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A GREAT Divide Pandemic Adventure

Back into the smoke. This was a Montana fire and not very far away.
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A temp fire fighting base station set up just outside of Wise River. Wise River had one gas station and a convenience store. It was even less of a town than Lima. I decide to get on over to Missoula and hopefully rescue my bike and my trip. Missoula is 145 miles away by freeway. Luckily I could still go 85plus miles per hour as long as i accelerated like a Prius.
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Days 14 and 15 Missoula

I made it to Missoula without breaking down, and found a room at a Super 8 one mile away from Big Sky Motorsports. I went there the next day, and was told I was a day early, and there was no way they could work on it, but they would diagnose it.
I had given them a 2 day window so technically, I wasn't a day early but since they were doing me a favor anyway, I decided not to make a fuss.

My home for 3 nights. The room started off just over $100, a screaming deal considering the cost of hotel rooms lately but the price seemed to go up every night.
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A much needed rest for man and machine
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Luckily there was food nearby. I thought about exploring downtown Missoula but it was about 7 miles away (I think), anyway, it was beyond walking distance. I was told the public transit system was free right now and there was always rideshare services, but in the end, I just decided to sleep, eat, and watch TV
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Definitely toast. Clutch plates roasting on an open fire. Music emoji.
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My theme song
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Nice, and they were able to get you a new clutch??

That ghost town was still cool to see in the pics.

I admit to some ptsd as I scrolled through the hotel room shots.. I kept thinking I was going to see some nipple...
 
Cabrito said:
Nice, and they were able to get you a new clutch??

That ghost town was still cool to see in the pics.

I admit to some ptsd as I scrolled through the hotel room shots.. I kept thinking I was going to see some nipple...
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That can always be arranged :rofl There are no more shirtless photos on this trip.

I ordered the clutch parts on Tuesday, and they had them by Thursday and they fixed it Friday. I was slightly worried about getting stranded over the weekend which would mean leaving on the next Wednesday.
 
Day 16 Missoula to Wise River to Butte

For the price of a second gen Ninja 250 we were as good as new. I prefer Bootay to Beaut at least in my head, that's how I imagined Butte. I didn't know how far I'd make the Wise River to Helena leg because I had about 145 miles to ride to get back to the route start in Wise River. I also wanted to avoid Fleecer Ridge at all costs. I knew that Fleecer ridge would be virtually impossible for me on the GS. People have reported trouble on lightweight dual sports like 500 EXCs.

I knew (I was pretty sure) that the Cannonshot tracks Cyan route would avoid Fleecer Ridge. I knew from inspecting the tracks at home and from info from other people who followed GPSKevins tracks, that his blue route went through Fleecer Ridge and I don't know why he didn't make that a red route. I knew that Fleecer would be between Wise River and Butte. My route planning then involved loading both the Cannonshot tracks and the GPSKevin tracks for reference. This would cause me some trouble the next day, but more on that later.
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This is the actual route I took this day
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I remembered a spot just outside Wise River where I wanted to take some photos.
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I started on the Cannonshot track just outside Helena. The little loop to the North East. But after a bit, I decided based on the time of day, the length of the route, and the possibility I might have to navigate around Fleecer Ridge, I turned around. My new plan was to jump on I5 North and then pick up the GPSKevin track to West of the freeway and well past Fleecer ridge
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I made it to Butte with no issues, and based on the time of day, I decided to spend the night in Butte. The first hotel I came across looked a bit upscale, but at this point I'm all about just getting a room and don't really care to shop around.
I stayed at the Copper King Hotel and Convention Center. They had a great full breakfast with omelettes and breakfast burritos etc. A proper hotel breakfast.
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The hotel restaurant was Montana's Rib & Chop House. It's a chain in Montana.
I wanted dinner, then jacuzzi. Usually, I only drink bloody marys with weekend breakfasts and brunches but hey it's Saturday and I had a crappy Super 8 motel breakfast
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The waitress talked me into getting this super pricey super big steak which I couldn't finish
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You've had some serious meaty treats on this trip! :drool
 
Threads like this make me wanna quite my job and disappear for a month of riding, well aside from the burnt clutch of course...
 
