Heart of the West loop

[Bogus Jim]

I'd planned to ride the entire Continental Divide this fall with my brother, but he dropped at the last minute due to injuries. This is the second time we've planned to do that ride and had to cancel... bummer.

One of the problems with riding the entire Divide is getting to the start point and then riding home from the end point. From Rapid City, that is almost 2,000 miles of slab, in addition to the 2,700 miles of the CDR itself. I decided to ride the Heart of the West route instead... this route is also about 2,700-2,800 miles total, but it's a loop and you can jump on the loop at Rawlins WY, which is not that far from RC. That greatly reduces the transit miles at the start and end of the trip.

The Heart of the West loop covers WY, CO, UT, NV, ID, and MT. This map from the original ride report on ADV rider gives you a general idea of the territory covered.




Day 1, left Rapid City and headed towards Rawlins, leaving town via Bogus Jim Road, of course. It was nice of those folks to name a road after me but I am not crazy about the "Bogus" part of it. South of Newcastle, I ran into the first of many problems on this trip... my favorite dirt road "out of town" is now fenced and private. Haven't ridden it in 4 years, so I don't know when it was fenced, but I had to detour all the way to Edgemont.

West of Edgemont, back on the dirt, ran into problem #2. I wanted to try a different route to Douglas. It was different all right... 10 miles of the worst silt I've ever seen in Wyoming. 9-12 inches deep, I don't think I would've made it out of there without knobby tires. Stupidest route I've ever created, that's all I'm going to say about that. Reached Douglas WY about 8 pm, too tired to continue to Rawlins. Finished with 293 miles.

Day 2, motored to Rawlins and jumped on my official start of the Heart of the West loop. It started to drizzle as I left town, and within 20 miles it was a downpour. There was another problem... my clutch hand was toasty warm, thanks to the heated grips, but my throttle hand was freezing. I decided to go back to town, get a hotel, and hope that the rain would break and tomorrow would be better. In the hotel parking lot, I investigated the heated grip issue and found that a connector pin had pulled out of the connector housing. Pushed it back in with a needle nose and now both grips were putting out heat. 10 minutes after fixing the wiring, it started to hail. Finished with 210 miles.

Day 3, sun was out but things were still muddy. Made it about 30 miles, then ran into a mud pit that was more than I wanted to tackle alone. Backtracked about 10 miles and found a better but still muddy detour, headed towards Riverside WY. A local in a pickup truck flagged me down and said "you're gonna have fun in this next section". Great, I thought. Thanks for the warning. It was a mile-long section of ruts from hell, but at least the bottom was hard so I didn't have to worry about getting stuck.

Headed south from Riverside towards Hog Park Reservoir. It got drier the further south I went, a welcome relief. This is in the Medicine Bow National Forest, looking west.




Stopped in Meeker CO for the night. There's an excellent Mexican restaurant in Meeker, surprising for a small town, but you never know what you'll find in small towns. I believe it's called the Mexican House, but don't worry, it's the only Mexican restaurant in town, so you can't pick the wrong one. Finished with 359 miles, the trail conditions were good today.

Day 4, more mud. Stopped in Rangely CO for gas and headed towards Dinosaur National Monument. I was riding on a muddy trail when I came over a hill and hit some gumbo. I've never seen the soil change that quickly, within about 20 feet it changed from greasy hardpack to clay / gumbo. The front fender plugged and locked the front wheel, and the Tiger flopped to the ground. I got the bike turned around and then tried to ride back out of the gumbo. The procedure was, ride 20 feet, stop, put a flat rock underneath the kickstand, dig the mud out of the front fender with a tire iron, then ride another 20 feet and repeat. In hindsight, would've been quicker to remove the front fender temporarily.

I tried two other dirt routes into Dinosaur, but in the end, I gave up and took slab into the park. Stopped in Vernal UT for the night. It rained hard that night, the tent almost blew over during the night, and the camp site had standing water the next morning. I figured this pretty much ended the riding in eastern Utah for a few days, so I decided to bail on the Utah section of the loop. Finished with 220 miles.

Day 5, detoured and rode up the east side of Flaming Gorge Reservoir on a dirt road called... Flaming Gorge. It was a nice dual sport road and only slightly muddy. Back on the Heart of the West loop, I left Kemmerer WY and headed towards Alpine Junction on forest roads. The ride was beautiful, but after 70 miles, ran into another impassable mud pit. And of course, it had started raining again, so I wanted to get out of there before getting trapped. Backtracked about 60 miles. Stopped in Kemmerer WY for the night. Rained all night. Finished with 345 miles.

Day 6, waited in Kemmerer for a break in the rain. I was considering aborting the trip at this point, but I decided to try one more detour to get onto the Idaho / Montana part of the loop. The Weather Channel seemed to indicate that part of the country was not currently raining.

I stayed at the Fairview Inn in Kemmerer. The owner is from Hawaii and he's a character. He told me, "the view from the hotel is not a great view, but it's a fair view." Thus the name, Fairview Inn. Reasonable rate at $49.

Day 7. Things were much drier as I headed north towards Idaho. I'm glad I didn't quit because the ID / MT section was the best, imo. Here's a view on the forest road from Alpine Junction to Idaho Falls.




