3 Kaboom's, 3 Dudes, and a Chick ride Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, Montana

[zeegman]

Day 3 Aug 23


After a refreshing outdoor rest we woke up to a crisp sunny morning.
Day three would be about 120 miles and we would see snow top mountain peaks, pristine mountain meadows and streams, Alpine, Wy,
enter into Idaho, Teton National Forest, Targhee National forest, Cariboo National forest, rolling ranchlands, windmills of Idaho Falls, and our first crash.



As I mentioned it was cool in the morning at the higher altitude - Jeremy fashions the latest in cool morning weather headgear

We are on our way North on Sheep Creek and pass a meadow bursting with summer flowers

Jill was feeling so good that she hoped off for a quick romp around in the flowers

One of the dozens of little streams we would see throughout the day

We came upon some signage at Lander cutoff indicating that there were graves nearby of immigrants who had a much harder time than us navigating these areas.



The scenery turned to awesome snow capped mountain ridges and marshes


Paul and Mike having a break and taking in the scenery (Jill was taking our picture)

Jeremy truckin by some cool red hoodoo rocks



Some curious passersby

Back to some great mountain road side views


A couple of videos of Paul/Jill and Jeremy with spirited flybys and then tearing on into the mountains







Some dense forest in this section

The forest opened up into a brief stretch of open prairie where we saw a herd of Pronghorn and an old abandoned farm house


We headed back into the forest and passed some more ranches and a stream.


We arrived in Alpine, Wy and stopped for a patriotic lunch at:




Inside this place was all about the Red, White, and Brew. Food was great and the staff were very friendly. Would be fun to be here on July 4.
After lunch and a fuel up we headed West outta town on McCoy Creek rd into the Caribou National Forest
One of the ecological disasters happening in our forests today is the Pine Beetle infestation. These beetles are destroying forests all over North America and the brown dead trees in the pictures are an example of this.
Mismanagement of the tree density by early settlers, a recent long drought which weakened tree immunity, and global warming is said to be the main cause of the huge growth of these infestations.
Lets hope the beetles don’t claim all our valuable forests but it is a sobering site to see all the damaged brown trees.


Interesting rocky outcrop

Couple of nice lake views. I think the big one is Greys Lake


We come up upon a huge herd of lambs

Then we suddenly popped out of the forest into flat ranch lands. Its time to twist the throttle and let her rip!

.Jeremy gives an appropriate demonstration of KTM Twin acceleration in the video:




Cool old corral we past by.

Then disaster strikes! It appears Jeremy got a little too carried away with all the fun and rode right off the road. Crashed Crashed!
The good news nobody was hurt.




You can see in the last photo he was carrying a bit too much speed into the corner and hit some loose rocks and ran off into a ditch. Fortunately the bike came to rest on a ditch culvert.
Here is video of my ride up to find the crash scene and our rescue. Warning some bad language in the video.






We got her out, Yahoo! Minor damage to plastic gas tank guard and some scrapes – thats all. You can see the culvert it was resting on.
Lucky for us or it would gone a lot farther down into the ditch and we would have had a much harder time getting it out.



After the excitement of the crash we got on our way and caught up to Paul/Jill who were waiting for us wondering what happened.
The dirt roads turned to paved ones as we came up upon a windmill power generation farm signaling we were close to our destination in Idaho Falls.



A video of our ride down into Idaho Falls past the windmill farms.




We got into town and found a nice hotel near the Falls and the guys jumped into the pool for a refreshing dip after the days adventures,


Well, we survived our first crash and wondered what the next day would bring.
Day 4 would include reaching Montana and the old Wild West ghost town of Bannock.

[byways]

Holy moley! Look at the size of that gravel! Like riding on ball bearings. I'm glad you made it out safely.

[10Cup]

Great report guys, glad no one was hurt in the crash. I rode that route but have seen several things in your report that I missed.

[zeegman]

Originally Posted by byways

Holy moley! Look at the size of that gravel! Like riding on ball bearings. I'm glad you made it out safely.

Hi Tony,

Jeremy can tell you first hand, but there is nothing worse than the sinking feeling when you start to loose it in a turn and you know you are going to crash one way or another. I was in the same exact dilema a couple of times (on a different trip) on loose rocky roads and one time decided to keep the bike up as long as possible instead of laying down on a low side and the second time delibrately laying it down before going off a cliff. The first I went off the road down a 6 foot drop into a field of bushes with big bolders all around and was very lucky to miss hitting any of them. The second time I jammed the front brakes hard and flipped over the handle bars and whacked my left coller bone, But both I and bike lived to tell the tale. You have one split second to make the decision and hope it is the right one.

thanks,

Mike Z

[zeegman]

Originally Posted by 10Cup

Great report guys, glad no one was hurt in the crash. I rode that route but have seen several things in your report that I missed.

Awesome, Thanks for tagging along.

MikeZ

[byways]

Originally Posted by zeegman

Hi Tony,

Jeremy can tell you first hand, but there is nothing worse than the sinking feeling when you start to loose it in a turn and you know you are going to crash one way or another. I was in the same exact dilema a couple of times (on a different trip) on loose rocky roads and one time decided to keep the bike up as long as possible instead of laying down on a low side and the second time delibrately laying it down before going off a cliff. The first I went off the road down a 6 foot drop into a field of bushes with big bolders all around and was very lucky to miss hitting any of them. The second time I jammed the front brakes hard and flipped over the handle bars and whacked my left coller bone, But both I and bike lived to tell the tale. You have one split second to make the decision and hope it is the right one.

thanks,

Mike Z

Jeez, that's freaky. I hate county roads; love Forest Service and BLM roads. In fact, for folks considering riding Forever West, I've rerouted that segment from Wyoming into Idaho Falls to bypass that stretch and go onto more native-surface national forest roads instead.

I suppose I learned early, in my SUV backroading days, that graveled county roads are among the most dangerous. It's because they lull one into a false sense of security, and we ramp up the speed, not knowing there's a curve ahead and rolling gravel beneath the tires.

One time many years ago, in central Idaho, my wife and I came upon a brand-new 4Runner lying on its roof at a bend in such a road, far from anywhere. A rancher had already come upon the wreck and was racing off with the passengers toward the nearest town, many miles away.

Anyway, as they say, a landing you can walk away from is a good landing ...

[Sourjon]

Hey Tony are you planning a Wyoming Byways? I have the Utah Byways and the Wy Benchmark but a Wyoming from you would be great.

John

[byways]

Thank you for asking! But no, nothing for Wyoming in terms of a book. But that's not to say there isn't another way of accomplishing something similar ...

[DARKRYDER]

Day 3 was one of the most memorable for me on this trip. Alpine, WY is one of the most beautiful places I've ever experienced...it is just eye-popping gorgeous. The cool, clean pine air and stunning scenery was breathtaking and I would not pass the chance to visit this place again someday. To add to Mike's excellent write-up, here are some of my favorite pics from day 3...

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