Sunday 7/14/13
Various pictures from the day:
Various pictures from the day:
Joe and I had about 300 miles planned on ridewithgps.org. Having stayed in one place for so long our shit was quite disorganized and we didn't end up hitting the road until noonish. We had to stop at rusty's to look for the missing glasses and pickup a battery pack I'd left there. I canvased rusty's house for the glasses but found nothing. It's a real bummer because those glasses just made my day better when I put them on. Hopefully someone has found them and is enjoying them. Joe realized he had forgotten his insulin back in Bozeman so we headed back there. Despite Bartons best attempts (offering us a beer) we left and finally got on the road for real.
About an hour into the ride we came upon our first no trespassing gate. It was an old railroad line that had been bought and closed. When this happens both joe and I will scan our gps and come up with (hopefully) an alternative route to backtracking. We found one that went north east and continued towards it. The road was this beautiful old railroad track with tunnels and 200 foot high bridges.
Here is a photo:
After taking this picture I continued, Joe who was following gave me a minute so he wouldn't be riding in a dust cloud. As he waited a pickup truck came flying up behind him with the horn ablaze, skidded to a stop and almost knocked him off the road. The guy got out shouting at him. I had no knowledge of this and continued another 5 or ten minutes. After going through a second tunnel and entering a beautiful valley via a 200 foot wooden bridge, i stopped and waited for him. No joe, then I saw a pickup truck. I turned to face it sensing something was wrong. He pulled up and I asked him how he was doing. He said not good and that I needed to learn to read. I inquired why and he said that there was a big sign saying private road. I told him the only signs I had seen had said no hunting and I was unware that the road was private. He said your buddies waiting back at the first tunnel, you better go join him. I headed back and met up with Joe, a guy was waiting with Joe and told us we were lucky the rancher hadn't called the sheriff. We headed out and detoured and 50 miles to get around all these ranches. It put a real cloud over our day. We weren't ripping along, we were polite and just passing through yet this guy had felt the need to be a total asshole. Also when we backtracked there was a board on the side of the road, faded to the point of being completely blank saying private road. It would have been impossible to tell had we not gotten off and inspected it. When I'm king, any road you haven't built yourself will be public. Rich pretentious fucks.
We pulled into Boulder MT, around 8 oclock. Were recommended to go to the Windsor by a local and headed there. It's right on Main street. The bartender was beautiful and joe fell a little in love. We ordered 26 dollar Ribeyes and dug in. Joe beat my ass at pool a couple times and we headed to a free place to camp the bartender had recommended.
Here is our route:
Here is our route:
Monday 7/15/13
We packed up quick cause neither of us had used our tents and grabbed breakfast and bearspray, for use on both grizzleys and asshole ranchers.
We headed for Missoula, the riding was great and again ridewithgps sent us through some questionable area's. One road went right in front of someones house and they had vicouis corgies outside that attacked my tires. I had to clutch the whole way through to avoid hitting the little bastards. They did they job well though and as soon as we passed the property line returned to their shaded beds. Thank god they weren't pit bulls.
After passing through this property we came to a bunch of national forest, which in my opinion is the best spot to dual sport, you have tons of fireroads and trails and its public land and clearly posted. We came on 3 guys two on beemers and one a KLR they had ridden some gnarly shit, especially considering two were 68 and one was 62. I doupt I'll make it that old let alone be riding the gnar. Who knows?
I contacted a honeybadger hookup from Missoula, we played a little phone tag but he said he could put us up despite having a pretty awful day. He had just had surgery removing a bunch of pins from his had, after not being out of surgery for more then an our his parents called him to tell him they were getting divorced. Classy. Needless to say his day was kind of rough. Keep your head up Dylan. He was nice enough to us and offered up some tubes, we searched for them but couldn't find em. So insteaded headed to the river with a sixpack. Almost as good, plus the water looked nasty.
We got back to Dylan and he was out for the night, with a day like that who can blame him? Joe and I eager to hit the town went out with his roommate Elen and her friend Sam, we did a little bar hoping and before you know it were all feeling pretty good, Elen tried to teach me a couple swing moves but my timing was off.
Elen and Joe headed back and Sam and I stayed out. The night quickly degraded into at risk behaviors like seeing who could stand closer to a moving train (not my idea) and other nefarious activities.
