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Showing posts from August, 2017

Canadian bike paperwork - the E99 form

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Crossing into Canada, I completed some paperwork that would allow a stay of one year for the bike. This is the E99 form.  This will allow me to return next year and hopefully get up to Inuvik. Im told extensions are possible by customs, however the process im not sure about as yet. Heres a screen shot of the info. I had before I reached the border. This is taken from a conversation thread in the Hubb.

The route through the USA and into Canada

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Heres the overall view of the route through the USA.  Coming in from Baja California, I rode through Cali to meet Kevin in Las Vegas, Nevada.  From here we rode east and spent time hitting up National Parks and trails in Utah and Colorado, before jumping on Colorado's 'Backcountry Discovery Route' (a dual sport route mapped from the north to the south of the state. We followed this north until the border with Wyoming and then jumped on the Continental Divide trail through Wyoming and Montana to the border with Canada. We took 2 months for this trip. The route that we took over the Colorado Back Country Discovery Route and the Continental Divide Trail are shown in yellow on the maps above and below. Canada was my last country, all the way from Chile. I had ridden about 55, 000 km in a total of 19 months.  We arrived in Canada in October and spent the month riding around British Colombia; finishing the Great Divide ride at Ferny, then over to Nelson, Nakusp, Revelstok

Montana over the Continental Divide

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Montana was panning out pretty much the same as Wyoming (flat and uninteresting) until we hit the wildfire area in the Northern part of the state. Just after the first fires we came across (at Lincoln) came the lakes and mountains here that people fall in love with Montana for.  This started with Seeley Lake (north of Missoula). From there, heading North staying on the Divide, with a deviation through the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area (Hungry Horse Reservoir) and Glacier National Park, we saw some of the best scenery Montana has to offer.  I took the opportunity in Butte, on an AirBnb stay, to do some maintenance and swap the high altitude jet back to the standard one.  We were officially out of the mountain zone and my bike had the power of a hairdryer at 2000m.  Then I changed the jet and it was back to its normal state of affairs as a turbo jetted drag star.  Well, a slight exaggeration there, but it was better for sure.  Heading North through forestry from Seeley

Wyoming over the Continental Divide

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 Seems like we had really left the mountains behind in Wyoming. The mountains dropped away and the landscape opened up into flat wide open plains, although the elevation of our route was still at 2000m+. The trails turned into mostly wide, dusty gravel roads used by ranchers with a few interspersed easy dirt forestry trails to keep us awake. The skies cleared up (no more afternoon storms) and the views were extended as far as was possible to see. The route through Wyoming offers 'not the most interesting' section of the continental divide as far as riding is concerned, but is pleasant enough.