I going to ride up to North Dakota and visit my son. Then I'll probably ride over to the coast and south before returning home. Any route suggestions or must see locations? Thanks.

MC

 

Grand Teton and Yellowstone, time permitting, are must see places. If the weather cooperates, I would also suggest riding north out of Yellowstone through Cooke City and over Beartooth Pass. On the way back, you could also hit Going to the Sun highway in Glacier.

 

I hope you are planning on taking a long time for the ride because there is so much to see. I would plan on at least two to three weeks. At two weeks you'll be riding most of the time. With three weeks you'll have rest days. Four week is nice, too. Plus the time you want to spend with your son. If you take in a lot of national parks along the way, it's difficult to see how this should be any less than a 4,000 mile ride. It will probably wind up being in the 4-5,000 mile range.

Two guiding principals I use for rides likes there are one, as many national parks as possible, and two, as many two lane roads as possible.

Will you be riding solo? With a passenger? Other bikes? What is your expected leaving date?

Suggestions? There are five national parks in southern Utah. Visit as many as possible. Going to the Sun Road through Glacier is another favorite.

 

One more general suggestion. Get away from where you live as fast as possible. Anything that is close by you can do on a long weekend. What you want to concentrate on are the places you cannot get to easily. That's where to spend most of your time. So the first two days should be long distances. Then you can relax more.

 

We will be riding two up and will likely camp most of the time. Probably won't do alot of cooking except stuff like oatmeal and coffee in the morning. I have alot of compact backpacking gear to support this. We will leave mid-July and probably take about three weeks. We might pass through Sturgis for a day or two. We don't really have any itinerary constraints and can move at our own pace and leisure.

 

Sounds like a great trip! I agree with Michael, he usually has some great advice. See all that you can in the time allotted, yet enjoy the ride. Let us know how it goes.

 

There are a number of routes you can take to and from CA to ND. Do you think you would like to ride north to Oregon and Washington and then turn east to ND? Or might you prefer heading up through Yosemite over Tioga and hitting cantral Nevada, southern Utah and Colorado first? Or maybe heading north on 49 and then heading east on I80? Any sense of how you might want to route this ride?

If you can, one option is to leave it open until the last minute and see what the temperatures are like in Utah, and whether there are any unusual summer storms in the Northwest. That could give you the option of better weather.

And riding two up plus camping? I wish you well in getting all the gear on the bike. My space is taken up with only a rider and no camping gear. Do you have a trailer?

 

I'm not sure about the routing. I might go over Tioga pass, up 395, take 50 across Nevada to Salt Lake City, through Wyoming, through South Dakota or Nebraska and then on to Grand Forks. Returning maybe go through Montana, Idaho, Washington and take the coast back down to California. Waiting to see what the weather is like is a good idea. All my camping gear is small and designed for backpacking so it don't take much room. I'd be doing minimalist camping and not much cooking. Basically just sleeping in $25 campgrounds vice $100 to $150 motel/hotel rooms. Eating would be done in restaurants mostly except for really simple stuff. I have a backpacking stove and I can cook simple meals. We'll just bring a couple changes of clothes, wash and hang to dry probably just about every night. I figure on getting an early start every morning and then set up camp somewhere around 3 pm every day. Might have some layover days too. We'll see how it goes.

 

Sounds like a reasonable plan. I am also an experienced backpacker. In the 70's and 80's, I did a lot of backpacking, mostly in the Sierra and occasionally in the Rockies. I use to like backpacking out of Tuolumne Meadows in all the different directions one can backpack from there. I still have most of my backpacking gear. It's there in the garage in case the big earthquake someday forces me out of my home.

One suggestion about routing. If you do 120 over Tioga, consider Route 6 through Tonopah across Nevada. It is even lonelier then Route 50. But be sure to fill up with gas in Tonopah. The next gas station is 165 miles away in Ely.

 

If you come thru Sturgis on the way to Grand Forks come up 85 till you hit Belfield then you can either take I-94 all the way over to Fargo and up I-29 up to Grand Forks or stay on 85 up to hwy 200 and take that all the way across to any road leading to Grand Forks. Most of our two lane roads up here are great for riding. Even our Interstates are not that busy compared to the more populated states. I second the Tetons, Beartooth Pass, Chief Joseph highway, Going to the Sun road thru Glacier, and Lolo Pass in Idaho(hwy 12). Good luck