Sisyphus May 30, 2026
Day 1–SisyphusDW7 and SMAP leave Merced in the cool blue of early morning, the San Joaquin Valley still quiet, and within an hour you’re climbing into the Sierra foothills on CA J-59 to CA-108 where the road tilts and coils through oak-studded hills the color of dry wheat. As we climb, the mountain towns— Sonora, Twain Harte, Long Barn, and Strawberry will be filled with summer tourists seeking relief from what will likely be summer’s emerging torridness. Then it’s up and over Sonora Pass down to Bridgeport— unhurried, the kind of place where the hardware store has been open since 1887 and the diner still has a pie case. By the time you drop into the basin and range topography of Nevada passing through Yerrington, at the end of Day 1, you’re already in a different California than most people ever see. New Pine Creek Campground puts you lakeside under the pines, quiet enough to hear the water.
Adventures in AI
That’s how Anthropic’s Claude conceived the first day of what would come to be known as “An Epic Western States Ramble.” This would be on my Moto Guzzi, with SMAP on his Suzuki sometime in mid-June. In the event you don’t know what a Moto Guzzi or a Suzuki are, they are motorcycles and not an Italian/Japanese boy band, Moto Guzzi and the Suzukis.
Though I had dipped a toe with using ChatGPT’s LLM, for planning the Anza-Borrego/Salton Sea ramble last March, this was my first full-on foray into AI planning for a moto ramble. In March, I was still wedded to my old school approach whereby I first begin by looking at maps, using Google Maps (digital), and CSAA/Butler (paper) for determining routes, preferably on secondary roads or state routes. Then slogging through Google search for campsites or lodging. Lastly, I’d scour the interwebs, particularly YouTube for created content about landscapes, terrain, and interesting features about the people, places, and things we might encounter on an “epic” ramble.
In turning to search engines to figure out where to stay, find fuel, and food and make any reservations on a selected route, I have to deal with the ugly ad driven positioning of search results, that despite any effort to narrow the boolean nature of search with any degree of specificity, is overridden by “pay-to-play” ranking. It is like how liquor is displayed in the supermarket, chips or any other item producers “pay-to-play” to get top shelf or mid-shelf billing. In the cookie aisle, it’s money at mid-shelf, cart level where children launch into sugar driven, addictive advertising spasms of craving Chips Ahoy that wigged out parents concede by tossing them into the cart to get the kid to clam up.
I envisioned using AI to confirm the route, compliment me on my stellar planning, complement the less stellar aspects of my planning, and offer lodging options and noteworthy local attractions to explore along the way. I was, somewhat naively, excited that this technology would increase the efficiency of planning while cutting down on the time it takes to conjure a ramble by calculating mileage and time.
So I developed the Sisyphean Ramble Planning Criteria, (SRPC), to employ when scouting routes whereby freeways and interstates are intentionally avoided insofar as an alternative to the “slab” can be found. Recognizing that Google Maps can be frustrating when once on the road, that carefully planned selected route is overcome by the in-house on-the-fly algorithm that selects a more “efficient” routing. This despite checking the “avoid highways” box in Options. Damn algorithms.
The Robert Frost Dilemma, or, RFD…
Given the damn algorithm phenomenon (dap), paper maps reign in planning, at least initially, but I find them deficient when riding. A phone mounted on the handlebar is much more convenient than stopping at a busy fork in the road. Speaking of forks in the road, let us enjoy some solid ‘Merican poetry as our 250th anniversary looms…
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.“
In taking out and unfolding the paper map, refolding to 6” x 9” content specific Origami, getting out glasses to be able to see the 3 point font graphics, noting and trying to remember all of the intersections and interchanges needed making in the next 50 miles, then attempting to fold the map up properly, especially if it’s windy…
You get the picture. Each navigation option is compromised, especially the free ones and I’m willing to admit that it could all be the result of user error.
In the opening featuring Claude’s Day 1 narrative, he/she/it mentioned passing through Yerington (Nevada) and arriving at New Pine Creek Campground at the end of Day 1. The route I provide in the Google Map link, had that as the primary option, however, those two places are about 300 miles apart and from Merced, New Pine Creek is some 457 mi distant. Yerington is southeast toward Reno; New Pine Creek is on the California/Oregon border, northeast of Lakeview. While that is a legitimate route, it would require a break, somewhere in between, like say, Susanville.
First mistake in the SRPC, I should have explicitly identified the number of days with a variable, x, and let Claude determine the number of days based on my prescribed mileage and not some machine hallucination about how Merced and New Pine Creek is a day ride or that Burns, OR is 250 miles from Jackson, WY by way of the Bighorn. More about that initial prompt is coming.
What Do Pronouns Have to Do with Trip Planning?
