Touring in may

Well it's official, I'll be touring on my motorcycle the second week of may through the last. I've been planning this for quite a while, but most everything is ironed out and me and at least one friend will be heading to Jasper, AB. As far as the route back, well right now I'm thinking it will be the same as the route there, but my friend suggested from Jasper take Hwy 16 to just west of Winnipeg then 1 over to Kenora, ON and down a highway to the international falls area, but I don't know if I want to spend that much time in Canada and I think it might end up adding a bunch of time.

Here's the route we plan on taking - it's not 100% in stone, but I've looked into a lot of the stuff along the way. link

If anyone knows of anything along/around that route, I'd love to know about it. We plan on giving this 3 weeks for there and back and are going to be camping as much as possible. Originally I was looking at Anchorage, but for 3 weeks and March, it's just too much.

gotta love the open road

Wow, am I jealous!

Looks like a long mc trip is out of the picture for me this year, what with moving and all. Boy, I wish I was going with you, though!

Have fun, keep it shiny side up and don't forget to wave at kids!

Hey man -- have you talked to anyone that has done that trip in May before? I am not sure that the mountain highway (93) to Jasper would be passable to a bike in mid May (too much snow in some years). The weather can be VERY unpredictable at that time of year.

Here is what the second week of May looked like in Calgary a few years ago:

no, I actually don't know anyone that has done that trip past the Yellowstone portion and we should be safe on the weather through that portion. I know that we can run into trouble afterwards, but I figured we'd plan on doing it and play it by ear as to if the weather will cooperate. If it doesn't we can head further west through Spokane and Seattle, and I wouldn't be all that disappointed. Well actually I would be, I love the whole Banff and on up area. So Beautiful.

Last time I was up there was a few years ago in June, and I remember them saying they had like a foot of snow the week before, so....

What has the snow season been like this year? Tons and tons or about average? What's 93 like now? Just out of curiosity to see what we might be looking at a month from now.

Thanks for the heads up though, I'll defiantly show that pic to the guys riding with.

Sorry -- I didn't mean to scare you off the Canadian portion. But we had a dump of snow yesterday (20 cm or about 8 inches) that reminded me just how unreliable the weather can be this time of year here (and later in the mountains). But it is supposed to be 19C (67F) on the weekend, too -- so we get the best and worst of it this time of year. Overall, however, we have had much less snow than average.

Anyways, I sure hope it works out for you -- the Icefields Parkway route is one of the prettiest you will EVER drive. Banff and Jasper are gorgeous places worth seeing, too.

You should come back around through Canada and into Sarnia/Porthuron Michigan, then back home....Or even St Sante Marie, and coming in from Upper MI....Looks like you'd cover a lot of interesting places in Canada on the return....

Edmonton, Saskatoon,Winnepeg, Thunder bay; If you came in through Detroit or Port Huron, you'd go through Sudbury and Toronto as well......If you came in through PH, I'd buy you a beer at our local brewpub!

FlyGuy said:

Anyways, I sure hope it works out for you -- the Icefields Parkway route is one of the prettiest you will EVER drive. Banff and Jasper are gorgeous places worth seeing, too.

Click to expand...

+1.
I've driven 93 from Phoenix to the Icefields through Glacier National US/CAN.

I'd love to get up there and visit Cheyco, FlyGuy, Denny and Fingers as well.

There is a cold beer waiting if you ever come!

You may want to wait a bit if you're biking up in that area, it still gets mighty chilly. At the very least get a heated vest.

As far as your trip East down 16... it's freakin' booooring. That being said, you could hit Kitscoty and get some of the best Jerky in the land. They make a pork-jerky that's TDF.

Made a change to your route.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=...931066,-113.510742&spn=9.290662,17.006836&z=6

You need to include Going to the Sun Road in Glacier if it is open. (Only partially so now.) Here is the road status page. http://home.nps.gov/applications/glac/roadstatus/roadstatus.cfm

In any case I think that you will have more fun going up through Missoula (brewpubs) and Whitefish and skirt the park if you have to.

Big Sky (Moosedrool) is in Hamilton, south of Missoula.

Also the Canadian side in Glacier is worth hitting just to see the classic road that you see in just about every car commerical and the Prince of Wales Hotel.

We had planned on hitting up Glacier NP, but that's why I posted this here, for advice from people who have been there. Thanks!

Like I said, I've been to Calgary, Banff, Lake Louise, Jasper before. We flew in a drove up, but as far as everything past Yellowstone, well I haven't talked to anyone who has done that, so I just put it together from info from the interwebs.

As far as cold goes, we've got that covered or we wouldn't go that far north. Just need the roads clear. Flyguy, barring road conditions not permitting or say sub 20's weather, we are coming there's no doubt about that.

eh 4 weeks away and it's still snowing out there! Barring more snow, we should be in Calgary around the 22nd.

well it looks like Montana and Canada are way out this year, it's just no going to work considering they're still getting snow. So I redesigned our route a lot. It runs through many different parts of the country. We're officially leaving at sunup on May 11th and heading through the southern part first as I'd like to give ID, WY and SD a little more time to warm up a tad. I like this new route better, I'll get to see much more of the country. Same rules though, we're camping as much as possible to keep costs down.

Anyways here's the new route, only thing I'm iffy on here is the conditions of CA-120 through Yosemite. If anyone lives out there that could give me a heads up on what it is/will be like mid may, that'd be great.
if anyone's along the way and wants to meet up, just drop a line.

z987k said:

well it looks like Montana and Canada are way out this year, it's just no going to work considering they're still getting snow. So I redesigned our route a lot.

Click to expand...

Just wanted to chime in and confirm that you made a good choice! Major snowstorm coming. I guess Banff to Jasper has already received 10 - 30 cm of snow (about 4 - 12 inches). There is a winter stormwatch for more snow overnight. Crazy weather. But glad that you guys were able to arrange another route.

Damn. I just saw your post now. I was all set to invite you guys over for billiards and homebrew. I live just east of Winnipeg and would be only a slight diversion north off of highway 1 on your way to Kenora.

Anyway, keep me in mind if you do make the trip later. I'll put you up for the night and make sure you get a slow, painful start the next morning.

yeah, if we were doing this in august, it would be a different story. (have a friend that rode out to yellowstone this week and he said it's snowing there now. But it is may. I'm thinking about trying to do an Alaska thing next summer in late July or August. But I have no idea how that would play out at this point.

I'm really excited right now. I leave for my parents place tomorrow (with all my stuff) to go to my brother's graduation and then meeting my riding partner in St. Louis on Sunday afternoon and then on to Joplin that night to stay with a guy I know. Then we're going to see how far we can make it each day so we can get to AZ as fast as possible.

If anyone along this route wants to meet up or something I can give you a date that would should be in a given area and PM you a phone #.

Here's the final route:

map of route