Here is our route:
We headed for Missoula, the riding was great and again ridewithgps sent us through some questionable area's. One road went right in front of someones house and they had vicouis corgies outside that attacked my tires. I had to clutch the whole way through to avoid hitting the little bastards. They did they job well though and as soon as we passed the property line returned to their shaded beds. Thank god they weren't pit bulls.
After passing through this property we came to a bunch of national forest, which in my opinion is the best spot to dual sport, you have tons of fireroads and trails and its public land and clearly posted. We came on 3 guys two on beemers and one a KLR they had ridden some gnarly shit, especially considering two were 68 and one was 62. I doupt I'll make it that old let alone be riding the gnar. Who knows?
I contacted a honeybadger hookup from Missoula, we played a little phone tag but he said he could put us up despite having a pretty awful day. He had just had surgery removing a bunch of pins from his had, after not being out of surgery for more then an our his parents called him to tell him they were getting divorced. Classy. Needless to say his day was kind of rough. Keep your head up Dylan. He was nice enough to us and offered up some tubes, we searched for them but couldn't find em. So insteaded headed to the river with a sixpack. Almost as good, plus the water looked nasty.
We got back to Dylan and he was out for the night, with a day like that who can blame him? Joe and I eager to hit the town went out with his roommate Elen and her friend Sam, we did a little bar hoping and before you know it were all feeling pretty good, Elen tried to teach me a couple swing moves but my timing was off.
Elen and Joe headed back and Sam and I stayed out. The night quickly degraded into at risk behaviors like seeing who could stand closer to a moving train (not my idea) and other nefarious activities.
Here is our route:
Tuesday 7/16/13
Sam had offered that Joe and I go tubing with her and a friend on Wednesday, I having now tried to go tubing 4 times with zero success was keen to experience this famed Montana pastime. I decided to stay, and Joe decided to head up to Fernie.
Sam is researching Blue birds, not endangered in the least this is apparently a hobbie of a some folks as part of a larger understand of evolutionary biology. Who knew? I accompanied her on a walk where we checked a couple bird boxes.
After the birding we stopped and got burritoes, they seemed small so I ordered two. After fulling loading them I realized they were in fact quite big and was only able to just finish the one. Crazy I know, I must be getting old. Anyway I decided to give the second to a homeless person, we walked towards town and were appraoched by Rainbow Child Famous Shamous, he asked us for money for beer, I gave him the burrito. He was stoked.
Sam dropped me off to grab my bike and gear. She had some errands to run and I needed to write the blog for boseman. We agreed to link up in a few hours.
I wrote the blog, got dinner and still hadn't heard from her. I went down to the park where I ran into Shamus and he told me the burrito fed thirteen people, he'd counted the bites. Around 7 ocklock I got a text from Sam, she was going to have to cancel. It looked like a gnarly storm was rolling and I needed to find a place to sleep. I hit the highway. I needed to clear my head and find a camp ground. I kept passing camp grounds but it didn't feel right. Finally, It was about 9 30 and getting dark. I pulled into a rest stop and low and behold. KTM factory team 18 wheeler. No. Fucking.Shit.
The team wasn't there - they fly from race to race, but the driver was and we talked for about 45 minutes. He told me I should stop in at the headquarters in Cali and see what was up. He thought they'd probably "help me out" he also gave me some of the Teams racing stickers. Maybe someday KTM will have an adventure team racing sticker with my name on it. Here's to hoping.
Photo's of of the truck + me being as unphotogenic as ever.
I didn't like the camp ground and continued on, it was dark and there was a fire on the right hand side of the road. Here are a couple pictures:
I arrived in a little town called St Regis. They had a couple camp sites but they were both closed. I went into a bar and sat town, a handful of locals were there and a couple from Spokane. Apparently Spokane is getting to be quite rough. Over a couple I talked to the bartender and after a couple beers he offered up a small tract of land he owned right in town for me to sleep on. It had running water and I was welcome to it. I headed over and crashed out.
Wednesday 7/17/13
I woke up and packed up and planned my route to Libby.
The riding was epic, fire roads with these massive waterbar rollers.
It was all national forest so no worries of trespassing.
About halfway through the day I came upon this:
Then this:
Panoramics from the three corners:
The bucketlist just grew by one.
I arrived in Libby and found a great little campsite right on main street. Montana was starting to feel like New Hampshire, at least Libby did. Strip malls, with slightly bigger rolling hills. The main difference are the trees. Well that and the accents. I started seeing signs for scraping cars and firewood. The campground was cool, I cooked up a red sauce dinner and hit the hay.