Live and learn, right? The mileage criteria under the SRPC (in case you’ve forgotten, the Sisyphean Route Planning Criteria) included covering distances that account for road conditions, fuel/snack stops, terrain, and weather. Additionally, the SRPC seeks lodging, motel and camping options that could all be accomplished before dark on any targeted ramble.
I included the URL to the Google map, based on the supplemental CSAA/Butler maps route I conceived, thinking it seems like applying the SRPC is something Claude could do reliably. Especially since he’s (?) fueled by raping (referred to as scrubbing in the industry) the sum of all that is known of human existence by way of nefarious programmers who then hide their plunder in data centers that are plunging civilization into accelerated resource depletion and further climate changing eco-calamity, not to mention unleashing enslaving bots and agents.
At least that’s what I read in the papers. Yes, I still read the papers.
Wait, what exactly is Claude’s pronoun? I digress.
Of course those clever tech bros claim that, “LLMs scrub data by identifying and removing low-quality, duplicated, or toxic content, which enhances the quality and reliability of the datasets used for training”.
Let the Games Begin
My initial prompt to Claude implied for him/her to use mileage criteria for determining stops for the day. I guess if I doctored that reference up with a little x rated math, the stop-variable, x, would have been more code like. Code, the metabolic equivalent to mitochondria in actual living things.
Here’s my initial prompt, finally (my prompts heretofore represented by bold italics):
Here’s your motorcycle itinerary challenge… Take this map and create an approximately 250 mile a day trip with stops for camping and motels at roughly those 250 mile intervals. Avoid interstates as much as possible. State Hwy routes are okay, decent local roads are a plus. Go for it! https://maps.app.goo.gl/1VjVyLQbk9DBFJ5t6
Without laying too much on the Sonnet 4.6 version of Claude by not mentioning anything about specifically identifying camping and motel recommendations, fuel availability/cost, or potential weather, all features of the SRPC, just like that Claude spits out (Claude’s responses heretofore represented in blue italics):
I can see the full route from the URL. Let me extract all the waypoints and search for lodging options along the way. Let me search for lodging and camping along each leg. Used 2 tools. Now I have everything I need to build a comprehensive guide. Let me put it all together. visualize show_widget
Whoa, that was darn near at the speed of light! Here’s the initial summary Claude produced, encapsulating the whole trip:
Epic western states moto route
Merced, CA → New Pine Creek → Pendleton, OR → Missoula, MT → Bighorn, WY → Hoback Jct → Green River, WY → Green River, UT → Baker, NV → Merced, CA .
Total distance: ~2,680 miles (est.); Riding days: 10 avg 268 mi/day; Total fuel: ~60 gal at 45 mpg avg; Fuel cost est.: ~$240 at ~$4.00/gal avg
Hmmm… I am reminded of George Bush in a 2002 quote, “There’s an old saying in Tennessee–I know it’s in Texas, probably Tennessee–that says, ‘Fool me once, shame on… shame on you. Fool me–you can’t get fooled again.”
The correct aphorism should be “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” I vow to remain unshamed!
“By my faith,” said Lancelot, “I had as much as I could do to save myself from you unshamed, therefore be in no doubt of any earthly knight.” From King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
I first noted that averaging 268 mi/day in the course of 10 days was way short of the 3,329 miles depicted on the map I had created in Google Maps. I was beginning to question Claude’s willingness to bet that because I’ve asked for help, I’m lazy enough to accept him (her?) at its (them’s?) word. Heck, $240 for gas was suspect, even at 45 mpg. Turns out Topaz is a better place to fuel up than Bridgeport.
Armed with having planned dozens of moto, backpack, cross-country ski, bicycle rambles and 24 student trips to Washington D.C. and Manhattan, being naturally skeptical, I wasn’t willing to give Claude a first or second chance to fool me much less shame me.
I know by now I’ve lost 95% of my “legion of readers” by way of my lengthy description of the complicated negotiations I encountered with a machine, despite cartoons and poetry. But please read on. There is more humor to be mined in the narrative… Sorry there aren’t more pictures. Though there are map links. On the other hand, exercise your imagination as did I in conceiving this trip!
Epic Western States Ramble Map Ver. 1.0
Overall, if you open the map you’ll see that Google declared (if it hasn’t already updated to reroute from the back roads to the slab) the route I submitted to Claude that would take 60 hours to travel 3,329 miles. The 60 hour time frame would fit roughly ten days at a constant speed in excess of 55 mph (- 70 mph, even 75 mph in Montana), no doubt the standard means by which Google determines the time it takes to make any distance on any given route within the time frame.
