AUGUST 2020 MOTOCACHING TRIP - DAY 2

 We were up early the next morning picking up our sack breakfasts consisting of a small sweet roll, orange and granola bar. We headed north on Highway 20 toward Yellowstone. Our first cache was “Henry’s Lake Outlet” shortly before entering the park. I appreciated my Golden Age Passport that saved me the $30 entry fee for motorcycles.

Our first stop in the park was for a virtual cache at beautiful Gibbon Falls. I was mildly surprised to see so many people masked up. We kept our distance but as we were outside we didn’t see the necessity of donning our masks.

                                                              

A couple of the things I had wanted to see were the mud pots and hot springs. So we did about a mile hike through the Paint Pots and Beryl Springs.

   My planned route was to slant eastward across the park by way of the Norris Canyon road. I had seen that there was some road construction in the area but what I didn’t realize was that the road was completely closed. Consequently, we had to backtrack from Canyon Junction and travel north to Mammoth Hot Springs and then turn east to get to the northeast corner of the park. It was super hot but we found some shade at the edge of a parking lot at Mammoth Hot Springs and ate our lunch.

We stopped before leaving the park at an Earth cache called “Root Beer Float” which was a big mound of Travertine or calcium carbonate. It was at this spot that we saw all the bison. There must have been several hundred. One big bull planted himself in the middle of the road and seemed to say, “You can just wait until I’m good and ready to move on”. And we did. It seemed like ten minutes. Those critters are big!

We went through Cook City and eventually made our way to the legendary Bear Tooth Pass. I had ridden this pass only once and it was from the other direction, cold, wet and foggy. Today it was not cold or foggy but parts were wet and there was some road construction. This section of road truly looks like a can of worms on a map. It was a fun ride but I took some of the very sharp curves with some caution.

After descending the pass we continued on Highway 212 through Red Lodge, MT, where I stayed on my last trip in that area. At this point we turned northwest on Highway 78 which was a truly delightful road – nothing too technical but nice curves and hills. We stopped for one cache along the way and at Roscoe, MT, to refuel. We hit I-90 at Columbus and proceeded west for a cache at Reed Point. For some unknown reason my GPSr took us about 6 miles past Reed Point and then had us backtrack on a frontage road. At any rate, we finally got there and found the “Old West Hospitality” cache with an incredible 80+ Favorite points. Clint found the cache which was hidden between the bear’s legs.  

 

                                                                                   At the little town of Big Timber we checked into the Lazy J Motel which was one of the nicest motels I’ve visited. Everything was absolutely first class. After getting cleaned up we had dinner at a BBQ place that was very good with generous helpings. We traveled 405 miles this day which was a long day considering touring Yellowstone and picking up 5 caches along the way. Pictures are "Henry's Lake Outlet" cache, Gibbon Falls, Paint Pots and Beryl Springs, one of many big Bison and Clint attacking the bear at the "Old West Hospitality" cache. (To be continued) M/W