chrisolson Posted August 27, 2006 Share Posted August 27, 2006 So... this is a late, late, late ride report on the Torrey to Glacier National Park ride - or at least the parts of it that I managed to participate and partially photo document. The plan was to head to Killers place in Torrey, meet up with Whip and BeneciaRT_GT there and ride to Jackson Hole, ride to Glacier and then .... ??? A great plan - or so it seemed. My back had been acting up - I have a history of "tweaking" it so this was not new - but I was not going to miss this trip. Normally the issue is standing or walking while riding actually provides relief so things should be OK. This will come back later... Starting from Phoenix early Saturday, the day was bright and sunny and hot. Soon, however I was climbing out of the Valley towards Flagstaff and thankfully cooler temps. Past Flag, across the Reservation heading toward Page, the temperature again climbed and winds picked up as usual. The Reservation really should invest in wind power as I don't think I've ever gone across there without being blown half off the road! Getting close to Page, the road climbs and at the top I took this panorama of the wide open western desert....what a sight! Past Page, you go across a bridge where the dam and visitor center are... On the bridge looking down stream of the dam... Further up the road a look at the lake... From there it was a good run to Kanab for fuel and then on to Torrey. Heading north on 62, strong thunderstorm cells were brewing. Didn't want to get caught in one, so we stepped up the pace to see if we could out run them....almost. Ran in the leading edge for about 2 miles. The GT manages rain about as well as the RT even though it doesn't look like it would. I got just slightly wetter on the upper arms, but dried quickly. Once out of the rain, it was clear sailing into Torrey where I joined Whip relaxing in Killer's back yard. Later, BeneciaRT_GT arrived and we all headed out to the RimRock for a great meal and some liquid refreshements. Sunday was partly sunny as we prepared to get under way ... We headed toward Jackson Hole and a rendevous with DouglasR. Sweeper madness started our journey out with a bang through some intermittant rain showers and we continued toward Flaming Gorge under partly cloudy skies. As we stoped at several vantage points, I now find that anything other than riding is not pleasant... - i.e. sitting is good, otherwise not. But we've just begun and I do have some emergency medication so I press on with the group. The ride out of the Gorge on 191 was perfect. High speed sweepers, faboulous views and no one on the road. I didn't get any pictures 'cause the camera probably would have blown out of my hand given our pace. Across the wide open plains of southern Wyoming we continued onward to Jackson Hole at a furious pace. We were running out of dayling and still a bit of a way from our destination. However, it did give me the opportunity to get a few sunset shots... and... and this classic... Shortly after this, we stopped to gear up for some colder weather as we made the final push to Jackson Hole. We arrived about 10, but in good spirits, checked quickly into our accomodations and hurried over to the designated meeting place to find DouglasR - who had been waiting patiently since early evening ... Fortunately the designated meeting place had plenty of varied liquid refreshments available. A late dinner was ordered and a good time was had by all. The next morning was again partly cloudy as we rode over to a local establishment for breakfast. It stated that way all day as DouglasR kindly showed us some of his part of the world. The Tetons... The team deciding on what next... another view of the mountains The team moving on toward lunch... Lunch was at one of the establishments here... After lunch, Whip needed to return to get ready for a previously arranged dinner and I needed to get back to the hotel to rest...the back don't you know was acting up again. The following morning dawned with scattered light rain. We bid farewell to DouglasR and made our way north to Yellowstone. Stopping there for lunch, we decided to put on rain gear as it looked somewhat dark given our direction of travel....it turned out to be a good idea. We had a stretch of moderately steady light rain before breaking out and having clear skies heading toward East Glacier. Our digs in East Glacier.. The fires had temporarily closed the Going to the Sun road in one direction, so BeneciaRT_GT, Whip and I decided to head to Canada and Waterton Park. Killer decided to take pictures since he didn't have the appropriate paperwork to get back into the US. After crossing the border, a behind the scene look at the set up of the dueling bikes... and some just plain pretty country... At Waterton we had lunch ... and a