8-23-06

Blue dog makes a run for it….

(Nez Perce- Stanley Stomp)

I left camp on Friday the 11^th and made it as far as Billings. I left late and it was getting close to dark so I went up on the rim by the airport to look for a camp site. There were nice spots on that rim with a great view of the Magic City but the sign said ‘NO’ so I went out to the back of the airport where there were lots of fire fighting activity. I finally found a guy that said that it would be ok to camp and said to go over and camp where there were other tents. It was dark as I set up my camp and was surprised to find myself in the middle of a group of tents that the camp cooks were tenting in. They turned out to be nice looking women!!! Too bad none of them snuck into my little tent that night.

I took the old road over the pass from Whitehall to Butte. The road could use a little work. there was a surprising amount of traffic and it seemed most of it was motorcycle traffic. It was a nice ride as usual over the pass.

I camped the night at Lost Trail Hot Springs just down the pass from the Idaho

Border. In the morning I rode up the pass and waited for Keith, Micah and their friend John. There was a rest area up there and I was happy to find that there was a guy there that gave a demonstration of some of the things that the Lewis and Clark guys did. He was really good at making fire from flint and a steel.

There is a lot of water in Idaho and the roads follow along.

We saw a this fire as we got closer to Stanley where our group was to meet. There was a little road construction along the way but nothing serious.

It was really nice to get to the first Nez Perce camp. We pulled in and there were quite a few there that made it there early. This was a group of mostly BMW’s and all the bikes were serious dirt road ready bikes.

This bike is one  of the new ones from BMW. It is a HP2 and they cost a cool $20,000. They are fairly light and have somewhere around 100 horse power!!!

Keith checking his airpressure on his KLR while John points the way to Micah.

John’s Cavia which is a really nice fast bike powered by a Ducati engine. John is a computer specialist for the University system and is a serious motorcycle rider. He has great balance and is young and quick.

We went for a ride in the morning and hit the back roads to our new camp site. The Nez Perce is organized only in that you are supposed to ride with a partner and if you don’t show up for supper, you don’t get any. We camped in a different place every night but one where it was nice to leave our camp set up and just go for a ride.

Great mountain streams and some dust if you were not lead dog.

Lets see, this  one must have been taken by Eric. (John, Rex, Micah, Keith) This was an area where there had been a fire earlier.

I think this was Eric making some dust.

The mountain view were great up high.

Rest stop.

John has a really cool tattoo that I had to take a photo of.

There were lots of places to go…. Our camp was at Atlanta and one night at +8000 feet at the Trinity Lakes.

A R80GS but this one is a little yellow dog ridden by this gal. She has two of them and her husband has two R100GS’s. He has hotted these little dogs up with 1000cc cylinders. She can now keep up she said.

This turned out to be a popular stop for lunch. Food in these places is usually really good and this  one was no exception.

The roads were good but it was a little spooky in the fire damaged areas.

I forget this guys name but he was the first casualty on the event. He broke his collar bone.

Our camp group getting ready for a ride.

Dang dusty in spots.

The shutter on my camera was getting stuck from the dust.

A partial photo of Eric and his bike.

Micah fell down and whined uncontrollably. I made him a sling from my medical supplies but some how it got lost off his head and arm after only five minutes!! He whined so much he was finally driven off the mountain with his bike on a trailer down to Boise. His girl friend, feeling sorry for him after listing to him whine, came and picked him up in a pickup and put the bike in the back. (It was latter determined that he had really broken his clavicle in two places)

John checking out the fire lookout.

It was nice to hit the open places.

Lunch stop.

This is the high camp at +8000ft. on a nice little lake that Eric tried fishing.

Eric and John at the lookout at 9500 ft.

view from the lookout.

The road up and down was pretty good but you had to watch it.

Fishing regs.

On the way to the Stomp.

The Stomp was getting ready to go.

There were hot springs just down the river as well as hot showers and a pool all heated with hot springs water.

Keith was given this cool little tool to get the rear tire off the ground on his KLR so he could oil the chain easily. It was given to him by a guy that happened to have it with him. The guy made it for his wife’s bike.

