Ghost town

All right, this is where things started to get interesting. 

We finished the Lolo pass, and rode into Missoula MT. We found a great food joint, and met up with some other BMW riders with a mechanical issue. They suggested MT200 instead of our planned route up the east side of flathead lake. OK,s o we went for it. 

About 40 mins down MT200 we passed a sign for a ghost town. We turned back to see. 

We got off MT200 and onto a side to a side road. It said ghost town 11. Hmmm. After a bit of debate we went for it. 

About a mile.down the road it said pavement ends, so Sally (the bike) goes into off-road mode, abs off, enduro mode on. 

One lane, two way, on and on we climbed for 10 more miles, until we found a parking lot. Really? Really. 

We hiked about 5 minutes to get the photo above and decided we had had enough. So we trudged back to Sally and climbed aboard. Now our time to destination in whitefish was almost 7:30. Sheesh. 

Of course, things only started to get interesting. Sally suggested a different route back to the main road, and who were we to argue? 

Following Sally's directions took us down roads that make mountain goats cringe. Finally, miles later Sally directed us to cross mud on private property. With some trepidation we started down that path (literally) until Sally and Jen and I all fell in the mud. 

OK, everyone was fine. But we needed a new plan. So we followed dirt paths out the other way, we found our way thanks to some basic navigation, compass settings and Sally. No road signs or trail markings, except an occasional sign that says I90 - and the dirt road was clearly not I90, not even in Montana. 

So we have crossed a mountain range, but alas the wrong way. We do pop back out and are able to pick up I-90, but we are 45 miles southeast of Missoula, and our destination is northwest. 

Sally dutifly reports that our ETA is now after 9 pm. And we head off, but fortunately not into the sunset as that won't happen until 9:30.