Day 4 - Alpine, WY. [under construction - pics coming...]

We woke before dawn, not entirely surprised that it'd thunderstormed again during the night. We'd spotted a coffee joint next door to the motel, and we wandered over there to get ourselves fueled up. And to start creating a plan of where to go next. We all sort of decided to head north. Canada was easily still within reach, as were hundreds of other places we all had always wanted to go. We all were pretty clear that we didn't want to go through Jackson, so we decided to head north on the west side of the Tetons. Either way, we're in for some paved riding until we get north of Swan Valley. Just a couple miles north of Alpine, we crossed into Idaho for the first time. Route 26, along the Palisades Reservoir, was a pretty ride in the early morning sun - the chill of dawn quickly burned away and another beautiful day unfurled before us. Ospreys and eagles were common as mosquitos - pretty much you could expect one or the other on every power pole. When 'Chollo and I reached Swan Valley, we realized BigDog was gone. We stopped and waited, and after 15 minutes, we turned back. We rode almost all the way back to Alpine before we found him. Working on his bike. Despite the fact that Bigdog though his fuel pump had died, the smile never left his face. We fiddled with it for a bit, and figured out the pump & electricals were fine, and what we diagnosed was some water in the fuel, presumably from the car wash the night before. It only takes a small droplet to create fuel starvation symptoms. We motored north and got some ethanol to dissolve away any moisture in his tank at our first opportunity. We routed ourselves away from the asphalt and towns as best we could, riding dirt roads northward through Felt, Lamont, Drummond as we proceeded north along the Tetons. This place was getting familiar - I recognized where I was when we crossed the Warm River... We were near the Continental Divide Trail!

We crossed the Warm River and I knew in an instant where we were. I was here a year ago with LVR and Jonz, making our way south on the CD Trail. Knowing a bit about the area from what Jonz showed me, I led the posse up the tarmac to Lower Mesa Falls. A gaggle of Harley riders out living the dream chatted with us for a while about their adventures, and the graciously took our picture. They all commented on our gear..."aren't you hot in all that stuff?" I'd never seen Upper Mesa Falls, so we went to it. The dirty SOB's wanted cash money to see the falls, so we left. Don't I pay enough in taxes already? Rather than ride the whooped-out sandy old Union Pacific railroad bed (been there, done that) north, I plotted a course that would take us within a few hundred yards of the boundary of Yellowstone National Park - and to a treat Jonz showed me last year that I knew BigDog and 'Chollo would enjoy. We blasted up Warm River Road, and turned east on Baker Draw, which plopped us onto Fish Creek Road - a stone's throw (for a dude like Catfish Hunter) from Yellowstone. That's as close as we dare to that place. From way up high on the ridge, I could see the snowy slopes of Sawtell Peak to the west. And we began our decent into the valley to the headwaters of the Henry's Fork River. Muskrat Sam must have killed Suzy, as only one water rat was on duty this year. Survival of the fittest. Big Springs (second one of the trip) is fueled by the Yellowstone caldera, and is the headwaters of the Henry's Fork of the Snake River. Crystal clear, but a few degrees warmer than it should be, evidence some volcanism near by. We cruised on down into Macks Inn, and got a burger and a Moose Drool. While masticating a chili burger, we plotted a route north up through the Beaverhead National Forest, using a little section of the Continetal Divide Trail out over Red Rock Pass and Lakes. I somewhat dislike riding the same stuff over again, but this valley is beautiful and far from a hardship to view again.

Where the CD trail continues west (or east, depending on your perspective there), our improvised route peels off due north into the Beaverhead National Forest a little way west of Lakeview, and heads north along the Ruby River Valley and onward eventually to Ruby Reservoir. It's not regularly traveled. Just the way I like it. At this point, we still really don't have a plan of where we'll be tonight, but we do know our track will intersect a highway, and we'll figure it out there. Eventually. But for now, the scenery is awesome, and trivialities like motels are far from our minds. Eventually, we crossed the divide, and started heading back down fantastically green valleys, towards Nevada City. As we passed Ruby Reservoir, we spilled out into the disaster of civilization, and pavement . We embraced that, as heinous as it was, and headed west towards Nevada City. Deeming that as too touristy for our spartan tastes, we headed a few miles east through a terrifically dredge-mined riverbed into Virginia City. Touristy, but it's the end of the line for us today. And no one else is here. Empty. We checked ourselves into the Anaconda Hotel ( ), much to the horror of the young and somewhat timid hostess chick. The hotel was pretty cool, with a shower in one room down the hallway, and the commode in another room, in a different hallway. Curiously, we had running water and a facebowl (that's a sink, for you non-sophisticants) in our room. The street was kept as old west as they could. Sam Elliot or Clint Eastwood would have been at home here with an Old Army .44 and a Sarsasparilla. 'Chollo and I headed to the bar to wash down the trail dust, while the BigDog shot some more cool video. I've not mentioned it yet, but he took quite a bit of video on this trip, and we entertained ourselves each night watching it. 'Chollo and I killed off a great many beers this night, and the three of us split a decent pizza for dinner at the bar. At a rather late hour, we retired - once again with no plans for where to go the next day. This plan - the lack of a plan -was working well for us thus far, so we'll stick with it.

Tale of the tape, Day 4: About 300 miles.

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