Time for a little math. Now I’m going to lose another 3%…
For an object moving at a uniform (constant) rate, the distance traveled, the elapsed time, and the rate are related by the formula d = rt where d = distance, r = rate, and t = time Using our Google data, 3,329 = r(60) Isolate the variable by dividing both sides of the equation by 60 and voilà, r = 55.5 mph
The total distance of 3,329 miles would require an average distance of ~333 miles/day to achieve the 10 day ramble. That’s around 634 more miles on the Google Map vs the Claude rendition of an itinerary, or roughly 2 extra days.
A more reasonable average of 268 miles a day, somewhere in the neighborhood of seven± hours in the saddle, allowing for fuel, food, and nalgas relief stops, would then allow for locating lodging or setting up camp and finding provisions before dark. That and time to enjoy the 3 R’s of Rehydration, Relaxation, and Reflection, which is the point of the ramble in the first place. That pace would take roughly 12.5 days to complete the ramble.
More math: 268 = r(5) where 268 = an average distance for a day, r = the rate of speed needed to accomplish the distance and (5) = the number of hours to achieve the distance. Works out to be 53.6 mph over 5 hours in the saddle. This doesn’t take into account stopping for fuel, sightseeing, trying to get the comms to work, missing turns, snacks, rain, mechanicals, etc. This could add up to another day or two…
On Day 1 Claude had the ride ending at the Pine Creek Campground near Lakeview, OR having declared the distance to be ~240 miles. Check the actual map I gave Claude for Day 1, Merced to Lakeview, OR. The distance from Merced to Lakeview, OR is 472 miles by way CA-99 from Sacramento, then zags and zigs getting onto US-395, mostly meeting the Sisyphus Ramble Planning Criteria, (SRPC). Coming in at 453 and 447 miles are SPRC roads to the east. Preferred roads. That’s a difference of ±200-228 miles, or around 4 more hours in the saddle at the legal speed limit.
Sisyphus and SMAP prefer 5 – 6 hours in the saddle as opposed to 8 or 9 hours. The latter reminds us of our pre-retirement rat-race hours. Don’t forget the importance of the 3R’s. One cannot rush the 3R’s hence the attractiveness of the former. Besides, no overtime past 8 hours on a motorcycle. Only nalgas fatigue and diminished focus. I got that latter/former thing right, didn’t I?
Secret: We often exceed the speed limit. That means we can actually spend less time on the bike to cover the distance between stops. We’re only limited by our fuel consumption. The faster you go, the less efficient mileage. The Guzzi’s 5.5 gallon tank can easily get 45 mpg at 55 mph. 45mpg x 5.5g = 247 miles on a tank. In the mountains or headwinds, the mileage can decrease to 35 mpg which only gets us ~193 miles on a tank.
Now, let me be clear. Claude assembled a very thorough itinerary, listing camping and motel options, fuel costs and locations, likely weather conditions along the way, with descriptions of the roads, terrain, and sights we would encounter. Even with the mistakes, that in itself saved me hours of blindly searching through bottom-shelf “low-quality, duplicated, or toxic content” in Google search as I would have to do the filtering, looking for “enhance[d] quality and reliability of the datasets” top-shelf content that Claude tried, and in many ways succeeded, to render.
From my prompt (again, in boldface) in response to the time/distance discrepancy:
I’m sorry. I intended to say that we did not want to travel on Interstates or major highways, preferring secondary roads or little used state hwys.
Wait, I just checked the first prompt and I did mention avoiding Interstates and major highways. I think I forgot mentioning that because there were probably 3 timeouts imposed by Anthropic for using the free version, Sonnet 4.6, instead of upgrading…
Claude’s response (in blue italics) to me:
No apology needed — that actually makes this route much more interesting! Let me re-examine each leg with that lens and find the good stuff. Searched the web Great — I now have solid research on all the secondary road options. Let me build the revised guide.
No apology needed because I didn’t need to apologize for a mistake I didn’t make. Now, I know I’m engaging AI, a machine. I can’t help but note that my politeness is cheerfully reciprocated by the machine’s. Those Snidley tech bros are trying to fool me again… Claude comes back with a completely revised itinerary. Problem is, Claude has disregarded the mileage criteria (SRPC) of preferably less than 300 miles, more in the 275 mile range, per day. Nailed the route though.
Epic Western Moto — Backroads Edition Day 1: Sonora Pass → Eastern Sierra → Lakeview, OR
| Place | Time | Notes | Address | Map |
| Merced, CA (start) | Departure — head east on CA-120 or CA-108 for Sonora Pass | Open | ||
| Sonora Pass (CA-108) — 9,624 ft | Epic Sierra Nevada crossing — check CalTrans for opening date in early June | Open | ||
| Bridgeport, CA — fuel stop | Last fuel before long Nevada stretch — fill up here | Open | ||
| Lakeview / Goose Lake SP | Night 1 — Best Western Skyline (motel) or Goose Lake State Park (camping ⭐4.4, moto-friendly) | Open |
Once again, the boldface prompt below began my next session with Claude, several hours later because I had timed out of my free “chat” limitation imposed by Anthropic. I guess they really want me to $ub$cribe.
