A bit of Europe straddling the Wyoming/Montana border
Posted on Friday, August 14th, 2009
Unable to afford a biking trip to Europe this summer, my husband and I recently headed to Cody, Wyoming instead. This is not quite as odd as it sounds. Cody can be the starting point for a bike ride that is as close to European-feeling as one can get in the states: the Beartooth Pass.
Thirty-some miles of climbing 5,000-some feet. Make Cody the starting and return point though (a shorter option is to start/end in Cooke City) and you get the added benefit of the unfortunately named Dead Indian Pass. A 3,000-foot, 13-mile climb.
All in all, it adds up to 112 miles and 10,500 feet of climbing (one-way). And I’d do this ride over riding up Teton Pass any day of the week. It’s long. And, yes, there can be horrible (horrible) headwinds on the false flats on Highway 14A just as you’re getting started out of Cody, as well as in the valley you drop into off Dead Indian Pass (Sunlight Basin). But the actual climbing part is so frickin’ friendly I was giggling my way up both passes in both directions. Maybe Dead Indian has a short section that’s seven percent. I don’t think Beartooth even has that (which goes a long way towards explaining why it takes about 30 miles to get to its 10,942-foot summit).
The biggest annoyances of Beartooth?
1. The overly aggressive mosquitoes swarming from 9,300 feet to 10,400 feet on the western side.
2. The giant head fake that is the very inappropriately named “Top of the World” shop and cabins. The last time I checked, it was about 20,000 feet too low to be the top of the world. But it’s not like you really expect to get anywhere near 29,029-foot summit of Everest. You would expect that a place with such a name would be at or very near to the top of the pass. You’d be wrong. There’s still another (mosquito-infested) eight miles and 1,500 vertical feet to get to the West Summit.
3. The dozens and dozens (and dozens) of Harleys. I’ve decided I want to become mayor of some town just so I can outlaw the Harleys that deafen you as they pass. Why would anyone want a bike spewing such an offensive racket? But the bikers are super friendly at least, giving you thumbs-ups and “way to go” as they rumble past.
4. The thunderstorms that can roll in from nowhere as you’re rolling across the totally unprotected stretch of road above treeline, bruising you with hail the size of a cycling computer magnet.
While I think the ride from Cody to Red Lodge, which lies at the eastern base of Beartooth, is the more difficult direction to do because of headwinds (and mosquitoes), the ride from Red Lodge back to Cody is the more impressive. Just take a look at these switchbacks:
Tell me you’d have any problem imagining yourself riding in Europe going up a road like this (lets forget about the Harleys for a minute).
It is disappointing to end in Red Lodge and be greeted by dive bars rather than cafes serving up wine and cheese though. (Red Lodge does have a yummy German bakery however, City Bakery.) The food scene arriving back in Cody isn’t any better. It’s got a cute coffee shop, the climber-run Beta Coffee House, 1132 12th St., but that’s about all.
Unless you feel, as I do — that a McDonald’s shake and double cheeseburger with BigMac sauce is the perfect post ginormous-ride recovery meal. Then you’re in luck. Yes, it’s a very un-European way to end a trip meant to substitute for a grand Continental adventure, but a hungry girl’s gotta do what a hungry girl’s gotta do.
