The Black Hills A.S.S tour

[spoilsport]

If you read my "Spoiling for California" Ride Report you'll recall that my friend Ford bailed on that May trip due to an untimely quintuple bypass operation. He has now fully recovered and to celebrate we decided to bomb up to the Black Hills and see the sights. I now refer to these times in his life as the BS (before surgery), and the *** (after successful surgery). He's on a BMW R1150R and I'm on the FJR.

We departed Denver at 8AM on Thursday, Jul14, and headed for Grand Lake, our first stop. The plan is to have lunch in Grand Lake and head over Trail Ridge Road (the highest paved hiway in North America), which goes through Rocky Mountain National Park.

Heading west on I70, we turned north on US40 and went over 11,314 ft Bethoud Pass. This pass has quite a history.

Tabernash was on the frontier, but now it's got a permanent population. This building used to be a general store.

The Colorado River Valley is a beautiful area with three very large mountain lakes that are connected, Lake Granby, Shadow Mountain, and Grand Lake. This is Lake Granby.

Grand Lake has the town of Grand Lake on its shores. Somewhat tongue in cheek, they call it the Western Riviera. Can't argue with the beauty of it, though.

Lovely Grand Lake

Grand Lake has a bunch of great restaurants, shopping, and, most importantly, a soft serve ice cream joint right on the lake.

Grand Lake is on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park. We want to go to Cheyenne Wyoming for the night so we "have to" go over Trail Ridge Road, also known as US34 to Estes Park. Entering the Park.

Here's a view of the beautiful Colorado River Valley looking southwest from halfway up Trail Ridge Road. Note the dead trees. Those and millions more were killed by a pine beetle that's ravaging America's alpine forests.

MORE......

 

[spoilsport]

Riding through the park, we came upon this herd of Elk enjoying the view.

There's still a lot of snow in the high country.

This is Long's Peak, at over 14k feet high it's the highest mountain in the Park. Ford and I climbed Long's 15 years ago and spent two nights near the summit. That was an adventure, too.

Continuing on US34, we traveled through Big Thompson Canyon, site of a deadly flash flood in the 70's, eventually rejoining I25 for the trip north to the Black Hills. We decided to spend the night at the Holiday Inn Express in Cheyenne, Wyoming, the capital of the state. Note the bunting. Cheyenne is preparing for Frontier Days, the biggest Rodeo event in America, coming up in a few days.

 

[spoilsport]

Heading north out of Cheyenne, we decided to take a side trip to Fort Laramie. On our way, we passed the Old Army Bridge over the Platte River. This bridge was an important link between Fort Larmie, Cheyenne, and the military outposts, Indian agencies, and gold fields of the Black Hills Dakota Region. I thought about riding the FJR over this bridge for a minute. I've been over a lot worse...

"Fort Laramie was perhaps the single most important location in America's expansion into the west..."

Next to the covered wagon is the soldiers' barracks and mess.

Enlisted barracks.

The Fort was allowed to deteriorate after it closed, but the Park Service is doing a good job restoring it. The grounds have a mix of restored and un-restored buildings. Even the windows are being restored to the same style of glazing used in the 19th century in this area.

This was officers quarters.

The brig.

The garden.

We got hungry looking at the garden, so we found a great spot on the grounds for a picnic lunch. Picnics on the banks of the river were a popular pastime for the families living at the Fort.

More....

 

[Bugnatr]

I remember your post about your friend. *** is a good name, it's nice to see you two are out and about. I also ride with a 1150 owner and it would not be the same without a BMW to kick around. :blink:

Great report and pics, enjoyed seeing Rocky Mt. Park. I wanted to ride it on the way to CFO in 08 but was snowed out in early Sept when I got to Granby.

 

[spoilsport]

I remember your post about your friend. *** is a good name, it's nice to see you two are out and about. I also ride with a 1150 owner and it would not be the same without a BMW to kick around. :blink:

Great report and pics, enjoyed seeing Rocky Mt. Park. I wanted to ride it on the way to CFO in 08 but was snowed out in early Sept when I got to Granby.