The map route I chose differs from that which you have selected. I would prefer that you follow the route I chose in the Google Map link (https://maps.app.goo.gl/D31Mm6Z81mELPJNt9). This way we avoiding any Interstate, or major freeways, unless there is no other option available, preferring secondary roads and state highways limiting the distance traveled on any given day in the 250-300 mile range. As far as the motel recommendations, small independent lodging is okay as long as they aren’t flea-bags, and as for camping, having water and bathrooms, near towns where we can get provisions is preferred. Having showers and campfires would be nice, but not an absolute requirement.
Claude matter-of-factly responds:
Let me properly extract every waypoint from that Google Maps link first. Fetched: https://maps.app.goo.gl/D31Mm6Z81mELPJNt9
Good — the full destination URL is visible. Now let me carefully parse every waypoint and the specific road routing Google chose. The coordinates are all embedded in the URL. Let me decode them precisely and research the actual roads Google’s routing uses between each stop, then find appropriate secondary road alternatives where it would have used interstates.
It seems that Claude has dispensed with the jovial politeness having made a mistake or two. Self-conscious perhaps? Yikes, simulated sentience! I kind of understand the business about the coordinates embedded in the URL. Each map has anywhere from four to ten lines of pretty dense code. Generating his own dense code, Claude, once again, using up my free access to the scrubbed content, completely rebuilds the itinerary.
So I gingerly remind him. Or her. Or them:
According to Google Maps, the first day mileage to New Pine Creek is 8 hr 48 min (473 mi). Why is there a discrepancy with the mileage you listed?
Claude responded:
You’re absolutely right to call that out. The discrepancy is my error — I underestimated the Day 1 mileage significantly.
Looking at it honestly: Merced to New Pine Creek via CA-108 (Sonora Pass) then US-395 north all the way to the Oregon border is indeed ~473 miles. That’s a very long first day — nearly double what I listed.
The reason for my error was likely that I was mentally anchoring on a “target” of ~275 miles per day and unconsciously adjusted the number rather than trusting the actual map distance. That was wrong of me.
Claude rationalizes the error by claiming “mentally anchoring,” “unconsciously adjusted,” “than trusting the actual map distance.” Huh? Is Claude claiming consciousness by admitting unconsciousness? The next time my wife accuses me of stubbornness, I’ll simply reply that I’m mentally anchoring...
Claude continued:
At 473 miles, Day 1 as a single riding day is not realistic — that’s 8+ hours of seat time before stops, fuel, food, or fatigue. Here’s what I’d suggest for correcting the itinerary:
Option A — Split Day 1 into two days:
- Day 1a: Merced → Bridgeport, CA via CA-108/Sonora Pass (~145 mi, ~3 hrs) — short but earns the Sierra crossing
- Day 1b: Bridgeport → New Pine Creek/Lakeview via US-395 N (~210 mi, ~4 hrs) — pure Eastern Sierra magic through Alturas
This makes the full loop 10 days instead of 9, and keeps every day well under 275 miles.
Option B — Reroute Day 1 to skip Sonora Pass: Take US-395 N directly from the Reno/Carson City area (reached via CA-50 from Sacramento, bypassing Merced’s eastward jog to the pass). Shorter but loses the Sonora Pass experience. Option C — Accept a long Day 1 and plan accordingly: Depart very early (5am), ride straight through with fuel/food stops, and accept that Day 1 is the “grind day” that earns everything that follows.
My recommendation is Option A — splitting at Bridgeport gives you a proper night in the Eastern Sierra, which is spectacular in its own right, and keeps the rest of the itinerary at sane daily distances.
Would you like me to rebuild the full guide with the corrected mileages across all legs?
Me, myself, and I prompted the following negotiation:
Yes please. My intent was to keep the riding to ±250 ish miles per day, of course, keeping in mind lodging, fuel, and campgrounds. The 10 day requirement can be adjusted as well. 12 days is the upper limit for the trip. Keep with the recommended proximate motel lodging and camping given the, let’s say under ~300 miles, unless an extra few miles might be added given lodging/camping and the map.
Claude (him, her, they, them) responded:
Let me get the accurate mileage for every single leg before building anything.
Claude, a captain in the obvious army…
Mentally Anchoring
What follows is the remainder of the chat Claude and I had for planning the ramble. There continued to be several mistakes made with distances violating the Sisyphus Ramble Planning Criteria (SRPC), course corrections and ultimately chopping off the Bighorn in Wyoming trying to keep the ride under a month long.
