Day 6 - Canyon Creek Ranger Guard Station, MT. [under construction..]

It rained during the early hours of the morning, and was a rather dreary start to the day. We got a fire going again and started boiling some more river water for coffee. We really weren't in a huge hurry to get going anywhere, quite frankly, which turned out to be a good thing....since the BMW's battery was flat again this morning. But, all things have to come to an end, and we need to move on to where ever it was that we were headed (which we'd not yet decided). We finished cleaning up the place and then had to deal with the BMW that wouldn't start. Only we had no pavement of steep hill to push start the thing. Ever try to push a R1200GS while wearing SG10's on in the mud? Not good. We borrowed a set of jumper cables from the forest service dudes, and jumped the BMW from BigDog's 950. About that time, the rain stopped, and we headed back over Vibond Park to Wise River. By the time we climbed the grade, the clouds parted and the sun was upon us. The rain made for true hero traction on the switchbacks. I love these high altitude meadows and open places. Snow and high peaks rimmed the meadow. We got breakfast in Wise River, and using their internet connection, discovered there was a BMW dealership in Missoula. Since 'Chollo's bike has some sort of 30 day guarantee or something being new to him, we decided to get a new battery from BMW, and let them fight it all out. The good news was they had one in stock, and claimed they were putting it on the charger right then, so it'd be ready when we got there. So, at that point, we plotted out what looked to be an interesting route to take us to Missoula, and from there, who knows? Fat and happy, we motored away from Wise River.

I had another incident with the devilbox (the GPS) wherein it directed me up a beautiful dirt road, that suddenly disappeared. V.7 fails again - and what was interesting is that v.6 indicated the road didn't go through. Damned things Nevertheless, we retraced Bear Gulch Road, and hit Rt.274 up to Anaconda. We need to get a little progress going and can't explore as much as we'd like to, since we have to get to Missoula before the BMW joint closes up. Rt. 274, despite being paved, was one of the prettiest roads we'd ridden yet paralleling the Anaconda Mountains. As we rolled into the town of Anaconda, after finding that several roads we wanted to take were closed, we stopped to do a little more ciphering. The sheer genius of a laundromat with an integrated bar and casino in a depressed town was quite the showcase of entrepreneurialism, perhaps only lacking a payroll check cashing/title loan facility inside to achieve absolute corruptable perfection. But we skedaddled out of town quick, having chosen a nice route to take us to Skalkaho Pass via the south side of Flint Creek. Skalkaho Pass, at about 7,200 feet, is one of the main routes crossing the Sapphire Range, near the Bitter Root Mts. We'd nearly opted to go north up Rock Creek Road, but decided to go over the pass and see the Falls. Typically, this road wouldn't be open until around the 4th of July, but the snowpack had already more or less melted away, and the road was clear. It's an easy ride, too, being well graded and pretty smooth. As we crested the pass and began our decent towards Hamilton, Skalkaho Falls came into view. We spent a little while here, enjoying the mist coming off the falls - refreshing on a hot and dusty day. We gassed up at Hamilton, and made our way north pretty much excluding the possibility of riding the Macgruder Corridor into Idaho. We weren't sure it was passable this early in the year yet, and we did have to get that battery. We also motored past the Lolo Motorway, thinking the same thing. We got into Missoula in late afternoon. While 'Chollo swapped out his battery, I called lasvegasrider who confirmed he wasn't meeting up with us. At that point, our potential plans of heading into lower Canada got more or less scrapped. The new battery installed, we got out of Missoula as fast as we could. BigDog and I spied a spot on the map - HooDoo Pass, and we decided to head that direction. We'd never make it that far by nightfall, but we could get close to it tonight and blast over it in the morning. I plotted a course south out of Missoula to Lolo, and about 10 miles west on Rt. 12. We went north on Petty Creek Road (dirt) and began to climb in the late afternoon sun. We turned west on Wagon Mountain Road, and were rewarded with some of the finest riding of the trip. Wagon Mountain Rd. dropped us onto Fish Creek Road, which took us more or less north to Superior, where we figured on holing up for the night. I tried to go over Williams Pass, but the road was closed, and we had to retrace our steps a few miles. That closure caused us to dead end on I-90 at Tarkio. Gawd, the humanity....we have to ride on a friggin' interstate At least it was only about 10 miles or less. We'd need to find beer to calm our frazzled nerves now. What we did find was a motel with three beds, in three seperate rooms, for under $60. And within walking distance was a bar/tavern. We split a pizza and had a few beers, and the bartendress chick joined us to watch some of BigDog's video footage. Tale of the tape for day 6, about 300 miles....