Saturday, July 5, 2025

2025 Great Divide Ride - Day-5: Elkhorn Hot Springs to Helena MT (100 miles off-road)

Elkhorn Hot Springs lodge
LET'S ROLL!

HELL HILL ☠️
Parker made it 300 yards before hitting a rut and root or something that stopped him in his tracks.

After about 7 miles we came to a very steep Hill that was about 3/4 mi long. We struggled to get up the first few hundred yards. After two hours We only managed to get the xr250 to the top . It was too dangerous to try to get the heavier xr650s up to the top. We had to turn around and go back  7 miles to our starting point.
The above picture is the xr250 at the top of hell hill.
The park ranger was at the parking lot when we returned from "hell hill". We told him about the difficulties we had on the hill. He was interested so he was going to go research to find out if there's another way to get around the Hill or why it's so steep and dangerous.

Many free-ranging cattle all around Montana. You have to watch out for them. They can run in front of you and then you could be in big trouble. 

We ended up running out of time and energy and ended up trailering to Helena and we stayed in a super 8 that night to "lick our wounds" and recover. 🤕

Taylor's notes for this day. 

Friday, July 4, 2025

2025 Great Divide Ride - Day-4: Island Park ID to Elkhorn Hot Springs resort, Polaris MT (70 miles off-road)

Rollin' 🚵
This is Lynn. He let us cut across his cattle ranch because a section of the trail we were riding was shut down by the national Forest service.
This saved us several miles of backtracking through the woods and prevented us from riding on a busy paved road to get to our next point. THANKS Lynn🤩
 Here's the main entrance to Lynn's cattle ranch.

 Montana straight ahead.
 leaving Idaho and entering Montana. 

 We stopped to eat lunch right after we crossed into Montana and were visited by a large bull moose. 

Somewhere in Southern Montana beauty everywhere!
Parker drove the chase vehicle on this day. He did a great job. He's a natural-born navigator.🧭
Notice the long and winding road in the background and Taylor in the mirror in the foreground.

Arrived at the Elkhorn Hot Springs Lodge and had dinner in their beautiful dining room.

Stayed in the Bearpaw cabin. All the cabins are plumbed with hot spring water right out of the side of the mountain. When you turn on the faucet in the sink you only get hot water when you flush the toilet it refills with hot water. There's no cold water plumbed to the cabins. The cabins also have radiators and the hot water circulates through them to heat them. It's really an innovative idea for getting hot water to the cabins.
We also buried a token out in front of the Bearpaw cabin. We're all pointing down to where the token is. 

There's a large pool filled with hot spring water it's about 95°. There's a smaller pool (pictured above) that's filled with 110° hot spring water. After soaking in both pools well felt really relaxed like we had a spa day. 😆

Leaving Elkhorn Hot Springs heading to Helena MT.
Taylor's notes for this day. 

Thursday, July 3, 2025

2025 Great Divide Ride - Day-3: Jackson Hole WY to Island Park ID (84 miles off-road)

We started on Ashton-Flagg road and headed West towards Idaho. The dirt on the road was so powdery, like baking flour, that when one person would ride through it the dust-cloud behind them was so dense you couldn't see them. This powdery dust penetrated everything on our bikes and our bodies. It was a fun ride and that type of dust was new to us and we learned new skills to keep the motorcycle one two wheels.
Leaving Wyoming, entering Idaho
While riding in Idaho, we noticed a lot of agriculture, especially amazing dark green potato fields. Parker said "Idaho is just Indiana with mountains."

Potato heads 😆

 We stayed in the River Lodge in Island Park, Idaho.

Taylor is keeping a journal. Here are her notes for this day.

Wednesday, July 2, 2025

2025 Great Divide Ride - Days-1 & 2: Lowell, Taylor and I drove 9 hours from Denver CO to Jackson Hole WY and waited for Parker to fly in.

Picked Parker up at the Jackson Hole airport. Notice the jet touching down and the smoke coming off the wheels and the beautiful Grand Tetons in the background. 

 We stayed at the Heart 6 ranch in Chuck wagons the first two nights.

A view of the river from the Heart 6 ranch. We also heard elks bugling in the morning and saw them in the river.

Our Chuck wagon was near the corral where they kept 50 or 60 horses. It was fun being so close to the horses where you could hear them whinning, stomping their feet, fighting and farting (ha ha)
A controlled stampede went by our Chuck Wagon at 7am which was a wake-up call for Taylor. (See the picture below)
Good morning Taylor
Great breakfast at the Hatchet restaurant near the Heart 6 ranch.

Polecat Hot spring. The water temp was around 150.
Buried a token here. 🧭 (We're pointing at it.)
Backstory: As we were hiking to the hot springs we met a person we're going to call Bear man. He had a  button up shirt with none of the buttons fastened  and he had two large nipple ring piercings in each nipple. Lowell thinks the nipple rings were so large that a ping pong ball would fit into them. Bear man went on to warn us about bears in the area and showed us pictures of a large 10-ft tall bear standing and looking at him.
We asked the bear man what we should do if we see a bear. We told him we read the instructions at the trailhead and they said we should group up and put our hands in the air and shout at the bear. The bear man said that's how you get attacked by a bear because you will aggravate and provoke it. Bear man said you should quietly back away from the bear and never turn your back to it. Do not turn around and walk or run or the bear might chase you.
Huckelberry hot spring water fall.

Downtown Jackson Hole WY.

We didn't take a picture but we did see a forest fire that was probably started by a lightning strike. We reported that to the Grand Teton fire control office. 

Tomorrow on Tuesday, July 3rd, we'll head West out of the Grand Teton national Forest into Idaho and then turn north to Montana and Canada.

Here's Taylor's journal these first couple days