Sadly, the Bighorn was the scene of one of the most challenging uphills in my previous life as a knuckle headed member of a group of erstwhile bicycle riding knucklers as we took on the Western States in annual Tour de Life rides. Rides that have inspired Sisyphus, having lived more of his past than he has a future, to mount the moto in search of that youthful spirit.
Claude’s poetic prose in action:
Day 2 opens the throttle on something wilder. US-395 north through Modoc County is the road the travel magazines forgot, which is exactly why it’s so good. High volcanic plateau, almost no traffic, the sky enormous in every direction. Across the Oregon line, Lakeview arrives like a mirage — a genuine small Western town, proud of its hang gliders and its solitude. The free camp at Mud Creek puts you in a meadow with cows for neighbors and stars you haven’t seen since the last time you were somewhere this far from a city.
Where is Claude coming up with this vaguely poetic travel bureau prose? Oh, yeah, from scrubbed travel brochures on the interwebs. Here’s the revised Day 2 departing from Bridgeport, the revised Day 1 option:
US-395 N from Alturas through Davis Creek and Lakeview, OR (54 mi) — you cross into Oregon at New Pine Creek right on the state line at Goose Lake. Continue north on US-395 N through Valley Falls and Summer Lake (stop for the Summer Lake Wildlife Refuge — migrating birds in June) to Burns/Hines (139 mi from Lakeview). This is the “Outback Scenic Byway” — genuine high desert solitude, almost no traffic. Shorter day after yesterday’s push; use the afternoon to explore Malheur National Wildlife Refuge east of Burns.
“Shorter day after yesterday’s push?” It was technically the shortest day of the entire trip. Claude must have scrubbed some ketamine along with the day 3 data.
Oregon’s interior is where the trip finds its soul. US-395 through the Burns high desert is meditative riding — wide open, bone-dry, extraordinarily beautiful in a way that asks nothing of you except attention. Then US-26 bends toward the Painted Hills, where the earth turns red and ochre and cream in layers that look painted by hand. John Day is a one-main-street ranching town that happens to have a motel owner who’ll wave you in like a long-lost cousin. Clyde Holliday State Park, just down the road, puts you on the river with showers that actually work.
John Day was eliminated as a day 3 destination to shorten the distance by choosing to stay in Burns, OR. Here’s them, they’s revised narrative:
US-395 N from Alturas through Davis Creek and Lakeview, OR (54 mi) — you cross into Oregon at New Pine Creek right on the state line at Goose Lake. Continue north on US-395 N through Valley Falls and Summer Lake (stop for the Summer Lake Wildlife Refuge — migrating birds in June) to Burns/Hines (139 mi from Lakeview). This is the “Outback Scenic Byway” — genuine high desert solitude, almost no traffic. Shorter day after yesterday’s push; use the afternoon to explore Malheur National Wildlife Refuge east of Burns.
Day 4 Claude’s original recommendation:
The Wallowa Valley on Day 4 is a revelation — a long green corridor narrowing toward peaks that rise abruptly from the valley floor like something from a different continent. Joseph is part art colony, part cowboy town, and the combination is more charming than it has any right to be. Wallowa Lake State Park, five miles south, is the kind of place you plan to spend an hour and leave three days later.
Then the trip turns north and east and the stakes get serious. The Lochsa River canyon on US-12 is raw and steep and spectacular, the road threading between canyon walls and fast water for sixty miles without a stoplight or a gas station. It will be one of the finest hours you’ve ever spent on a motorcycle. The Bitterroot Valley delivers you gently into Montana, and Spring Gulch camp on the river — with its flower-scented outhouses and beloved host — feels like a reward you’ve earned.
Whoa, Burns, OR to the Bitterroot Valley in Montana? That’s 462 miles, that’s nearly 200 miles greater than what we would consider a reasonable distance given entering the Rocky Mountains terrain and likely afternoon thunder showers.
Here’s the revised leg for Day 4:
US-395 N from Burns through Seneca, Canyon City, and John Day — the “Journey Through Time Scenic Byway.” Painted hills, fossil beds, juniper rimrock, absolutely stunning. At John Day, US-395 briefly overlaps US-26 west to Mount Vernon, then turns north through Long Creek, Dale, Ukiah, and Pilot Rock into Pendleton. In Pendleton, take surface streets (SE Emigrant Ave / US-30) through town to avoid I-84 entirely. This corridor is one of Oregon’s finest two-lane sequences — 197 miles of pure secondary road.
This is the revised Day 5 Claude mistake, which was a correction from the original mistaken distance.