The park is magnificent, if you're lucky enough to catch a nice weather window. As you can see from the pic of Longs, a typical summer storm was building by about 2pm. As for the 1150, his last repair bill on the R1150R was about 4k for a fried cylinder, maybe due to low oil. Hate to knock the beemers too much - I still have one and they have their attributes - but it's nice to have a dependable bike that doesn't burn oil!

 

[spoilsport]

After Fort Laramie we went northward to Sundance, Wyoming, home of the Sundance Kid. Love these old buildings that were built to last forever and will if you keep a roof on them. This is the Sundance Bank bldg.

Sundance has a Harley dealership. We stopped in to get some plexus, but for some odd reason they didn't have anything for visor bug removal. Wonder what the Harley guys use for that? Eyeglass lens cleaner, I suppose.

This part of the world sure is bike friendly, though. I guess I should thank the Harley guys for that!

I loved Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Saw it three times. Since then, have wanted to see Devils Tower in person. The first sight of it is dramatic.

It's even better a bit closer.

 

[Bugnatr]

I remember your post about your friend. *** is a good name, it's nice to see you two are out and about. I also ride with a 1150 owner and it would not be the same without a BMW to kick around. :blink:

Great report and pics, enjoyed seeing Rocky Mt. Park. I wanted to ride it on the way to CFO in 08 but was snowed out in early Sept when I got to Granby.

The park is magnificent, if you're lucky enough to catch a nice weather window. As you can see from the pic of Longs, a typical summer storm was building by about 2pm. As for the 1150, his last repair bill on the R1150R was about 4k for a fried cylinder, maybe due to low oil. Hate to knock the beemers too much - I still have one and they have their attributes - but it's nice to have a dependable bike that doesn't burn oil!

My friends GS has only needed a new abs unit($$) a few years back. It has Ohlins and rails the twistys quite well for a tall bike.

More great pics, thanks!

 

[spoilsport]

We blew an hour sitting on a bench next to the 30's era visitor's center below Devil's tower gazing up at the thing as the sun set and cast a golden hue on its face. I saw a sign that said Hulett WY 4 miles when we turned in, so we decided to check it out for accommodations. Right outside Hulett we passed over the Belle Fourche river and spotted the Hulett Motel perched right on its banks. Looks like a winner!

Office. The rooms are opposite the office on a bank above the river. When we checked in, the clerk gave us a lower level room facing the river. Upon inspection, we discovered a two bedroom suite with amenities for which we paid $75 in peak season. What a deal!

The view outside our room. We wanted to stay a few days!

Hulett is a small town, but we found a good restaurant for dinner. They were in full prep mode for the Stugis influx with a band stand and outside bar set up out back.

Saturday morning we headed across the border into South Dakota. First stop, Deadwood. Deadwood has some great old buildings. It was the business epicenter of the Black Hills gold rush.

Mining Museum and Post Office

There are a lot of casinos downtown with come on's like this (which didn't amount to much)...

Some of the casinos are in cool old buildings.

 

[spoilsport]

Then is was on to Stugis to survey purveyors of the mythical "invincible doo rag". We cruised up and down the main drag and some of the side streets and to get the layout for the site of the upcoming bacchanalia. Then we stopped at ground zero, the Harley dealership, which turned out to be an accessories dealership only. The Sturgis motorcycle dealer sells Suzuki, Yamaha, and BMW. Always a keen judge of sartorial elegance, Ford found one souvenir tee shirt with some style, made his purchase and we were on our way out of town.

Next to Devil's Tower, a big attraction for us and everybody other tourist in this region is Mt. Rushmore, where we headed next. It didn't disappoint.

We got caught up in the story of the sculpting of the monument, which was supervised by Gutzon Borglum. There's a museum in Keystone SD that contains a lot of his work as well as his memorabilia. It's well worth the stop. This bust was on display at Mt Rushmore.

Then is was just a few miles down the road to the Native American's answer to Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial. This one is much more ambitious than Mt Rushmore, but still a work in progress after 50 years of work. The work was begun by Korczak Ziolkowski, who worked under Borglum at Mt Rushmore. Korczak passed away in 1982 and the work is being carried on by his family. Though the sculpture is far from complete they have quite an enterprise going with Indian museums and restaurants that is an attraction on their own. This is what is will eventually look like.

Here's the current state of it.

He began his work alone with drills power by an old Buda compressor which is rusting on the grounds.

