You might consider staying further south on you outbound leg. It's very nice country from Raton NM through Angel Fire and over to Taos. You could then turn north and catch 160 in Pagosa Springs, head to Durango and then do your trip north to Yellowstone on the west slope of Colorado. It would reverse your direction over Red Mountain Pass (The Million Dollar Highway) and hopefully avoid bad weather. You could then concentrate seeing all of Utah on the way back down, heading south out of Moab ending up in Cortez Colorado (Mesa Verde National Park) and back to Durango. Or just do Red Mountain Pass again going South. SW Colorado is the most scenic part of our state and you won't be disappointed.
Doug

 

Perry
Whatever you decide avoid the front range, especially Denver. Just another big city with crazy drivers. Another website I might suggest is one of our local news channels www.9news.com. They do a pretty good job showing the weather throughout the state.
Doug

 

LA VIC, Thanks for the valuable observations, I printed it out for my buddies.

mikedetejas, you're right. Although I want to cram in as many roads as possible, hurrying will just be defeating the purpose.

Hx3, that's a dang good idea and didn't think of that, thanks! A week later could make the difference.

Doug, thanks again for the heads up with Denver and the websites. I've got time to do some re-routing before the trip and I'm studying your suggestions.

Again, thanks everyone for your input. With this forum I'm able to create a route from YOUR experience and that's hard to beat.

Perry

 

Perry you might want to think about something else too. Unless you guys are dead set on Yellowstone It's probably be a good idea to have a plan B. Last year on our ride we'd planned to head up through Texas and up into the Rockies on the first part of our trip. Two days before we leave there's a massive weather system moving across Utah and Arizona heading for Colorado. Had we pressed on as planned we'd have spent about 4 days riding in absolute crap. Looking at the front coming it was all north of Dallas. All we did was head west across Texas under the front and ride our big CO, UT, AZ, NM loop in reverse order. By the time we hit western AZ (beautiful area!) we tucked in right behind the frontal passage. Never saw rain the whole trip. We were pretty lucky. My point is there are so many great places to go north and west of Louisiana that you'd be hard pressed not to have a great time with 10 days get away. Living a whopping 30 feet above sea level, I want mountains on a big trip. There's a bunch of them out there and a lot of different ways to get to them.

 

Thanks LA VIC!
We've talked about it and we're definitely reversing our route. We're also planning an alternate route (just in case) once we head north.

Thanks again,
Perry

 

(How did I miss your reply here?)

I know exactly where that cabin on the Madison is. (I guess that means I spend a little too much time fishing ) Very beautiful spot. Very quiet, too.

One of my favorite summer rides it to leave Bozeman, go down to Ennis for coffee, continue south along the Madison and fish in that part of the river around that cabin, then go past Hebgen Lake and hit 191 back through the Gallatin Valley, stop for a brew at Lone Peak Brewery in Big Sky, then back to the Bozone. Helluva ride. Sometimes when I get "difficult," my wife makes me do that ride

 

Be sure to check the weather in Yellowstone as you are going very early in the season. Literally anything could happen.

Here in CA the higher passes don't usually open until July 4 and sometimes later. Although the quantity of snow doesn't get to our levels at YNP.

 

That's because YNP is right on the Divide. More snow slightly below the Divide, on either slope.

But, in YNP, you get wind and some godawful cold.

 

My daughter and I rode through YNP in the end of June, 2006 on our way to the national HOG rally in Billings. Per usual, we left late and had overestimated the distance we could make. This was the first big road trip for either of us. It was close to 9:00 p.m. when we hit Jackson. Obviously should have stayed the night night there. The sunset over the Tetons was magnificent as we headed north.

What kind of idiot rides through the crown jewel of our public lands at night? A cheapskate with reservations in Cooke City I guess. Anyway, the next 5 hours were brutal. I have never been so cold. Well I have, but those are other times I was an idiot and have nothing to do with motorcycles.

Anyway, long story short . . . it can get really cold in YNP.