This was a nice oiled dirt road.

We met up with Tommy and wife Allie on this ride. Tommy rides one of those new HP2 bikes. He has done a lot of work mounting gear on it as it doesn’t come with mounting brackets. 

We stopped at a really cool little dam that was cranking out some serious water.

At the place we stopped for lunch I found this sign. Litter????

nice clear water.

when I came back by the hot pools they were in use. There were more pools and it was nice to climb down and ease into one after a day on the dusty roads.

Geoff and his big purple dog. I met Geoff in Creel, Mexico last year on my way down to South America. He works for Sony in San Jose, California. He has made quite a few modifications to this bike and he takes good care of it. Geoff lived 12 years in Japan working for Sony and has done some bike touring in India and Syria among other places. It was fun to see him handle this big bike. There is a little squirrel blood in his veins and he can do some fancy maneuvers with ease.

This is a invention that Geoff made to his side stand on his R100GS/PD. This stand has been changed so that the side stand stay down unless it is kicked back up out of the way. By adding this piece of tire to the bottom, it ‘kicks’ itself up automatically if a person forgets to kick it back up. It is just a section of motorcycle tire. Geoff said it works great!!

common sight at the Stomp.

Russ, who I met in Creel also, has a couple of quarts of oil attached to the inside of his saddle bag along with two bottles of gas for his stove on the back.

Steak and baked potatoes was the menue for Saturday night.

After supper it was meeting time. There were something like 150 folks that showed up.

Mark Weeding came over from Miles City and met me at the Stomp. We took off Sunday morning and headed for home taking the scenic route.

Mark rides a Kawasaki road bike and it is rigged out with really nice red packs as well as he has a red Aerostich coat. I like that it shows up well in traffic. After darn near being killed by a driver that didn’t see me, I am appreciative of riders that can be seen, especially my friends.

A cool little three wheeler pulled into a store we stopped at.

All these river in this country are heavily used by floaters. We saw many trailers loaded with stacks of rafts and people all along the road watching them float by.

We stopped for something to eat and Mark ordered a Mediterranean meal of stewed lamb and rice. The owners are from Turkey and the food was excellent.

The manager of the restaurant was really nice to us and was thrilled to have her photo and info on her restaurant on the Internet. This is the Syringa Café on the Lolo Pass road (hwy 12) to Missoula, MT.

We hit a small hot spring on up the Lolo Pass road and camped there  for the night. It was about a half  mile walk into it and it was pitch black when we had to walk out. This is in an area of old growth timber and some of the old cedar trees must have  been near three feet in diameter.

 A small fire along the highway.

We stopped in at the BMW/Kawasaki dealer in Missoula where Mark located a nice new helmet. One of the store guys took my helmet apart and cleaned it, as it was not operating well after all that dust I rode though. It was really nice to see someone do it as it looked really complicated. It is, but now I think I can take it apart, I might have trouble getting it back together though…..

here is a half ton of Goldwing attached to the back of a motor home.

We made it to White Sulpher and got  a place to pitch our tents behind this place and hit  the hot water. Dang, I sure got clean after all these hot springs.

We stopped in Harlowton for a cup of coffee (Mark got a latte!!!). This is the type of electric train engines that traveled across the state. I remember them when I was a kid.

There was a stone factory across the street from the coffee shop. They cut rocks and make special stones for high quality rock work all over the country.

These rocks were cut and then tumbled in a big drum to make them look like natural stones. One of the guys gave me a brochure of the products but I forgot to get it from Mark when we split after getting back to Miles. There were photos of the stones in place and they sure did look great. I am sure they cost a fortune to be made. The guy showed us a work order that they have been working on for three months and are not done yet.

It was great to get back to some straight roads in eastern Montana. After riding those crooked roads for over a week, it was pleasant to look around and be able to see something other than the next curve ahead. It is dangerous to ride back there too, if you go off the road you will hit a tree. Out here you might get some grass in your spokes……

We stopped in Ingomar at the Jersey Lilly for a bowl of their famous beans before heading home.

I have not taken a photo of the marked map yet, but if I do, I will post it later here at the end like I did last trip.