The Gravelly Road
This road has been lurking on my map of Southwest Montana ever since I bought my KLR, and I never got it together enough to plan and go ride it until this summer. I knew it would be good....
Sunday morning. Woke up on my bro Cory's couch to a fuzzy head from the evenings merriment at the Claim Jumper Saloon in Ennis Montana. After recharging with eggs, sausage, biscuits and gravy, I filled the camelbak, geared up, and hit the road on my trusty 05 KLR650.
Destination: Ride the Gravelly Range Rd south from Ennis to the Centennial Valley and return via the Upper Ruby Rd.
It was cold out! Thermometer on my bike said 40 something. I had on normal pants. Oops. It was pretty cloudy and windy out.
As I climbed towards the beginning of the Gravelly Rd, I entered the clouds since they were so low. So now the temp goes down even more, and I have to keep my faceshield up due to condensation issues. It was reading down to 36! I got cold. And I was in the clouds, so I couldn't see very far at all. This continued for pretty much the first hour I think. I had to go slow too due to the cloud-fog.
All I saw was some cows, a few hunters camped out, and a lot of grey! I had second thoughts about continuing as I was freezing my face off, and couldn't see anything cool at all like a view or something! I pushed on though on the hopes that it would burn off as the day heated up.
Finally it broke and I had super awesome views of my Montana home in all directions.
This road has got to be on the top 10 of any I have ever been on. It's right up there with the Beartooth I think, and maybe better cuz it's all dirt, and there are very very few people. If it hadn't been hunting season already, I doubt there would have been anyone hardly at all.
The road just keeps going on top of the mountains for miles and miles. It's unbelievable! I was hooting and laughing with glee inside my helmet at what a good time I was having.
After another hour or so I was further down the range and ran into a giant amount of sheep sleeping in the road! I hadn't ever seen that many sheep at once before. They were just hanging out and had two dogs with the flock to keep them out of trouble I guess. I shut off the bike and took my helmet off and just stood around for a bit watching them and absorbing the mellow sheep vibe. They looked pretty happy just chilling out up there on top of the world.
After the sheep I kept on rolling down the road and actually finally started descending down out of the mountains. I was using a color copy of the Montana Gazeteer map for the area for my navigation and it worked pretty darn well. I am a big fan of good ole maps. No GPS for me. I think a map works better, doesn't run out of batteries, and you can see way more area at one time.
I got to an intersection though that had some signs about this road and that road and I had to gamble on a left turn onto what I hoped was a shortcut to the Centennial Valley, FR 209. It looked on the map like the same size road I had been on, but when I got on it, it was way smaller, just a worn two track with a bunch of ruts. I had a moment of indecision, as I was paying close attention to my odometer for my gas gauge. I knew I wouldn't find gas where I was headed and had to turn around if I hit 100 miles and wasn't on my way back already. I was at around 60 something i think. I said F-it and kept going on the two track.
I won my gamble and was dumped out on the road I was shooting for on the north edge of the valley. It was pretty damn cool, and I want to go back and explore around the wildlife refuge another time. After more indecision I headed east to see if I could find a road across to the south side of the valley that appeared on the map. Said road did not appear in reality, and I ended up turning around after a few miles.
Now my way was clear and I blasted west at 65 mph back towards the Ruby valley road. I love the KLR on dirt roads, and these were like dirt highways! I had at this point been riding dirt for about 50 miles and 3 hours. The road up high had been pretty twisty and somewhat loose so my speed was maybe around 35 tops. Once in the valley though these roads were wide, and way more straight, so I hauled ass for a while! By the way, I discovered that antelope can run at least 40 mph. It's funny when animals try and run away by running parallel to you. I suppose Mr. Antelope isn't used to anyone being able to go faster than himself.
In short order I got to the turn for the Ruby road I wanted. The next 15 miles or so were maybe the funnest of the day as it was open country, medium curviness of road, and it undulated a bunch up and down. I could keep good speed and was really riding the bike with all the road variation. It was super fun! I never rode a dirt bike when I was younger so lately I have been trying to learn to slide the rear under power around corners. I got plenty of practice in that section. Still can't do it super well yet. I am running TKC 80's front and rear and I think I need to air them down some to get the right action with the traction.
I made it back to Ennis safe and sound, and continued back to Bozeman. It was long day, but one of the best rides I have ever taken, and one that I am sure I will repeat many times in the future.
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