Riding into Idaho Falls was a bit of a "culture shock" after just riding through a national forest. Cars and traffic every where. I was in a hurry to get out of there so stopped at the first place I saw to eat. It was a locally owned Mexican fast food joint. Hands down, worst Mexican food I've ever had. Rice tasted like baking powder, refried beans were a brown liquid, taco shells were soaked in grease for 24 hours and then fried with a propane torch. Something resembling beef was in the tacos. Might have been rat for all I know.

Left Idaho Falls and headed towards the mountains in Montana... life was good again.




Probably the most remote area that I rode on this trip was Bannack Pass in Montana. Miles and miles and I didn't see a single person out there. This area recently had heavy rain but it was drying out quickly so the riding was not bad.




Back in civilization, still heading north in Montana. You can see rain on the right side of this photo. I managed to miss that rain shower, but that view of the horizon was a familiar sight on this trip.




I camped in Bannack State Park for the night. It's a pretty camp site, with a stream running through camp. Also a few deer that did not mind human company. Hmmm... fresh deer meat sounded good but I settled for a Hawk Vittles meal... the foil warming pouch is leaning against my rear tire.




Another photo of the deer sausage... I mean, of the deer.




Big thumbs up for the Hawk Vittles camp food. I brought the instant oatmeal and packer's potatoes for breakfast, and beef stew and Moroccan stew for supper. Bacon baked beans is also good but plan on fumigating the tent and sleeping bag if you eat that for supper.

Finished Day 7 with 387 miles. Next morning, temps were in the lower 30's... chilly.

Day 8, fueled up in Dillon MT and jumped on Blacktail Road. I think this is part of the CDR... in any case, it's one of the worst washboard / pot hole roads I've ever ridden, and a long road too. Two of my front fender mounting bolts rattled out, and I had to fasten the fender back on with zip ties and electrical tape. The road was muddy and I found myself riding pretty slowly in a few places.

The Gravelly Range in Montana is supposed to be one of the highlights on the Heart of the West loop. I had to ride through 10 miles of pretty bad mud to get there. I considered turning around at one point, but I'm glad I kept going. Probably one of the most beautiful loops I've ever ridden. The west side of the loop follows a fly-fishing creek (Ruby River) and the east side of the loop ascends to a high mountain meadow plain. Here's a photo just after I had started the climb up to the meadow. The trail that climbs to the meadow is visible in the center of the photo. I didn't take a lot of photos on this trip but this one is my favorite.




Rode to Ashton ID (over more severe washboard roads) and finished Day 8 with 262 miles.

Day 9, headed east to Teton National Park. There was a nice view of the Teton peaks on the horizon. It was a bit hazy out this morning so this photo was the best I could do.




I didn't take any photos in the Tetons... it was Labor Day weekend so the Park was full to the brim with people. Headed towards Dubois WY and rode the Buffalo Valley Road.




Buffalo Valley is a narrow two lane paved road. It's pretty... here's a better shot of the pavement.




Headed over Union Pass towards Pinedale. Guess what... it started raining again, hard. I've been over Union Pass twice now, and this time was not as much fun as the first. It is a beautiful place though... when it's not pouring rain.

Stopped in Pinedale for the night and had a steak and a few brews at the Wind River Brewing Company. The steak was good, the beers were better. Finished with 200 miles. Guess what... it rained again that night in Pinedale.

Day 10... I briefly considered heading over to Utah to finish the entire loop. It would be another 4 days of dirt. But if I got rained out in Utah, I would be a long ways from home, so I decided to call it good and slabbed it back to RC. Of course... it rained all the way from Casper to Rapid City. 570 miles for the day, all pavement.

It was a fun trip, would've been a lot more fun without the rain and mud though.

Here's one more photo... I'm just posting this to make Wacked jealous. A dead sexy Tiger 800 XC just after riding Bannack Pass. Come on Brad you know you want one.

[jacin theis]

I love your ride reports. Thanks for sharing. This is a ride I want to do when time allows.

[BCB1080]

Thanks for the RR. I'd like to get over Union Pass before winter comes.

[Hank]

Thanks for the great report.   I'd love to see more pictures of the mud and crappy roads, but I'm guessing you were to focused on getting through it to stop much for pictures.     Sorry you had so much mud too!   I'm pretty sure I'd have bailed much earlier...

[Bogus Jim]

I wish I had taken some pictures of the mud... I would've been better off taking the WRR but the Tiger is the new toy this year so had to ride that.

Fortunately a lot of muddy sections had a hard bottom with an inch or two of greasy mud on top, so if you stood on the pegs and went slow and didn't catch a rut, you could get through without incident. I think I dropped the bike a total of 4 times, once in the silt and 3 times in gumbo. All low-speed drops, so no damage to me or the bike.

[greatbuffalo]

Thanks Jim, I was hoping for some "stuck" pictures  .

Some of those places look a bit familiar.

[sleddog]

I camped in Bannack State Park for the night. It's a pretty camp site, with a stream running through camp. Also a few deer that did not mind human company. Hmmm... fresh deer meat sounded good but I settled for a Hawk Vittles meal... the foil warming pouch is leaning against my rear tire.

I camped in that exact spot when I rode the CDR! And, I rode in there a couple weeks ago on my way to British Columbia. Decided it was too early to quit for the day so continued on West.

Sleddog

[Bogus Jim]

I camped in that exact spot when I rode the CDR!

They're kinda proud of that camp ground... cost me $23 for a tent site. Cheaper if you're a Montana resident. But the ghost town down the road was pretty cool so was worth it to me, I guess.