|
|
Beartooth highway - a classic climb
Posted: 15 Sep 09 4:30 PM
|
Beartooth Highway Ride:
The sign at the western edge of Red Lodge read 63 miles to Cooke City, MT. Todd, our driver from Classic Limo, had just dropped us off at the Sinclair station on the west end of town, elevation 5760 ft., and the last landmark of civilization. Between here and Cooke City the road scales Beartooth Pass topping out at nearly 11,000 ft.
I was riding with my new buddy Kirk whom I befriended a day earlier at the YC bike shop. The rest of my friends, so enthusiastic 3 weeks earlier, all came up with excuses. Broken wrist, sore back, client meetings. Maybe they knew something. Certainly they have more gray matter. Kirk showed up with a fit body and borrowed Trek road bike. Otherwise he was dressed for the backcountry, a warning sign perhaps. He and Todd hit it off in the car ride talking music and reminiscing about the great concert venues in the US. Sounded like they had made of life visiting them all. As it turns out that collection of old rock and blues on my ipod may have been my most important piece of equipment.
As for me, I was riding a Specialized carbon frame S-works Roubaix. Sweet ride. I swapped out my Dura-Ace 11/23 cassette for an 11/28, my one concession to the climb. I shoved the rest of my stuff in a camelback. Mostly I hauled water (~3 liters) and food.
There was no warm-up or time for spinning on our route. It was uphill for 26 miles, not a single break. The inclination meter on my Garmin 705 GPS bike computer never read negative. Further up the pass it was clear the road engineers had targeted a 5% grade and they did a pretty good job ensuring you got 5%. 5% is not particularly arduous over short stretches but over 26 miles at altitude it certainly tested these legs and lungs.
About 12 miles in we started ascending a series of long switchbacks just as you’d see in the Alps. What few vehicles passed us groaned along this winding path, especially the rare RV.
At the top of the switchbacks we crested the crux of the route to emerge onto a vast, still rising plateau. It was barren, windswept alpine terrain and noticeably colder. The temperature in Red Lodge, even in the early morning, had been in the high 70’s and sunny. We didn’t have a thermometer but Mother Nature kept us pretty up to date. Up here, completely exposed to the elements we watched as storms emerged in the distant sky. First thunder. Distant lightning strikes. Lightning was the one weather condition I feared most up here as we were nothing more than moving rods. With no other vertical objects for miles, we were the best looking targets for a lightning bolt. There are plenty of admonitions in the guidebooks to get off the pass in a lightning storm. The guidebooks don’t seem to take into account that on bikes we are already moving as fast as we could. A headwind slowed us to a 6 mph pace. Then snowflakes. Yup, it’s getting colder. A little hail. Some rain drops. Just previewing the full armamentarium.
A slow bend around a pile of scree. 10,990 ft. on the Garmin altimeter. For the first time in 26 miles the road in front tracks downhill. The top? No sign saying congratulations on reaching the summit. Kirk didn’t think it was the top and warned of false summits. I took my summit photo anyway.
Our legs and lungs said “hallelujah” as we coasted for two miles. Then lots of bright orange hats and neon yellow bibs. We rolled into the highest road-works project in the US. Our stimulus dollars at work stripping away the pavement in favor of a temporary gravel road, not ideal for our skinny tires. Worse it tracked uphill again at nearly 7%. This was cruel. We regained nearly 600 feet until again the road started to slope away from us. This time a sign announced that we had mastered the West Peak at 10,989 feet. I still don’t know if the previous peak is the East peak or which is higher.
Kirk loved the downhill. His years of downhill mountain biking clearly showed, particularly on the stretches of road where our stimulus dollars seemingly randomly produced stretches of hard-packed gravel.
Basically 30 miles of downhill bliss. We stopped at “The Top of the World” where they sold gas for $3.40 a gallon and “Top of the World” bumper stickers. We dropped to 6800 feet paralleling various creeks downriver. It was an ominous sign when the road started paralleling Clark’s fork of the Yellowstone River upstream. By this point the pass had basically put a fork in us and all we wanted was a nice roll to the Soda Butte Lodge in Cooke City. My scouting on Google earth had focused on the Beartooth pass and glossed over the 1000 foot climb for Colter pass and the western terminus of the highway. Our legs and lungs protested mightily. The engineers fudged a bit on this one, a lot of 6 and 7% grades.
By this point Kirk’s legs were cramping and he had said he would catch up to me in Cooke City. Close to the top of Coulter a pick up truck zips past me with Kirk and bike sitting on the flat bed, a big shit-eating grin on his face. Then it was just me and Marvin Gaye on the ipod.
Our stimulus dollars were still at work in Cooke City - no pavement to be found until the North East entrance to Yellowstone 5 miles down the road. Gave the one road, unincorporated town a wild western feel. Harley’s, three wheelers and pickups parked all over the place.
Perhaps the warden at entrance to Yellowstone National Park early the next morning said it all. “How much am I suppose to charge you boys? We only get 3-4 of you crazy fellows a year.”
|
|
|
Logan Swapp
Posts: 237
|
 |
| |
| |
Logan Swapp
Posts: 237
|
|
| |
|
Re: Beartooth highway - a classic climb
Posted: 16 Sep 09 5:04 PM
|
| getting server error from link. i will try locating directly from site. If GPS log is permanent record then should be able to find trip. However, I routinely delete routes after several days. I'm not sure if information is still there. If it is it would also show the second day of the trip from Cooke city to Livingston which was also a stunning ride but with far less vertical - probably 3000 ascending and a net 2000ft decline. The Garmin would also record ascending to 36,000ft on my trip home (when I realized I had left it on for the plane ride)! |
|
|
Home