view... Another behind the scene's look at the biker show off - actually that's my left bag on BeneciaRT_GT's bike as he had not mounted the bags or top case and we all thought it looked nicer with it on. BeneciaRT_GT's lack of bag and top case were by design as later - on a long stretch of no-one-on-it road - he decided to test the GT's capability. And finally the flaming glaciers.. The next day it was off the the Going to the Sun road where Whip took the lead and decided to see how many cars he (well, actualy "we" as I followed him up) could pass prior to getting to the top....and it did turn out to be a good sized number. At the top we were were provided these views... looking west... If you looked close at the above shot you may have seen ... Looking closely at this you'll see a path leading up the mountain... I'm not sure where Killer went, I know he started with them...and I for sure wasn't interested in walking... Look closely at the upper center of the picture..."the masters of all they survey ..." Making it a short day, we headed south to Kalispel for dinner and the night's accomodation. At this point, my back had been giving me more than a bit of trouble. Riding was not an issue, it was the stopping that was a problem. So the following morning I decided to head back alone. The plan was to make Salt Lake City, stay the night and then ride to Phx the following day which would put me back a day ahead of schedule. Two pics on the way to Salt Lake. Once again, the open spaces of the west...what the heck are they watering ?? This was just one of those times when there is light at the end of the tunnel. Making it to Salt Lake I also managed a 0 speed tip over which enhanced my back issue and mental state greatly. There is no great story here except I was smart enought not to try to save it. But it still put a different "tweak" to the old back that would not show up until the following day. About 100 miles out of Salt Lake, it became apparent that things had changed. Sitting/riding was not good. Lying down was good. So, calling the wife and advising her of the situation, I headed for Killer's as a place to drop off the bike and wait for my ride home. A couple of weeks later I went back to get the GT. This is in Arizona on the other side of Kanab. Where else but America are you going to find - out in the middle of the desert - gambling, plentiful gasoline and diesel fuel, guns, ammunition and what makes all of those go together - beer ! Pulling into Torrey to pick up the GT ... And as the sun sets on this adventure as I returned to Phoenix, I'll leave you with a traditional Arizona sunset... Link to comment
GelStra Posted August 27, 2006 Share Posted August 27, 2006 Chris, I have to tell you: I've seen plenty of pictures on this site, but your's just EXPLODED off the screen! So rich and deep! Not sure where you upload and the quality they allow, but your's are amazing!!! How do you do the panoramas? BTW, a great ride tale from many "view"-points never is too late. Link to comment
Fasterpill Posted August 27, 2006 Share Posted August 27, 2006 OK that took a LONG time to load on my DSL but that was breathtaking. How do you get so many amazing photos on 1 trip. Thanks for posting. I feel dumb for moving back east! Link to comment
Firefight911 Posted August 27, 2006 Share Posted August 27, 2006 Chris, I have to tell you: I've seen plenty of pictures on this site, but your's just EXPLODED off the screen! So rich and deep! Not sure where you upload and the quality they allow, but your's are amazing!!! How do you do the panoramas? BTW, a great ride tale from many "view"-points never is too late. I'll drink to that!!! Bravo!! Link to comment
Whip Posted August 27, 2006 Share Posted August 27, 2006 Chris It was worth waiting for...great pix...That new camera is amazing....tell Cindy thanks ....download those to one of those memory sticks for me so I can put them on my web-site(with proper credit ofcouse)... Thanks Whip Link to comment
chrisolson Posted August 28, 2006 Author Share Posted August 28, 2006 ... but your's just EXPLODED off the screen! Thanks! I'm sure some would say they're a little larger than life, but that's just what I was looking for. As to why they are this way...its magic ... ... Obviously you need to start with a good picture and most of the pics were taken with a great camera ... a 10.2 megapixel Sony D200 with an 18 - 200 lens built specifically for digital (that's approximately 28 - 300 in 35mm) - its a great lens - sorta defeats why you buy a camera with changeable lense capability 'cause you never need to change this baby. The actual processing was done both in Photoshop and a Nikon product. Nothing complex (he says humbly ), just a little manipulation of the light and dark areas, some sharpening and mumbling of special incantations and a reduction in size from about 7 megs per picture to about 700k per picture so you can reasonably download them...well, ok reasonably with broadband. The panoramas were done with an old arcSoft product (PanoramaMaker 3.0) that was bundled with a Nikon product. I like it better than the Photoshop product for some series of shots. Link to comment