1962siia said:
You've had some serious meaty treats on this trip! :drool
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:teeth My goal was to eat as heartily as possible, whenever I could. I could tell I was losing a lot of weight and wanted to keep my strength up. I think all the lifting of my bike helped my muscle mass :). I still ended up losing 8 lbs in 3 weeks.
 
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N4teTheGreat said:
Threads like this make me wanna quite my job and disappear for a month of riding, well aside from the burnt clutch of course...
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For reals. I wish I were still out exploring new things on my moto every day. Luckily, I didn't have to quit my job to do it. I'm very thankful for this opportunity.
 
Day 17 Butte to Helena to Helena

Oops. Today was the day I was a total ding dong. My plan was to follow the Cannonshot tracks to checkout Wickes Tunnel and the Wickes Ghost Town then to Helena. In Helena I was going to get back on the GPSKevin tracks.

This is what I actually ended up doing
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Couldn't park anywhere near the entrance to the hotel. Man, I still have a lot of junk. I think I needed most of it? If I weren't alone I could have shared tools and spare tube etc. But I had to fully self sufficient.
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Time to pack my useless Yosemite map. I've got some kind of brain impediment with Yosemite and Yellowstone. In my head I knew Yosemite is in California and I was going to Yellowstone. But I ordered the Yosemite map. I had paper maps for my whole trip as backup in case my GPS and my Phone got lost / broken / whatever. I even started mixing them up in this thread. Not sure if anyone noticed but I started calling Yellowstone Yosemite but caught it and went back and fixed it.
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Things started out fine. The road to the first side of Wickes was a little rough but not too bad. It's an abandoned railway tunnel.
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I don't remember how long the tunnel is exactly but I think it's something like a mile long and completely dark. It's full of ice and icicles in the winter, but in the summer there's at least 2 feet of standing water. I could see some headlights in the distance in the tunnel and hear an engine. It was probably a side by side but could have been a jeep. I had zero desire to try and ride through it alone.
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After the tunnel I was going to head to the ghost town
Trying to decide on the best line through. The best line was actually behind me at the beginning of the turn, but I didn't feel like backing up to take another run at it. My first try before I stopped failed because when I tried to gas it to go over the rut my tire just spun up instead of giving me the momentum I wanted. This stuff was almost like sand. Very very soft.
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Made it to the top without dropping the bike. W00t W00t. The road kept getting tougher. Went down a steep rocky area and eventually saw the other side of the tunnel
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After the tunnel there was a gravelly pretty steep hill and I got sideways going up it.
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While I was slowly turning the bike back around to face downhill to take another run some side by sides went by. I asked what the road was like ahead since they were traveling in the reverse of my direction. And they said it was miles of more of the same maybe worse.

I'd really had my fill of struggling, no appetite for picking my bike up off the ground, and this was more a sightseeing excursion and not the CDT route I decided to abandon ship and bail out to the freeway via Jefferson City. My plan was to just take the highway to Helena then get back on the GPSKevin track to Sealy Lake. But that's not what happened
 
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In Helena I converted the GPSKevin track to a trip and loaded it in my GPS. I set the start point as Helena and the end point as Sealy Lake. I had my pink navigation line but something wasn't quite right. I wasn't really making progress to the end point. I kinda just blew it off, which was a mistake. What happened was that I had both the Cannonshot and the GPSKevin tracks selected to "Show Track on Map" and I eded up heading south from Helena to Butte. In my navigation view I don't have any direction indication setup. I didn't really do much customization. I should have used the Compass on my phone or on my Garmin but I thought that there's no way I was going in the wrong direction. I also had a Benchmark map loaded on my phone. Eventually, the route started getting pretty hairy and I talked to a couple dirt bikers. I came to realize I was heading South not North. I bailed out and took the freeway back to Helena.

If I had just gone a little further on my first loop (Wickes ghost town) the 2 loops would have just connected and I would have taken the Cannonshot route to Helena.
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Hahaha what a fool. I wasted the whole day and I couldn't even find comfort in a nice dinner. I got a room at the La Quinta and headed downtown, but most restaurants were closed. I don't know if it was a covid thing or a Sunday night thing. But I had to settle for single slice pizza and old style root beer. YAY!!
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That tunnel was extra creepy.

You sure those were headlights, and not the eyes of some ravenous beast measuring you up for a roasting pan?
 
Freaking cool tunnels. I would no ride in there on that big bike.
 
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