Day 27. Foiled by the Beartooth AGAIN!

Yesterday, Wednesday 16th, we left Bozeman in the pouring rain and rode to Red Lodge, Montana. Fortunately not too far, only 146 miles and we enjoyed the ride once we broke out of the rain. We arrived in Red Lodge and checked into The Red Lodge Inn where we stayed last year. We were foiled in our attempt to ride the Beartooth Highway last year and were determined to get back this year and try again.

Thursday 17th September; we jumped up, checked conditions and it was a GO! However, once we geared up and were literally climbing onto the bikes to leave, we overheard two guys discussing the fact that the Highway was closed!!! Sure enough when we checked the website it had indeed closed due to high winds and blowing snow - Yikes.

So, quick change of route and we headed to Cody, Wyoming for coffee. We knew this was a nice ride as we did it last year when The Beartooth was closed. We had a lovely ride and looking at the photos it is hard to believe it was snowing and gusting to 50mph over the Beartooth Mountains.

The road was deserted and we got creative with the GoPro

 The lower Beartooth Mountains can be seen in the photo above and the clouds hide the big ones!

We arrived in Cody under darkening skies and it started spitting rain. We ducked into The Rawhide Coffee Roasters and had an excellent cup of coffee. After strolling around town a bit under clearing skies we headed back to Red Lodge and could see snow dusted peaks through breaks in the clouds.

We rode up a hill that overlooks Red Lodge. It is a lovely town, nestled in a valley under the shadows of the Beartooth Mountains (which are not seen on this view). 

It also has its own skiing area - the runs can just be seen below

Tomorrow we will be headed East. We have now joined our original planned route home so hotels are booked and routes are planned. We are returning to some of our favorite places from last years trip on our way.