Day 5–Pendleton, OR → Salmon, ID (via Lolo Pass) ~280 mi 6.2 gal/bike Roads — AMA Top 10 – Northeast on OR-11 N through Milton-Freewater to Walla Walla, WA — wheat hills and wine country. East on US-12 E through Waitsburg and Dayton to Lewiston/Clarkston. Cross the Snake River and enter the canyon on US-12 E (Northwest Passage Scenic Byway / AMA Top 10) — Clearwater and Lochsa River canyon — over Lolo Pass (5,233 ft) into Montana. At Lolo, turn south on US-93 S through the Bitterroot Valley — Hamilton, Darby, Lost Trail Pass (7,014 ft) — back into Idaho, descending to Salmon, ID. Two mountain passes, two river canyons, one extraordinary day.
My flag of the mistake:
Check the day 5 mileage, Pendleton to Salmon. Google maps says it’s 473 miles, not 235 as you have asserted…
Claude, once again (this one in machine guilt ridden H-5 boldface!):
You’re absolutely right to catch that, and I apologize — it’s the same error I made earlier with Day 1.
Claude seems to have forgotten he’s screwed up each day’s mileage.
You’re absolutely right to catch that, and I apologize — it’s the same error I made earlier with Day 1. Let me verify the actual distance properly.
Searched the web
Now I can verify the true segment math clearly from confirmed data:
- Pendleton → Walla Walla (OR-11): 39 mi
- Walla Walla → Lewiston (US-12 E): ~105 mi
- Lewiston → Lolo Pass (US-12 E through Idaho): 174 mi
- Lolo Pass → Lolo MT (US-12 E): 45 mi
- Lolo → US-93 south to Lost Trail Pass: ~83 mi
- Lost Trail Pass → Salmon (US-93 S): ~57 mi
Total: 39 + 105 + 174 + 45 + 83 + 57 = ~503 miles. Google Maps’ 473 miles is consistent — the discrepancy with my earlier 280 mi figure was a serious error on my part. I conflated the Pendleton → Salmon segment with the Salmon → Missoula segment (141 mi) and somehow landed on the wrong number. I’m sorry for that — it’s the same class of mistake as Day 1.
Here’s the honest picture for what this means for the 10-day plan:
The Pendleton → Salmon leg via Lolo Pass is ~473–503 miles — it cannot be one day. It needs to be split into two days:
- Day 5a: Pendleton → Powell/Lochsa Lodge, ID via OR-11/US-12: ~205 mi ✓
- Day 5b: Lochsa Lodge → Salmon via US-12 east to Lolo, US-93 south over Lost Trail Pass: ~278 mi ✓ (or split at Missoula for an easier day, but that adds a day and bypasses Salmon)
The problem is that adding this split pushes the trip to 11 days minimum, not 10. The good news is you said 12 is your upper limit, so 11 days is fine. The alternative is to drop Salmon as a destination and instead overnight at Lochsa Lodge (Day 5) and then Missoula (Day 6), then head south — but that changes the routing for Day 6 onward entirely since we’d no longer be going through the Lemhi Valley and Teton Pass.
My recommendation: Accept 11 days, split Day 5 at Lochsa Lodge (~205 mi) and ride Day 6 Lochsa → Salmon via Lolo/Lost Trail passes (~278 mi). Days 6–10 shift by one to become Days 7–11. Everything else stays exactly as built.
Would you like me to rebuild the full guide as a clean 11-day itinerary with that correction in place?
I was growing tired of all of the back and forth with Google Maps to confirm Claude’s mileage hallucinations, so I dropped the Alt. US-14 climb to Burgess Junction, the Bighorn 🫤 and decided to go back to my “old school” route planning. I would then use Claude to describe the route wary of the mileage, recommend lodging, as it seemed to be more reliable than his/her/it (?) mapping.
And so, preserving Claude’s intriguing description of the leg of the trip up the Bighorn on what would have been Day 6 and 7 by his calculus follows:
Chief Joseph Pass at dawn, crossing the Continental Divide into the Big Hole Valley, is cold and quiet and profoundly empty in the best possible way. Wyoming builds toward the main event: Burgess Junction. The Bighorn Scenic Byway climbs to 9,430 feet above the treeline, and on a clear morning with no other traffic, standing on that summit — maybe for the second time in your life, the first on a bicycle with burning legs — the feeling is not easily described. You’ll want to stay longer than you should.
Yeah, burning legs barely kept me from going hypothermic as we rode from Cody, WY (5066 ft el) to the base of the climb in Lovell, WY at (3,835 ft el) up to Medicine Wheel (9,430 ft el), humping up grades of 8 – 10 percent over 25 miles to the top from Lovell. The last 5 miles in a hail and torrential thundershower capping a 98 mile day. While it was a spectacularly memorable ride on a bicycle, I’d say riding a motorcycle up Alt US-14 would be anticlimactic… Another example of youth, wasted on the young?
