Thursday, July 14th
A peaceful night in Lovell. Camping in the town was probably the right decision, though I couldn’t help but wonder what sunrise over the big horns would have looked like.
Today would be less dramatic than yesterday. I needed to reach the town of Red Lodge at the base of Bearthtooth mountains to put me in a good place to climb them tomorrow.
Lovell was a small town with a huge collection of great mid-century signs and shop fronts. A red Ford Mustang sat at the light at a junction and the whole thing looked like a 50s film set. Highlights were the mint green cinema with the lattice front and condensed yellow letters, and the closed down triangular-roofed petrol station at the entrance to the town which looked almost identical to the famous one in Palm Springs.
Once I was done stopping and starting with my camera I left town and joined the road 310 heading west. Wyoming was more desert like than I had imagined. Canyons and dry earth, burnt out old cars and the occasional cow or horse, often just one tied to a pole in the ground or a fence. The population was sparse. But it was a great landscape to cycle through. I go past a suagar manufacturing plant, and cross a bridge as a freight train passes beneath.
20 miles to the town of Frannie passed easily. I found not much there beyond a closed down tobacco shop and gas station and decide that I have enough water to make it to Bridger, 30 miles away, where I can top up on supplies and have a break. It’s a fast ride, mostly downhill as the road cuts a fast track between hills.
I enter Montana. The sign has a large moose on it. A little before this is a sign which scares me a lot more – “Entering Grizzly Territory” next to an illustration of an angry looking specimen.
This is not helping my somewhat irrational fear of bears. In fact it’s hard to escape bears here. There’s this sign, place names like Bear Creek or the Beartooth highway, even the gas station at Bridger sells replica bear claws at the checkout (“cast from a real claw!”).
In the supermarket at Bridger two guys speak in the aisle which contains tinned beans about how some day soon the whole of Yellowstone is basically going to explode and destroy everything inbetween here and South Dakota. In some ways I’d choose that over a meeting with a bear.
I take my supermarket supplies to a picnic bench on the edge of town and pack things away and eat a couple of doughnuts. A guy gets out his car to put some trash in the bin. He says the road ahead goes up a bit but then is mostly down.
As usual instructions from people who experience things only behind a windscreen cannot really be trusted. In actual fact the remaining 30 miles of the day are the hardest. I head on the 72 to Belfry which is straightforward enough, I have a little tailwind and breeze along past more dry hot land, though it’s a little greener now. an old school bus sits in an overgrown field, the Yellowstone river flows by amongst various plant and tree life.
At belfry I make a right on to the 308 which will take me to Red Lodge. It’s a much windier road which frequently dips off the horizon and makes corners that it’s impossible to read the direction of from a mile away. The mountains are closing in and I see snow tops through the smaller hills and mountains in the middle and fore ground.
The wind slows me and the bike drags as the climb gets tougher. I reach Bearcreek, a ghost town kind of place and location of Montana’s worst mining disaster in the 70s which effectively was the beginning of the end for the place but now provides somewhere for people to get out their cars and photograph. There’s a bar, a post office, and an old antique store which must have been closed for some time.
The town has an enviable position at least, and I’d take these last few days, with all their climbs, over almost any day I had in South Dakota.
A final set of switch backs take me up to nearly 6000ft then I descend into Red Lodge. The town is full of motorbikes and when I reach the campsite a few miles outside of town I’m told there’s a rally going on. This would mean paying more, but they charge me the regular rate, which is still way over the top at $30. But since I’ve arrived early – 6pm, with a 80 miles behind me, and have a little time to enjoy the pool and the wifi, I don’t really mind. It feels like I haven’t paid much for accommodation in a while.
My camp spot is next to a set of four friendly bikers down from North Dakota. They give me a beer and later bring me back some fried chicken. Then we all have a shot of fireball. They introduce themselves with their biker names which I instantly forget though they all have marching jackets with their names sewn on.
It’s fun to chat and hang out with them around their campfire. The mountain top I’m meant to reach tomorrow starts to more distant. They want photos with me and i’m treated like a minor celebrity for sharing the same roads as them but just on a bicycle.
Seeing them makes me start to think that the biker culture is all about escapism – the outfit, the names, the chance to play out a different character in some ways. Everyone is here just to drink and have a good time, and who can argue with that. But I go to bed before I get any more involved in it. I have a big day – the biggest day – waiting for me tomorrow.
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