8-23-05

Rendezvous, I get a piece of tail, Mon-Dak’s, 

I left last Thursday for the Beartooth Rendezvous held just up the road from Red Lodge, MT. It is only a little  over 200 miles from my camp. The day started out cool and I went through about 20 miles of light rain on the way to Billings. I looked around Billings for a pair of boots and had some lunch and then rode out to the Rendezvous in the afternoon in a pretty good rain. When I got there the parking lots were already filling up with BMW’s of all types. When I got to the desk to register the gal asked if I wanted a cabin, the price was $15 for three nights. Well, I aint no wimp, but gee, five bucks a night to sleep inside out of reach of  the  bears and ??. You bet, I went for it as I figured I could always bail out and set up my tent if I didn’t like it. As it turned out, I had some really nice guys that were in my cabin and nobody snored or was in the least  bit rowdy. All of the travelers that came in that afternoon were well decked out in riding gear or rain gear. Quite a few went ahead and set up tents in the rain which had become an on and off affair.

In the morning and all day there were lots of people  wandering around looking at bikes and talking. There was just about every kind of BMW there but only one ‘old’ one which was a 1960 vintage. These folks came in from all over the country and I had two guys from Virginia and one from Louisiana in my cabin. It seemed that most of the riders had been here before and some several times.

I decided  to take a road trip and went over to see Fishtail and Nye. There is some really beautiful country back in those hills. This was a waterfall charging down the mountain.

I stopped to take a nap near this old baseball field that had grown up in sunflowers. The birds really liked hanging out on the screen and  there were birds flying out  to the sunflowers and back to this rest constantly. I wish I could have gotten a better photo of the field of solid flowers.

While I was on the road I ran into a guy from Minnesota who was just riding around like I was, so we rode along together.

We made a big loop and  on our way back we stopped at Cooney Lake where there were several boats out on the lake.

You might wonder what the white tubes he has on his bike are for. It turns out  that he is a fisherman as well as a biker and they carry his fishing poles when he goes fishing. He said he didn’t bring a pole with him this trip.

Friday night this band played. They were really good and I think I heard that one of the band members was related to one of the Beartooth Beemer members who put on this gathering.

On Saturday I met some guys from North Dakota who were heading out over Chief Joseph pass and on to the other side of the Beartooth Pass road. The Pass road was taken  out by a major mud slide this spring and they are working day and night to reopen the road this fall (hopefully). There were three of them (one had his son along so I guess that makes four) and they were nice enough to invite me along.

The weather  was perfect and the roads good.

We climbed over two passes and had only light traffic along the way. This was a nice stretch of road along the river.

We stopped at the ‘Top of  the world’ which is a small gas station and mostly souvenir shop. It is way up there, I forgot  to look at the elevation but would guess 10,000 feet +.

This is the crew I rode with. From the left is Tim and Nick Schmitz on a R100R. Nick is 16 years old and will be riding his  Granpa’s bike next year. He was a really nice kid and had all the energy of a 16 year old. Nick was wearing Tim’s old racing leathers and looked damn good in them. Tim can really make that R100R move. We all had a good time keeping up with him. 

The next is Gary Wunderlich on his R80GS/PD. This was a really beautiful well cared for bike. It was a R80GS and he has the PD kit for it.

Next  is Dave Wunderlich on his R100GS which was clean and well taken care of too.

And me. Yes it was cool up there. 

These guys were really fun to be with and  even though my ears weren’t good enough to hear all they said I got the drift of most of what they were saying.

We headed on up to the end of the road and I snapped this  photo. 

We are way up above timber line here. I told them I was going to be in the rear and would catch up with them back at the Top of  the World because I wanted to take a few photos.

These I hope will give you some idea of the area up on top.

The little  spire in the left upper of this photo is the tooth. I hadn’t realized that that is where this mountain range got it’s name. There is a little cloud  that moved in next to it as I was getting ready for this photo and makes it look like snow. It is a very sharp spire.

I bet those lakes are cold at over ten thousand  feet.
The road is switch back after switch back on the way down.

After I met up with them again we headed back to camp. I just  gotta love these Dakota boys. There was a discussion of road rules for  the way home and from what I understand they have different rules in North Dakota than the rest of the states. They just recently got  lines on the roads up there and from what I gather they think that  the dashed line in the center of the road is so the paint crew can find their way home. The solid yellow lines are reminders to be careful when you pass and the double yellow lines are a warning that ya better be real careful when you pass.

The road back was very fast, especially taking in to account the ‘new’ road rules.

There  was a little road work where they were removing the trees along the side of the road.

We made it back to the Rendezvous in late afternoon with plenty of time to spare before supper was served. The food  was good all  three nights and the Lions put on a breakfast feed in the mornings. They kept the cook shack open all the time with coffee and drinks and was a  favorite gathering spot for conversation.

It was still early morning when I snapped this license plate. I bet he has a nice ride home.

I headed out for camp fairly early and hope to come back again soon.

Oh yah, the piece of tail I got.

It was the first door prize awarded.

contact me

dezertk9<at>yahoo<dot>com.