The descent into the Big Horn Basin drops you back into warmth and Wyoming’s wide ranching country, and US-191 south through Pinedale carries you toward the Wind River Range — a wall of granite and snow that rises to the east like a declaration. Fremont Lake sits at the foot of it all, glacier-blue and enormous, and the campground on its shore is one of those places that recalibrates something in you. You make dinner in the long June light, the peaks turning pink above the water, and it occurs to you that this is the kind of evening that justified packing the tent.
Woah, Fremont Lake is 71 miles from Hoback, WY. By this time, I’m totally confused by Claude’s routing. Instead, I decided to skip the Bighorn detour, opting for a Day 1 – 6 looking like this: Day 1 Susanville, CA; Day 2 Burns, OR; Day 3 Stanley, ID; Day 4 Jackson, WY; Day 5 Vernal, UT; Day 6 Torrey, UT.
Salmon, ID → Hoback Junction, WY (via Teton Pass) ~235 mi 5.2 gal/bike Roads — Sacajawea Byway + Teton Pass
South from Salmon on US-93 S briefly, then southeast on ID-28 (Sacajawea Historic Byway) — 136 miles through the Lemhi Valley, one of Idaho’s most beautiful and lonesome corridors. Sacajawea’s homeland. Through Leadore and south to ID-33 east through Driggs and Victor in the Teton Valley. East on WY-22 over Teton Pass (8,431 ft) — steep, spectacular, Teton views on the descent — into Jackson, WY. South on US-189/US-191 S to Hoback Junction. No interstate anywhere on this leg.
I discovered on the paper map that Stanley, ID was more “efficient” distance wise than Salmon, ID. Though Claude ended the day in Hoback Junction, it (he/she/they?) noted that there is no lodging or camping near there. So he/she/they comes up with another 71 miles to Fremont Lake to camp. Why then end the day in Hoback Junction? Add 14 miles to Jackson for a room for the night.
Claude’s rendition of Day 7 at 207 miles that Google renders as 242 (+14) miles:
Hoback Junction, WY → Dutch John / Flaming Gorge, UT ~205 mi 4.6 gal/bike Roads — All-American Road South from Hoback on US-191 S through Pinedale and Big Piney — Wyoming high desert sweepers, pronghorn everywhere, almost no traffic. South to Rock Springs area, then south on US-191 S (Flaming Gorge–Green River Basin All-American Road) through the high desert into the canyon. Stop at Firehole Canyon overlook. South to Dutch John, UT and the Flaming Gorge Dam (free tour). Shorter day — use the afternoon exploring the reservoir, Red Canyon overlook on UT-44, or Dinosaur National Monument (50 mi east via US-40, highly recommended).
Watch out for those pesky pronghorns. Claude’s description of his proposed day 8 and 9 is also worth taking a look, especially at its ambitious Ely, NV destination:
Day 8 carries you south on WY-530, hugging the western edge of Flaming Gorge Reservoir as the landscape begins its dramatic shift from Wyoming sage to Utah redrock. The canyon arrives without much warning — one moment you’re on a plateau, the next the earth has dropped away in walls of rust and crimson plunging toward improbably blue water three hundred feet below. Camp at Dutch John puts you right at the lake’s edge, and at sunset the canyon walls go the color of a forge fire. It is, without question, the most theatrical campsite on the route.
From Flaming Gorge, US-191 drops through the Uinta Basin into Vernal — a town that takes its dinosaurs seriously, as it should — and then US-40 west hands you off to the road everyone claims to know and almost nobody has actually ridden: US-50, the Loneliest Road in America. The name is not hyperbole. For the better part of two hundred miles across central Nevada, the road unspools in long straight reaches between basin and range, basin and range, each valley floor a dry lake bed shimmering in the heat, each mountain range crossed in a brief ecstasy of curves before the next valley opens ahead of you. Austin, Eureka, Ely — small Nevada towns spaced like rest stops at the end of the earth, each one with a gas station, a bar, a handful of people who chose this particular solitude deliberately. There is no traffic to speak of. You and the road and the sky, for hours. Ward Mountain camp above Ely sits at 7,500 feet in the White Pine Range, cool and pine-scented and so quiet after the desert crossing that it feels like a different planet. The Forest Service rebuilt it recently and it shows — level tent pads, new fire rings, pit toilets that don’t offend. You sleep better than you have in weeks.
Flaming Gorge to Ely is 429 miles. Well, there may be a day inserted somewhere in Utah, possibly Green River, some 250 miles from Flaming Gorge. Then on to Ely, NV close to 330 miles, some on the I-70 slab until we reach US-50. Green River, UT to Ely, NV
My prompt:
Since I’m on the freebie plan, just reconstruct day 5 through day 11… Look, I get LLM’s, at least as much as a retired sixth grade math science teacher can. I may have made a mistake or two in my career. You are a great help, but, like my students, I always checked their “math” and reasoning…
Seemingly sentient again, Claude replied:
Ha! Fair enough — and honestly, having a sixth grade math teacher checking the work is exactly what this route planning needed. I’ll take the correction in the spirit it’s given. Let me rebuild Days 5–11 cleanly with verified mileages.