Here is my route:
Thursday 7/18/13
The prevision day my bag had come lose and I'd lost a cable that connected my gps to my computer and ruined the one for my camera. The one for the gps was easily replaced at radio shack but the on for the camera is proprietary and impossible to find. I have to ordered it offline. Fucking proprietary bullshit. I fail to understand why they can't use a micro or mini usb like the rest of world. Or even a firewire for chrissakes. It's retarded. Assholes. Anyway now I can't charge my shit. Luckily i can remove the sd card and take them images off.
The lady at radio shack was super helpful.
Another epic day of riding. I'm getting in the hang of planning routes. Stay in the national forest and make sure you take a main road in. The problem is alot of the roads going in and out of the national forest pass over private land. So dickhead land owners gate them making it tough to get in the public lands. They are essentially extending their back yards. Total garbage.
The riding was mostly two rough took track with the occasional dirt road. Then I came upon this random tarmac twisty that was a tun of fun. Here are so more pictures. Right near the border I ran into border control, they were hiding out behind a truck and trailer. I wonder what they had in the trailer. They asked me a bunch of questions but were super nice and didnt ask me for anyway paper work. I guess they were waiting for some unsuspecting drug runners or something...
I dipped out of the forest into idaho to cross the border. Again they searched all my shit. Once i crossed the boarder I came into this big valley, it was like pulling into the mediterrean, hot , and big farms growing cherries and grapes. It was so wierd. A micro climate for sure. I drove past this farm stand with this super cute girl running it. Our eyes locked and I continued, I almost turned around but didn't. Probably should have. Back up into the moutains I went, British Columbia is like Montana's badder older brother. I already like it better, a little wetter, much bigger and the people have a more friendly vibe. Nothing against Montana, the folks I met were great, it just rains a little more here in BC.
Once in the BC mountains there were these longs climbs where I stood up and kept it pinned in third gear for 30 minutes at a time. Those big roller water bars returned the the roads where just rough enough to make you pick your line. Adventure riding heaven.
Pictures:
I pulled into Nelson. Nelson has a city campground that is right in the thick of it. 20 bucks a nite but you get wifi, a bench, free hot showers and laundry for 2 bucks. Slamming deal. Plus you can put two small tents in one site and they will give you a deal. Make sure you call in advance though because they book up fast. I was lucky enough to get a site. I set up and cooked the second half of the red sauce tortellini meal. Little trick I figured out, a can of good spicy salsa plus shitty red sauce = dank spicy red sauce. Did some laundry and walked around town. EVERY SINGLE PERSON I walked by smiled and said hello. That's what I'm looking for. That's what I like. I like BC, and I like Nelson.
Here is my route:
Friday 7/19/13
Today has been uneventful, I secured Joe and I camping at the Nelson Campground, ate a good breakfast at Full Circle Cafe and ran some errands and wrote this post. I'm excited for the Nelson nightlife. I need a haircut....
Thats all for now, we'll probably hit the road tomorrow.
Sam is researching Blue birds, not endangered in the least this is apparently a hobbie of a some folks as part of a larger understand of evolutionary biology. Who knew? I accompanied her on a walk where we checked a couple bird boxes.
After the birding we stopped and got burritoes, they seemed small so I ordered two. After fulling loading them I realized they were in fact quite big and was only able to just finish the one. Crazy I know, I must be getting old. Anyway I decided to give the second to a homeless person, we walked towards town and were appraoched by Rainbow Child Famous Shamous, he asked us for money for beer, I gave him the burrito. He was stoked.
Sam dropped me off to grab my bike and gear. She had some errands to run and I needed to write the blog for boseman. We agreed to link up in a few hours.
I wrote the blog, got dinner and still hadn't heard from her. I went down to the park where I ran into Shamus and he told me the burrito fed thirteen people, he'd counted the bites. Around 7 ocklock I got a text from Sam, she was going to have to cancel. It looked like a gnarly storm was rolling and I needed to find a place to sleep. I hit the highway. I needed to clear my head and find a camp ground. I kept passing camp grounds but it didn't feel right. Finally, It was about 9 30 and getting dark. I pulled into a rest stop and low and behold. KTM factory team 18 wheeler. No. Fucking.Shit.
