On our way to Yellowstone, we stopped in Red Lodge Montana. We went there for one reason, to ride the famous Beartooth Pass. It has been named the number one motorcycle road in the United States by many organizations, including the American Motorcycle Association. It is a 68-mile stretch that starts in Custer National Forest and rises four thousand feet from Red Lodge to peak at 10,947. It takes 2 hours without stops due to all the low speed curves. From the overlook at Rock Creek we had spectacular views of the canyon, Hellroaring Plateau and the twisting road below. Beartooth Plateau is the tallest in the USA. We continued along highway 212 to the jagged Pilot Peak and Index Peak both above 11,000 feet. I think I read there were 82 switchbacks in all. The ride is described as "jaw-dropping, breathtaking, exhilarating, fantastic", and is considered a “technical” ride. It is one of those roads that has constant hairpin turns, on a narrow road, with a low guardrail along a sheer cliff. We rode to a spot called “Top of the World”, before turning around to do it again in the opposite direction. It was about 80 degrees in Red Lodge, and maybe 50 at the top. The lower sections were forested with wildflowers along the road, and the upper sections were mostly rock with some glacier patches and small ponds from the melt. There were definitely more motorcycles on the road than cars. We got rained on a bit, but were mostly very lucky. There was lightning and walls of rain we could see ahead for most of the return ride, but the rain moved away from us rather than us riding into it. The wet roads added another layer to the technical riding, but we managed just fine. It was certainly awesome.

Red Lodge was a quaint little tourist town, on the southernmost edge of Montana, with its proximity to the pass being the main attraction. It also boasts of being robbed by the Sundance Kid in 1897. We arrived seven days after the “partial remains” of a hiker killed by a grizzly bear had been found in Yellowstone. The trail they found him on was not near Red Lodge but it was not too far from Old Faithful. We were not hiking so we were not worried, but we went ahead and bought bear spray and a bell for the hiking planned for our next stop.

The drive to West Yellowstone was beautiful once we headed south from Bozeman and entered into the Gallatin National Forest. About 15 miles shy of our destination we had a blowout on one of the trailer tires. I heard it blow, but didn't know what it was. Bill didn’t hear anything, big surprise, but he did notice the flapping molding of the wheel well cover that was broken in the explosion and pieces of rubber popping off. The road was twisty and one lane in each direction with a very small shoulder. Fortunately within a few hundred yards there was a turn out on the other side of the road that Bill pulled into so we could get off the road. The tire was essentially gone but the rim wasn’t damaged. The trailer didn’t get off so lucky. The siding, and molding around the wheel well were pretty banged up as was the bottom of the slide-out.

We were very lucky the other tire on that side didn’t blow considering how much weight it was supporting. We were also very lucky that we had enough cell phone coverage to call for roadside assistance, or we would have had to unhitch and leave the trailer in the forest. We had a spare, but no hydraulic jack to lift our 19,000-pound trailer. After calling for help, we got out our lawn chairs and I enjoyed a couple of beers while we played games on our iPads. Ninety minutes later, we were on our way again. When we got set up, Bill did some tire research and discovered mixed reviews of the OEM tires supplied with our trailer. Some people have gotten 15,000 miles on them and others have had problems like we did around 7500 miles. Bill decided to buy a Tire Pressure Monitoring System as lots of other RV’ers swear by them although we’re pretty sure we didn’t have a pressure or temperature problem. The next problem was replacing the tire. We had to drive 2 hours back to Bozeman the next day to get a new tire and chose to get a Michelin instead of another “China Bomb” as some people referred to our OEM Westlake tires.

Saturday morning we headed into Yellowstone and our first stop was of course Old Faithful. All along the road in the park were geysers and hot springs spewing steam. In some places you could see a dozen at once. As we waited for Old Faithful to erupt, she would do mini eruptions making everyone think it was starting. We would all be tricked and start snapping pictures and running video. I probably had ten videos by the time the big one started. It was impressive as it shot more than 100’ into the air. There was a boardwalk around it, where you could see brilliant blue pools of boiling water and golden streams of sediment from the water flows. The colors were stunning.

We hiked up to an overlook and Bill spotted a yellow-bellied marmot that sat very still allowing us to get pretty close for pictures. There are warnings everywhere about how dangerous the bears, wolves, bison, elk and moose are. It is actually illegal to get closer than 100 yards to a bear or a wolf. As luck would have it, a few minutes after spotting the marmot, Bill spotted what we thought was a wolf. I’m sure you can guess what Bill did… he got as close as he could to take pictures. I, of course, was saying “your not supposed to get that close”, but I too wanted pictures so I followed but made sure he was closest so he would be the one to get attacked (what she forgets is I can run faster than she can so she was still at more risk). It turns out it was a coyote, but still a great sighting.

Yellowstone is over 2.2 million acres (larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined) with 900 miles of trails, bordered by Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. We crossed state lines at least a dozen times and I gave up on trying to figure out what state we were in. Needless to say we barely touched the surface. We stopped at various geysers (the Grand Prismatic Spring was probably one of the most impressive. It is 200+ feet across and dumps almost 500 gallons per minute of 160 degree water into the Firehole River) and hiked to Mystic Falls (70’ high) and Fairy Falls (200’ high), both very pretty. We didn’t see any animals except squirrels and chipmunks on our hikes, but we did see lots of elk along the road as well as Canada geese in the streams. The park was packed with tourists and one morning we didn’t get started early enough and had to wait in line about 20 minutes just to get through the park gates.

For our motorcycle ride, we rode to Mammoth Hot Springs and stopped just past it in Gardiner for lunch at the Yellowstone Grill. While eating the best burrito I’ve ever had, their Chicken and Queso Burrito, followed by a fantastic Cinnamon Roll for dessert, a woman backed her SUV into Bill’s bike. Fortunately some people dining on the patio hollered at her to stop, so she only scratched his front fender rather than knocking his bike over, which would have then knocked mine over too. Bill was obviously ****** but he handled it pretty calmly, taking her information so he could follow up after we see what it will cost to touch up his custom paint job. Turns out she is a visiting tourist from London so let’s hope she will pay for repairs. On the ride back, we rode over the mountains along the Grand Loop Road. It was a very nice ride with better scenery than the Beartooth pass but none of the fun and sharp turns. Just outside Norris we passed a huge bison trotting down the shoulder of the narrow road. We were only about 5 feet from him when we went by. Good thing he didn’t want to cross the road as I don’t think my 500 lb bike would have done very well against his 2000 lbs.

Yellowstone is amazing! It was perfect weather for riding and hiking with highs in the mid seventies, but it dropped below forty degrees at night. If this is mid-summer weather, I don’t want to be here in the winter. It has such beautiful scenery and wildlife, and so many interesting geological formations (Yellowstone has almost 60% of the world’s geysers and it has 150 of them within 1 sq mile). I’m so grateful that I am finally getting to see some of this great country. Next stop: Jackson Hole and the Grand Teton National Park.