 

[Old Michael]

Damn nice report, spoilsport.

And very entertainingly written.

(Never been on an *** Tour. Been on tour with some *****, though.

)

 

[dcarver]

Very nice! More? Excellent pix and prose...

..waiting.. tap, tap... :lol:

 

[Willie]

Great RR Pics are awesome and the little bit of history makes it a great read

Willie

 

[spoilsport]

After Crazy Horse, we bedded down in Custer Saturday night at the Best Western. There are some great rides in the Black Hills, and we set aside Sunday morning to explore them. Everyone is always saying "you've got to ride the Needles", so that's where we headed - SD Highway 87 - The Needles is a Natural Landmark.

The roads in red are the one's we took, starting with 87.

The Needles Highway is a well maintained narrow twisty road with a lot of tunnels and turnouts. The traffic wasn't bad at all and the view was magnificent.

We met a couple from the Netherlands riding GS's. Here she is riding through one of the great tunnels.

Just when I thought it couldn't get any better, we came across what has to be one of the prettiest little lakes in the world, Sylvan Lake.

No trip to the Black Hills would be complete without a buffalo sighting. So, we headed over to Custer State Park hoping to spot some. Custer is 71,000 acres, making it one of the largest state parks in the country. It is home to about 1300 bison and other wildlife. We got lucky. The heard was near the road. I parked and they started grazing in my direction.

The male bison are loaners. The don't mix with the herd or with each other except during mating season. We "ran into" this one further down the road. Note the size of this guy!

We were fortunate to see other wildlife during our drive through Custer, including Pronghorn, Wild Turkey, and Burrows.

Pronghorn

Curious Burrow

A family of wild turkeys

 

[spoilsport]

Down the road from Custer is Wind Cave National Park. Like Custer, this is a big park, on about 28,000 acres. The full size of the cave is unknown. So far, 138 miles of passages have been explored and mapped. We pulled up to the park HQ at about 12:30pm and bought tickets for a 1:30pm tour. That left enough time to have a snack and hydate - the temperature was over 100 degrees.

Park HQ

Ranger Mike tells us that the temperature inside the cave will be 53 degrees. We can't wait!

The cave tour lasted 1.5 hours. The first level was down 300 steps. There are many levels below this one.

When we left Wind Cave we headed south to Hot Springs, SD. Hot Springs has some great old buildings, like these, that were built to last.

The temp gauge on the FJR hit 108 degrees in Hot Springs. I thought seriously about packing it in for the day, but we wanted to get into Wyoming and further south before stopping so that I could be back at work by noon on Monday. So, we carried on.

Fortunately, heading west out of Hot Springs in the hills the temperature dropped to a "cool" 100. By the time we crossed into Wyoming, it was "down" to 98 degrees. We found a great Best Western, The Pioneer, in Lusk. They had ice tea and cold water in jugs by the pool. I was out of my gear and into that pool within 15 minutes of pulling up. The next morning we were served a fine breakfast by the proprietor and then headed west to hook up with I25. I was in the office at noon on the dot. Total trip was 1268 miles.

The trip map

 

[escapefjrtist]

Nice report and pics spoilsport. Looks like you two had a great time and saw a lot of scenery.

Thanks for sharing!

--G

 

[saxman]

Thanks spoilsport.

Great RR and pics.

I need to plan a ride to the black hills as it's been 20 years since I was there. (And it was by station wagon, so that doesn't

really count. . .)

 

[Panman]

Great report, after NAFO in Golden I rode up to Sturgis saw Mt Rushmore, rode thru Deadwood and have always wanted to go back and spend a few days checking the area out.

You have motivated me, thanks for the ride.

 

[jmdaniel]

Long's Peak isn't the highest paved road in North America, Mt. Evans is. Close, but no cigar....

 

[spoilsport]

Long's Peak isn't the highest paved road in North America, Mt. Evans is. Close, but no cigar....

I believe I actually said Trail Ridge is the highest paved hiway. Here in Colorado, we must make a distinction between the Mt Evans road and Trail Ridge Road. We call Evans the highest paved road because it is a dead end and Trail Ridge the highest paved hiway because it's a through road (US34). I apologize for any confusion. In Texas there'd be no need to make such a distinction.