GelStra Posted August 28, 2006 Share Posted August 28, 2006 Nothing complex (he says humbly ) Yeah, sure. Like Gleno just sorta futzes around, nothin' special and, voila, tri-tip! Link to comment
JB-BMW Posted August 28, 2006 Share Posted August 28, 2006 What the others said: great pictures! Do you give tutorials?? Link to comment
Limecreek Posted August 28, 2006 Share Posted August 28, 2006 Chris the pictures are wonderful. The evening shot with you at the rear of the pack was good enough to bump Doug's Teeton shot from my desktop background. Sorry Doug! Link to comment
KMG_365 Posted August 29, 2006 Share Posted August 29, 2006 Chris the pictures are wonderful. The evening shot with you at the rear of the pack was good enough to bump Doug's Teeton shot from my desktop background. Sorry Doug! Oooooooh!! Them's FIGHTIN' words!! Great shots, Chris! Sorry to hear about your back and I hope you're already feeling better! Link to comment
Mike Posted August 29, 2006 Share Posted August 29, 2006 Chris, I have to tell you: I've seen plenty of pictures on this site, but your's just EXPLODED off the screen! So rich and deep! Not sure where you upload and the quality they allow, but your's are amazing!!! How do you do the panoramas? BTW, a great ride tale from many "view"-points never is too late. Chris-- Just another thumbs up on the photos. I've spent far too many hours on this DB over the past few years and have seen lots of spectacular photos here, but--as a whole--this is the most gorgeous set of photos I've seen pop up on my screen. Whatever incantations you invoked, it all came out perfectly for viewing on a computer screen. Well done. Link to comment
Francois_Dumas Posted August 29, 2006 Share Posted August 29, 2006 The ones that DID show up on my monitor are just AWESOME !! Thanks !!! Link to comment
demenshea Posted August 29, 2006 Share Posted August 29, 2006 Wow...awesome photos!!! The color and clarity are incredible!!! I am awestruck! cheers, d Link to comment
Morse Posted August 29, 2006 Share Posted August 29, 2006 Absolutely beautiful pictures - I've been thinking of a riding holiday in the States on retirement .... now I know where !! Link to comment
Joel Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 it did give me the opportunity to get a few sunset shots... Yeah, from what Whip and Killer already wrote, it was WAY too clear that those couldn't be mistaken for sunrise shots. Nice tale, excellent pics. Too bad about the back and the tipover. I hope both heal up well. Link to comment
Bob Palin Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 Yeah, from what Whip and Killer already wrote, it was WAY too clear that those couldn't be mistaken for sunrise shots. Hey, I was on the road at 5am this morning! It was all Whip's fault... Link to comment
Whip Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 Yeah, from what Whip and Killer already wrote, it was WAY too clear that those couldn't be mistaken for sunrise shots. Hey, I was on the road at 5am this morning! It was all Whip's fault... You already got BeneciaRT_GT on your bad side....can afford me too Whip Link to comment
Limecreek Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 Hey, I was on the road at 5am this morning! It was all Whip's fault... So Hell finally froze over.... Link to comment
BeniciaRT_GT Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 Hey, I was on the road at 5am this morning! It was all Whip's fault... So Hell finally froze over.... And I saw this at 04:30 on the road this morning on my way to work: Yes, I really was on the road at 04:30... So the moral of the story is Ol' Pork Chop doesn't just lie about things, he actually fabricates them! Link to comment
Joel Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 Hey, I was on the road at 5am this morning! It was all Whip's fault... So Hell finally froze over.... And I saw this at 04:30 on the road this morning on my way to work: Yes, I really was on the road at 04:30... So the moral of the story is Ol' Pork Chop doesn't just lie about things, he actually fabricates them! Link to comment
Whip Posted August 31, 2006 Share Posted August 31, 2006 Chris I think you've finally done it....these pix are so good Killer won't post his Ride Tale....he knows he'll just embarrass himself Whip Link to comment
GelStra Posted August 31, 2006 Share Posted August 31, 2006 he knows he'll just embarrass himself Oh, no. We'll do that for him! Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.