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Weekend in the Bighorns

Started by ADV Piglet, August 01, 2017, 02:04:37 PM

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ADV Piglet

Saturday morning Mr. Piglet and I packed up a couple things and took the Vstrom and Tiger for their first road trip. I was hoping to be on road by 6am.

Here we are in Spearfish at 8:45am


I won't say who is to blame for such a late start
We got new shiny white helmets too

Didn't do much searching as to an alternative route to taking interstate, so we took that over to Buffalo, Wy.

Hit light rain about an hour outside of Buffalo. Pulled into rest area to put some rain gear on, and ended up hanging out there for about an hour waiting to see if rain would pass. No service so couldn't pull up radar...



Rest of way was light rain to our hotel in Buffalo, which luckily let us check in early so we were able to dry off a bit and take a little break before heading into the mountains. Checked weather and didn't look great. More rain forecasted in Buffalo to start in couple hours, but at the time the sun was out, sort of. Radar showed a few rain clouds here and there over Bighorns. We didn't ride over there to sit in a hotel so we geared up and took off down 16 towards Tensleep (rain quit). With the rain we planned on sticking to pavement, and that was about the extent of our plan. Weather made us play it by ear. About 20 minutes in it started sprinkling again, but we kept going. Could see dark clouds in spots, and a few clear spots. Was hard to tell if we were riding into the rain or out if it.

Here was a scenic pull off that I don't remember name of now, but about 20-30 miles out of Buffalo.



Looks dark, right? It was about 3pm at this point if, I remember right. So far it's kind of sucking to be honest. But we were trying to make best of it. We carried on towards Tensleep with the thunder getting louder, and rain getting heavier. Finally we called it and turned around. We were wet and it was cold (55 degrees at this point), not much fun, and just dangerous not being able to see between rain and visors fogging up.

That was our ride for Saturday. Headed back to hotel, and then to Winchester Steakhouse that was across street from our hotel for dinner. Dinner was best part of the day. Highly recommend if you are in Buffalo! So good, but a bit on the spendy side.

Sunday:
Woke up to blue skies!!



Since it was Sunday and we needed to head home that day we decided to take 16 towards Tensleep again. From there take "scenic backroad" as it was labeled on map to Shell. From there head over to medicine wheel, take 14 towards Sheridan, and then figure out a way home that didn't involve interstate. Sounded good, but didn't quite work out that way....

Beautiful weather along 16:






From 16 noticed a gravel road running on other side of canyon, which happened to be old hwy 16, so jumped on that.



From there made our way to Tensleep and onto "scenic backroad" not sure of actual name, to head to Shell.









Forgot to mention..Mr Piglet loaded a route into his GPS. Route did not take us down the same "scenic backroad".  Here's where the fun begins!


We passed a sign for 14a along the way, but looked like a pretty crap road, and GPS didn't have is going that way, so we followed gps route. Mistake #1. "Road" kept getting worse as we went on. Rocks and or silty/ ash/sand like dirt. Then GPS has us turn into this. Mistake #2:





This happened:



Don't worry - Vstrom was OK! Oh, me too..
Not sure how I landed up there! Think I hit a rock on the ash like dirt as tires started going everywhere.

Was like driving on a layer of ash a foot deep is best way I can describe it. Not sure though, never drove on ash either.  I didn't like it very much. No fun was being had. Plus it didn't look like we were close to anything.

Did I mention it was 98 degrees?

Mistake #3. No water. We drank the little bit we had left a while back. Was so damn hot the water was cooking in the bags and not very refreshing. We thought it be better to "stop" along the way and get water.  That was pretty dumb of us. We are smarter than that (usually).

We still continued a bit, determined his GPS was right.  I kept my mouth shut. We kept hitting gate after gate.



Came to a gate that had a no trespassing signs... That's when we turned around and went back through all that fun again. I wouldn't have enjoyed that road even if I was on my DR. It sucked. No plans to ever go on it again, ever.

So made our way back to where sign said to turn in first place and continued on.
At this point we really could use a drink of water. The road seemed never ending, plus not the greatest road. It was a bit, actually a lot, rough. We were lucky if we could go 30...and then all of a sudden hit sand/silt and have to slow down again. We came to dinosaur tracksite. Normally we would think - how cool lets check it out - instead we were both thinking do they have water there?! NOPE, no water. We were so hot and thirsty we didn't even check out the site. I snapped the picture below just as a reference point, when they lady walking the dog (the only other person there) asked if I would her to take a picture of us. I said no thanks, we just stopped looking for water.  :-[   As we were getting on the bikes, she walked over and handed me a Gatorade, said she had an extra in her cooler. What a godsend, and Gatorade had never tasted so good, all 3 oz we each got. LOL



From there we did not stop again until some pull off on 14 or 14a? Pete had to see if we were close to water/gas/food/home!!



He was in a good mood. This is only pic I could get him to pose for:



So no more pictures until we stopped in Sheridan for gas, even though I begged to stop for just one more picture at every scenic pull off we passed. I knew it was getting late and we needed to get home, but 14 or 14a - which ever we were on was so beautiful!



Thin kit was probably 7pm when we were putting gas in, and still had to head back to Rapid City that night.  Got dark on us fast! Was slow going home (on Interstate). We were tired, probably dehydrated, and seeing lots of deer next to the road. 60-65 most of the way home.

One last stop for coffee in Moorcroft:



Made it too Sturgis at 12:30AM Monday morning. Only had 20 miles to go, but we were both on empty. Didn't really want to stop at that point, but REALLY didn't want to end the night running out of gas a few miles from home. No picture taken.  My trip log was OVER!

But I would do it again  ;D

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Fletch

did you stop and see the dinosaur tracks on the "scenic route" ?
stupid is my middle name, but my first name is Mike

ADV Piglet

Quote from: Fletch on August 01, 2017, 02:19:08 PM
did you stop and see the dinosaur tracks on the "scenic route" ?

We did stop there. See above... I filled in the rest

Wacked

 

Awesome!  Sounds like a proper adventure complete with turmoil and mayhem.

I was up on 14 this weekend as well (in a cage driving to Cooke City).  What a gorgeous road and landscape. That area needs to be explored on a small bike - next year.

Thanks for the write-up.

Wacked

Lonesome Dave

Thanks for the fun write up!  Those are some good looking bikes.

Good adventure and a great story.

Thanks,
LD
Older - Wiser - Faster !

Fletch

a great report. I don't know why I don't go over there more often???
stupid is my middle name, but my first name is Mike

ADV Piglet

I can't wait to go back. Was looking up the suggestions given to me in trip planning and really wanted to ride a lot more roads we never got the chance to. Damn weather!  "Scenic" road actually was awesome route and very scenic. Think Fletch you mentioned it.. but with detour we took it ended up putting us in time crunch, and such a hot day made it not as enjoyable as it should have been.

Saw turn off for crazy women.. Another one I really wanted to go on. Just not enough time. Hopefully next time...

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Petros

Hahaha, Miss Piglet forgot to mention about being impatient and double checking the GPS route against her crummy free map she found behind a toilet in a bathroom stall. 
Petros

greatbuffalo

Hope that free map didn't have poo on it  ;D ;D

Thanks for taking the to tell us about it. Always enjoyable to read about other adventures. The good with the bad.
Did I ever tell you: " I HATE MUD!" ?

Hank

Thanks for sharing!   Sounds like a true adventure!

Sent from my Commodore Pet


Leo FishBear

looks like a great trip.     
I've No idea where I'm going, That's no reason to be late.