On the road again

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Notice the lovely piles along the road.

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The next morning after leaving Dillon we stopped to check out Bannack, Montana.  Formerly the capitol city of the MT territory.  It has quite the story for a now ghost town.  Very interesting.

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After leaving Bannack we followed part of the Nez Perce Trail past Big Hole Battlefield and through Lost Trail Pass. 

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We followed the Bitterroot Valley up through Missoula and then ran downhill to the little town of Thompson Falls for the night.  Temperatures were running in the 100's and we considered jumping in the river the highway was following. Whew!  The 1200GS air temp. shows in this pic.

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The dam at Thompson Falls was built in the early 1900's and was creating power before they finished building it.  Early morning was the best temps. of the day!

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Downstream of the dam.

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We took a little road on the map, hwy 56, north by the Cabinet Mtns.  Fantastic ride through a beautiful valley and twisty road.  Highly recommend it.

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Crossed into Canada at Porthill and took a left at Creston up and over Kootenay Pass.  Another great road and mountain scenery.

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Hope no one has vertigo!

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One of the fun things about this road going toward Revelstoke is a free ferry trip across Upper Arrow Lake.  The highway just comes to an end at the edge of the lake and after a short wait we boarded the ferry to cross to the highway on the other side.  Bikes, cars, trucks, logging trucks, and all manner of vehicles just pile on ( with direction from the ferry workers) and away you go. Cool! Maybe it's because we don't see this kind of thing where we live that we are so amazed.

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Hope this thing floats!

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Ready to hit the road.  Talked to several other riders and got info on cool rides and things to see.  Not more than a mile up the road after the ferry we see our first sow and cub in BC.  First of many but with all the ferry traffic behind us we feel it prudent not to try to stop to take pictures. 

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The next morning we left Revelstoke, went through Kamloops, and ended the day in Williams Lake.  Too much traffic and asphalt. Yuck!  The mountains were nice.  That's one of the nice things about this part of BC, lots of mountainous country.

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The next day we headed for Chetwynd, BC.  North of Prince George we cross the continental divide.  Funny thing about the mountains getting this far north, the elevations are much lower than you would think.  We crossed a summit pass that was 5300 ft.  The mountain peak , Old Friend, was only 6133 ft. 

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Another thing BC is noted for is water.  Everywhere we went we heard, "It just stopped raining. We've had rain everyday for a month."