Here was Claude’s first iteration of the last two days, trying to hit locations without regard to distances from Ely to the Great Basin, Caliente, and up and over Tioga Pass to Merced in what would have been a 655 mile (only 11 miles short of 666) slog home.
The final day is a homecoming written in geology. US-6 west from Ely passes through the ghost-town gravity of central Nevada — old mining camps half-reclaimed by the desert, their silence neither sad nor celebratory, just honest. Baker and Great Basin National Park offer a brief detour into Wheeler Peak’s shadow if the legs still want it, and then US-95 south pulls you toward the California line and the turn onto US-395, which is the road that started this whole loop ten days and 2,200 miles ago. But now it’s the Eastern Sierra you’re approaching from the north, and it looks different coming this way — Bridgeport Valley opening wide and green below the Sweetwater Mountains, Mono Lake appearing like a gray dream to the south, its tufa towers rising from alkaline water that has no modern equivalent anywhere on earth.
And then the turn west onto California 120, and the long climb to Tioga Pass at 9,945 feet — the highest paved crossing of the Sierra Nevada. In late June the snowbanks are still retreating from the roadside, the granite still wet, the air carrying that particular high-altitude clarity that makes everything look slightly too sharp and real. Yosemite’s high country spreads below the pass in a series of polished domes and subalpine meadows, and you descend through it all — past Tuolumne Meadows, down the Merced River canyon — the switchbacks trading altitude for warmth mile by mile until the valley floor and the oaks and the ordinary summer heat of the Central Valley receive you back. Merced is two hours further. The loop is closed.
Here’s what haggling over the course of several days ended up being the remaining days of the ramble.
Day 10 Ely, NV → Fallon, NV (via US-50 “Loneliest Highway in America”); 252 mi; 5.6 gal/bike; Roads — US-50, “The Loneliest Highway in America”
West from Ely on US-50 W — the whole way to Fallon. Three small towns and an extraordinary stretch of American loneliness: Ely → Eureka (~80 mi) → Austin (~70 mi) → Fallon (~100 mi). Sagebrush valleys, Basin and Range fault-block mountains, wide open sky. Time magazine called it “totally empty” in 1986 — Nevada embraced the label and created an official “Highway 50 Survival Guide” passport, stamped in each town. Pick one up in Ely and collect stamps in Eureka, Austin, and Fallon for your official Nevada survival certificate. Pure two-lane, zero interstates, and one of the great American road experiences.
You’ll come home road-worn, sun-baked, and already planning the next one.
Old Claude tapped into a closing sentiment of which I am totally in agreement.
Old School Trippin’
I have since revised the route without Claude. It was back to setting up individual maps of each leg of the ramble. It looks like this: Day 1-Susanville; Day 2-Burns, OR; Day 3-Stanley ID; Day 4-Jackson, WY; Day 5-Vernal, UT; Day 6-Torrey, UT; Day 7-Ely, NV; In opting for US-50, the Loneliest Road in America, Day 8-Fallon, NV; and Day 9 Home. Around 288 miles a day, within the Sisyphean Ramble Planning Criteria met. Well, there are 335 and 307 mile days buffered by a couple of 255 mile days.
I wanted to consider an alternate Day 8-10 option keeping the Great Basin National Park, Baker, Caliente, and Tonopah, NV, and maybe a last night in the Owens Valley high desert, on eastern Sierra at the Taboose Creek campground in the itinerary. I love those places, but it will soon be summer and as at least one of the names imply, it can be hot.
That’s not to say Claude wasn’t of assistance. The chap was terrific in running down lodging/camping along the way. The descriptions of the terrain and features of each leg were moving, in spite of their inaccuracies of length and waypoint.
My leash is not 14 days long. It’s more like 7 days long. I’ll be pushing it for a 10 or 11 day trip as it is. I’m not getting any younger and so I want to at least revisit places on the moto that I originally did on a bicycle. Apparently my responsibilities at home are greater now that I’m retired than when I was younger riding bicycles with knuckleheads.
Sometime in June, around my seventy-second birthday, SMAP (Sisyphus’s Moto Associate Pete) will embark on some form and/or fashion of a ride through California into Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, returning to California in 9-12 days of riding. Stay tuned for the ride report that will follow, hopefully, before the Fourth of July. Until then, keep the shiny side up and the rubber side down.
🤙
Sisyphus and Associates 