While I may have not been 100% ready, and it may have been super last minute, I pulled together a really quick camping trim up to the crazy mountains before taking off to Europe.
The air was still full of smoke from the seemingly never-ending fires, but once we got up to the mountains, it started to clear up.
Because my riding buddy, Benton, doesn’t have a street legal bike, we decided to trailer the motorcycles up to the Crazies to camp by the lake.
Getting to the actual camping site once we reached the trail head was a bit of a challenge, especially since neither of us had bags! I at least had my awesome luggage racks, which made it much easier to tie things to. In the end on the way there we only lost some poles, which we unfortunately didn’t run into on the way back.
Once we were there, we had a fantastic view. The sun had just started to go down, so we quickly pitched up the motorcycle tent, or “chateau” as we referred to it was it was so freakin big!
Luckily for us a fire was permitted, completing the camping experience with smores!
The next morning we headed out into a bright, clear day and our motorcycles were waiting for us with a nice ride in mind.
We decided to take our time playing around with my new camera! We got some fantastic pics of the bikes, cows, and general Montana scenery.
There were a few rough spots, which always means more fun in my book. Some of it I wasn’t completely comfortable riding myself, so Benton helped me out.
Truthfully though, I need to stop getting help and just figure it out myself. Otherwise I’ll never learn! So while I went for it pathetically, I went for it anyways, and made it in the end!
While we were making our way to the main camp site to throw away some trash, Benton ended up with a bit of a mishap!
The hook holding the garbage in place had fallen off and gotten jammed in the wheel by the brake. A serious close call. Note to self, do not use hooks as tie downs in the future!
We sat by the road for awhile, even got my tool kit out (yes, I was smart and brought a tool kit and first aid kit). Unfortunately in the end it didn’t help much at all. What did we do? We just pulled it out, using the other end of the tied down that had a longer end to grasp.
Thank goodness we figured it out. It would have been a headache if the motorcycle wasn’t running at all! We headed back to the truck taking some beautiful trails along the way.
On the way back into town we stopped at a great restaurant to get some good American food. I loved the small towns in Montana, they have a very “Wild West” feel to them.
On the way back, we also saw some white tail! Which I will be hunting when I return to Montana!
It really was a great short overnight trip giving me a great taste of Montana. From open plains to mountainous terrain, Montana really has all you need for some great off road riding!