Creme De La Creme

Sunday morning Spyder ran and Eagle followed

120 miles east from the Yellowstone NP north gate on US 212 and out the north east gate to experience the Beartooth Highway.  The Highway runs 68.7 miles of zig-zags and switchbacks from the ne gate through Wyoming and Montana to Red Lodge, MT, running 5000' up over Beartooth Pass in Wyoming at 10,947' and in Montana at 10,350' above sea level.

To access the Highway, we passed through the  beautiful Lamar Valley in east Yellowstone which is home to several large herds of bison, and the best place to catch a close view these awesome animals.

From there we started climbing.

In Cooke City we took a lunch break

before entering the Highway.  We went at our own pace, often pulling over to let faster traffic pass, and stopping whenever we wanted any pictures.

The higher we went the more smoke we encountered, blowing south from wildfires in Custer Gallatin National Forest in south central Montana.  The smoke wasn't detectable close up, but pockets of it hid vista views of mountain tops and deep valley views, and completely hid the sun.  In spite of the haze, Alpine meadows, sparkling lakes and year-round snow clinging to the mountain tops  and lots of curves and elevation changes make this one of the best rides for motorcyclists.

We caught a glimpse of the bear tooth peak--just above the right hand post, 

and shortly afterward started our descent.

Most of the smoke had blown away from this side of the Absaroka Mountains (part of the Rocky Mountains), but there was still a haze

until we reached Red Lodge, MT, 5 hours and 120 miles after we started.  Here we got settled into our hotel room before driving downtown for supper and a short walk before heading back to our room for the night.

This morning Eagle flew in the lead as we retraced our ride.

The morning was beautiful and bright, the smoke blown away overnight for many miles.

We continued our mode of travel, taking our time and stopping whenever a vista view and a good pull off presented themselves,

including this of the bear tooth, the nearest notched peak, a bit hard to see in the smoke haze.

After reaching the crests in Montana and Wyoming, we headed back down.

One last rest stop we found a beautiful waterfall and cascade, 

then finally reentered Yellowstone's Lamar Valley and found several bison 

and even a herd of pronghorn right by the road.

We arrived home about 4, unpacked the bikes, and took Brock and Leola's truck to find a pizza place in downtown Gardiner.  The rest of the afternoon we packed up our houses for our 3 day trip to our next stop at Evergreen Coho SKP RV Park  Chimacum, WA.  Brock and Leola and we will be making this trip separately, meeting up with us again at the Escapee park.  Meantime, the the next few blogs will feature our further explorations of Yellowstone, and bring us up to date.

Moving day 1 tomorrow,

Louise and Duane

PS  Short Ride was the blog I prepared for Sunday, but forgot to post before we left for our overnight trip.