Day Eight - Helena to Red Lodge, Montana

We made it through entire day today without it raining on us; almost. After leaving Helena, Charlie and I headed south and entered the West Gate of Yellowstone in Idaho.

To begin the ride there were a few sprinkles but not enough to get us wet, but the temperature was in the 40's and at times uncomfortable. We finally adjusted our clothes to the weather and did o.k. Along the way we saw antelope just on the outskirts of Ennis, Montana. Turns out today is opening season on antelope; it's my guess they move into town for protection.

In Yellowstone we were in and out of Wyoming and Montana as we rode through the park to reach the East Gate and the little burg of Cooke City. The park is beautiful, but the number of people kind of take the edge off a little. For example, soon after entering (which was free, by the way) traffic came to a standstill. Cars were parked all over and blocking the road. Turns out an elk was taking a drink in the Madison River. On another occasion we came around a bend and there were people all over blocking the road to see a grizzly that wandered out in a meadow. The bison were common enough that there were cars stopped, but they didn't block traffic.

Through the East Gate is the little "town" of Cooke City. We stopped for gas but wanted to run Route 212 to Red Lodge. The road is incredible (twistly after twisty), but broken up with road work. Over Beartooth Pass (almost 11000 feet in altitude) there was over a 5 mile section that was hard packed dirt and stone which is either oiled or watered to keep the dust down. We were looking down on ice and snow. In that it wasn't melting my guess is the temperature was below freezing. There were very few guard rails, narrow lanes and plenty of really tight switchbacks. After cresting the summit and heading down toward Red Lodge you could look down and see your road switching back 4 or 5 times while it wound down the moutain.

We're spending the night in Red Lodge and will strike out for Sturgis in the morning. The weather was just on TV and they're saying we're stuck in the same weather pattern because of the jet stream which means questionable weather all the way into next week.

Enough for now... may be tomorrow.