chocolate.  And without a jacket, I was quite cold – Time to tuck into the tent/sleeping bag early.

8am:  Decent night’s rest after all the cold.  Make coffee and tear down camp.  Not sure how long this took – quite a while.  Hands were cold and not quite thinking clearly.  Trying to improve the situation with the tail roll, I mounted it first.  Unfortunately, this makes it impossible to put on the panniers.  So back down it came and had to repack.

9:30am:  Head down the dirt road.  Sky is also starting to spit – I do not want to be tackling that road in the rain!  The Multi is starting to show it’s strengths.  ABS rocks! (But I’m still as bad as ever).  Going down took a few more minutes than going up, but had to pull over a few times to let things go past.

10-11:30am:  Putter back to Vancouver.  Slight sprinkling of rain.  Rather cold, heated grips were on – and the Zippo was still putting out some heat.  Quite nice on the highway.

11:15-11:30am:  Looking for parking in DT wasn’t much fun – even with the motorcycle specific parking, the ‘best’ spot closest to my destination was taken by a car.  Fortunately, I circled enough times to watch him get a ticket!

11:30-11:45am:  Attempt to pack down enough stuff to be able to walk away from the bike and not be too concerned about any valuables.   Had a nice chat with a bicycle courier who suggested I travel through Mexico to Baja – but to make sure I had an armed escort through Mexico City.  His friend was literally whacked in the back of the head while stopped at a light.  Fortunately, he was able to ride off.   I guess there’s a reason Beacon doesn’t cover me if I cross over the border to Mexico!

Gear changes:  Bring tissue paper, paper towels, regular towels, zip-lock baggies and something warmer.

Riding:  Need more practice on loose ground.  Relax and squeeze the tank!

Blogging:  Need to figure out what to do with video/pictures.   P10(a shot every 10s) doesn’t seem to be frequent enough.  Videos are very long and need to be edited/managed somehow.  Need to wait for GPS lock before taking pictures!

Trip Planning:  No Mexico!