Ride to Red Lodge and Bone Daddy's

Friday, July 17th, we stayed inside the RV - rain showers again and thunderstorms were the norm for the day.  Saturday we ventured out.  The 21st Annual Beartooth Rally was going on - July 17th through the 19th - based in Red Lodge, Montana, about 60 miles from us.  We wanted to drive back over the Beartooth Pass before we left and thought it would be a perfect day to do that and, to see Red Lodge.

This trip over the pass we did not stop until we got all the way to Red Lodge.  Beautiful drive!  We had turned around the previous day near where the 45th parallel crosses Montana, right near the Wyoming border, but did not have a clue how different the landscape would change once we dropped down out of the summit.  I think if we lived here we would have to transverse the pass a least once a month - the scenery is breathtaking.  Of course, once the snow flies - that would end since the road is shut down till spring.

Zigzagging down into Red Lodge

Serious Erosion prevention

Dave mentioned that the Beartooth Pass Scenic Byway was by far more challenging than driving the “Going To The Sun” road of Glacier National Park.  You never get that close to glaciers or snow or the summit peaks while in Glacier but driving the Beartooth - you are right up alongside everything.  And the road is so narrow and windy and death drop offs on all sides that to just drive it in the rain - you are challenging death.

A ski lift up on top?

Snow falling - got pretty hairy driving

Pointed rock left center - Beartooth - what the range is named after

Glacier

How different the north side is

Marmot posed for picture

Right at 45th parallel - windy road over summit

We got into Red Lodge and wham!  The motorcycles!  At least 5000 parked with people walking up and down the streets of the town.  I struck up a conversation with a biker who was at the rally from South Dakota and he said this is nothing  - he has been coming to this advent for 3 years now and every year it grows exponentially.  Activities include a poker run to Cooke City, rodeo with barrel racing and stunt driving, races, give aways. I went into BoneDaddy’s store - one of the main sponsors of the event - and was blown away with people buying lots and lots of things.  And the other amazing thing - did not see any drinking going on even though Coors was one of the sponsors.

Lots and lots of bikes

Thousands and thousands of dollars in bikes, equipment, accessories, biker clothing, jewelry.  The town of Red Lodge sure was benefiting from this function.  Scary drive coming back over the pass - it had started to rain and turned into sleet.  We were so glad we got down off the pass before the hard rain/snow hit.  Very treacherous!  On our drive back we stopped at a campground called Crazy Creek and walked the trail to look at the falls.  Very crazy but pretty.

Crazy Creek Falls

Needed to make one last stop back in Cooke City before getting back to RV for some quick groceries and saw over 1000 bikers there.  We lost count of bikers that passed up going to Red Lodge after 390, so we figured at any time there were over 1000 bikers on the road going over the pass.

Cooke City - the bikers are everywhere!!!