The team wasn't there - they fly from race to race, but the driver was and we talked for about 45 minutes. He told me I should stop in at the headquarters in Cali and see what was up. He thought they'd probably "help me out" he also gave me some of the Teams racing stickers. Maybe someday KTM will have an adventure team racing sticker with my name on it. Here's to hoping.
Photo's of of the truck + me being as unphotogenic as ever.
I didn't like the camp ground and continued on, it was dark and there was a fire on the right hand side of the road. Here are a couple pictures:
I arrived in a little town called St Regis. They had a couple camp sites but they were both closed. I went into a bar and sat town, a handful of locals were there and a couple from Spokane. Apparently Spokane is getting to be quite rough. Over a couple I talked to the bartender and after a couple beers he offered up a small tract of land he owned right in town for me to sleep on. It had running water and I was welcome to it. I headed over and crashed out.
Wednesday 7/17/13
I woke up and packed up and planned my route to Libby.
The riding was epic, fire roads with these massive waterbar rollers.
It was all national forest so no worries of trespassing.
About halfway through the day I came upon this:
Then this:
Panoramics from the three corners:
The bucketlist just grew by one.
I arrived in Libby and found a great little campsite right on main street. Montana was starting to feel like New Hampshire, at least Libby did. Strip malls, with slightly bigger rolling hills. The main difference are the trees. Well that and the accents. I started seeing signs for scraping cars and firewood. The campground was cool, I cooked up a red sauce dinner and hit the hay.
Here is my route:
Thursday 7/18/13
The prevision day my bag had come lose and I'd lost a cable that connected my gps to my computer and ruined the one for my camera. The one for the gps was easily replaced at radio shack but the on for the camera is proprietary and impossible to find. I have to ordered it offline. Fucking proprietary bullshit. I fail to understand why they can't use a micro or mini usb like the rest of world. Or even a firewire for chrissakes. It's retarded. Assholes. Anyway now I can't charge my shit. Luckily i can remove the sd card and take them images off.
The lady at radio shack was super helpful.
Another epic day of riding. I'm getting in the hang of planning routes. Stay in the national forest and make sure you take a main road in. The problem is alot of the roads going in and out of the national forest pass over private land. So dickhead land owners gate them making it tough to get in the public lands. They are essentially extending their back yards. Total garbage.
The riding was mostly two rough took track with the occasional dirt road. Then I came upon this random tarmac twisty that was a tun of fun. Here are so more pictures. Right near the border I ran into border control, they were hiding out behind a truck and trailer. I wonder what they had in the trailer. They asked me a bunch of questions but were super nice and didnt ask me for anyway paper work. I guess they were waiting for some unsuspecting drug runners or something...
I dipped out of the forest into idaho to cross the border. Again they searched all my shit. Once i crossed the boarder I came into this big valley, it was like pulling into the mediterrean, hot , and big farms growing cherries and grapes. It was so wierd. A micro climate for sure. I drove past this farm stand with this super cute girl running it. Our eyes locked and I continued, I almost turned around but didn't. Probably should have. Back up into the moutains I went, British Columbia is like Montana's badder older brother. I already like it better, a little wetter, much bigger and the people have a more friendly vibe. Nothing against Montana, the folks I met were great, it just rains a little more here in BC.
Once in the BC mountains there were these longs climbs where I stood up and kept it pinned in third gear for 30 minutes at a time. Those big roller water bars returned the the roads where just rough enough to make you pick your line. Adventure riding heaven.
Pictures:
I pulled into Nelson. Nelson has a city campground that is right in the thick of it. 20 bucks a nite but you get wifi, a bench, free hot showers and laundry for 2 bucks. Slamming deal. Plus you can put two small tents in one site and they will give you a deal. Make sure you call in advance though because they book up fast. I was lucky enough to get a site. I set up and cooked the second half of the red sauce tortellini meal. Little trick I figured out, a can of good spicy salsa plus shitty red sauce = dank spicy red sauce. Did some laundry and walked around town. EVERY SINGLE PERSON I walked by smiled and said hello. That's what I'm looking for. That's what I like. I like BC, and I like Nelson.
Here is my route:
Friday 7/19/13
Today has been uneventful, I secured Joe and I camping at the Nelson Campground, ate a good breakfast at Full Circle Cafe and ran some errands and wrote this post. I'm excited for the Nelson nightlife. I need a haircut....
Thats all for now, we'll probably hit the road tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment