West Yellowstone, MT - Mammoth, WY

Pedaled into the park today, to my great elation.  I headed north to Mammoth and stopped at the Artists Paint Pots and Norris Geyser Basin.  I arrived at Mammoth in the evening, and set up camp at a cyclists-only campsite here for $5.  No shower so I hiked up the hill to the Mammoth Hotel where I got a shower for $3.  It was almost as clean as the shower at the Albuquerque Greyhound station.  Got some internet for $5.  There is much more to see at Mammoth and I'm going to do some hiking here tomorrow morning.

It is fantastically beautiful.  Everything of course smells like sulfur, and the geysers and springs and mud pots are otherworldly.  You stand there and there is deep gurgling and spitting and hissing.  You can sense that the inferno below is not very far down.  It would be really cool to do some backcountry travel here.  I can't imagine what people thought when they first saw this place.  Thanks to Roosevelt (I think) it's still unspoiled.  I'm glad that it hasn't been converted into one huge Taco Bell.

Traffic in the park is much different than outside.  I'm really glad I came after the Labor Day weekend.  Traffic is actually really light right now, and I am thankful.  Speed limits are low and nobody is in much of a hurry.  However, there is all kinds of erratic behavior.  People slam on their brakes without warning and turn without signaling, deciding at the last second that they ought to see the such-and-such mud pit.  When people see me, they freak out.  People slow way down even in the oncoming lane, causing a backup.  I guess I'm much more interesting than a bison.  When people pass me from behind they slow waaay down and follow me for awhile.  Then after they pass, they look in their rear view mirror and swerve all the way over into the shoulder.  Today a fire truck went inches from going off an embankment doing this; I'm certain it was because he was staring at me through his mirror in curiosity.  

Everyone has to talk to me when I stop about my contraption and my trip.  A surprising number of people offer me advice.  Like, "You're going to Colorado?  Let me warn you, there are a lot of hills."  Hills?  No kidding, Sherlock.  

There was a stiff breeze today, blowing out of the southwest mostly.  I either had tailwinds or crosswinds.  If the wind is the same tomorrow, I will have headwinds and crosswinds.  That will be more effort.  I'm not sure how far I will make it after I spend some time hiking here.

Physically I am feeling strong.  I am taking most hills in one gear higher than before.  Also, I am less conservative about saving energy at the beginning of a long climb, going a little harder from the get-go.  It feels good.  I have some minor chafing on my thighs, windburn on my face, heat rash on my arms and neck where the sunblock clogged my pores, and plenty of insect bites.  I could also use a foot massage.  

Gear-wise, everything is mostly good.  I think there is probably something amiss with the bottom bracket, as it gives me a minor pop on every pedal revolution.  It's annoying, but I don't get the sense that it would fail suddenly.  My socks have holes in them, and my shoes need to be replaced at some point.  Ten years of pedaling in the same shoes and they are stretched to where they fit like house slippers.  I still have not had a flat tire, which is unreal.

Not sure how far I will make it tomorrow, as I will spend some time hiking here.

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Thanks for taking my picture, Asian tourists!

Feels so different

Gibbon Falls/canyon

A bad way to go

Kids staring into a hole, waiting for something to happen

Norris Basin.  This basin covers a huge area, however I couldn't give it justice since I still had to ride 20 miles before nightfall.

America

New setup using the bike.  A bivy may have been a better choice for this trip.

Genius!

Ennis, MT - West Yellowstone, MT

It's been a busy day.  Woke up warm thanks to sleeping on the ground per Jeff's advice.  Left the Ennis RV park this morning with the goal of getting to West Yellowstone, 71 miles away.  Hermann and his family gave me a sendoff.  I cruised through Ennis, stopping to find some camp food, but no luck since everything was closed on account of the holiday.

The road south through the Madison Valley started off fairly humdrum since the road was arrow-straight for miles and I couldn't see much.  The smoky haze blotted out the peaks except for faint silhouettes.  Trucks and RVs ruled the road, but the shoulder was very wide so all was good.  After awhile, the valley narrowed, bringing the scenery closer.  I rode close to the wide river, where lots of people were fly fishing.  I can imagine that fly fishing is pretty good around here, because there are certainly plenty of real flies.  I'm talking about the six-legged kind that fly into the gaps in your helmet or up your shorts.

It was time for a break so I pulled off the road and took refuge under a shade tree.  As I was sitting there, a girl on a horse walked up behind me.  She said hello and I figured she was associated with the nearby ranch.  Turns out her name is Katie and she's a modern-day Sacagawea who is out for a ("short") 12-day excursion on her horse, Flint.  She had a tiny bedroll and minimalist saddle and a few little bags.  Most of these items she made herself, since she is an accomplished tanner.  She was on her way to teach her craft at a primitive skills rendezvous in Idaho.  Her website is www.wilderbabe.com and it's worth a look.

Flint decided that I needed a bath, so he licked the salt off of me for quite some time.  After about 10 minutes of horse licking, I was salt-free!

I said goodbye to Katie and continued south through the valley.  The traffic died off; I think everybody was going home from their vacation.  Some big vistas opened up to the south but I turned east into the park, where I had to ride up the canyon of the Madison.  I passed an enormous rockslide that was triggered by a big earthquake in the 1950s.  Several campers are still buried under it.  The debris blocked the Madison and formed Quake Lake.  Further up, I rode along beautiful Hebgen Lake and then into West Yellowstone.  I must have taken too many pictures because I didn't get into town until about five minutes before sunset.  I took a room at an establishment run by a Chinese lady, who seemed to like me more after I haggled for the price.

West Yellowstone is like Manhattan.  I don't think there is a town with more cultural variety between here and Seattle.  Tourists from every nation are walking the streets, and everybody is speaking a different language.  I ate at a Chinese place and was waited on by a Russian girl named Olga.  The kitchen was on the ball and I was shoveling food into my mouth within minutes.  I think it was good, but I didn't slow down very much.  She came over a few times to ask if everything tasted OK and I answered "Mmmph!  Iff gurph!" through a mouthful of rice.



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Hermann and his rental.  This is a compact compared to some of the monsters on the road.

Do the Rolling Stones stay at RV parks now?

Katie and Flint

First he tasted my handlebars

Then he gave my arm a good bath

Paddling in the Madison

Everyone was fishing here

Southern end of the Madison Valley.  I took a left before those mountains.

Pause at Hebgen Lake

Just outside town

Dillon, MT - Ennis, MT

Today was a successful day, with great scenery and a decent amount of effort.  It seemed like forever before I could get out of Dillon, since everything was moving slowly and the town was packed with fair/rodeo fans.  I stopped at a sporting goods store, looking for a hat and gloves.  The salesmen tried to get me to buy a raffle ticket for a new rifle they were giving away.  I explained that I was on my bicycle and it would be awkward to carry a rifle.  They said not to worry, people mount them on ATVs all the time, and they even sell mounting hardware.  I let my chance at the rifle slip away, but got what I was after and soon I was on the road headed north.

For awhile I was moving at warp speed with a strong tailwind and a big wide shoulder.  I ate up 10 miles in a hurry, but then the shoulder disappeared and the road narrowed.  The white line was painted on the edge of a dropoff, the speed limit was 70, and there was limited sight distance.  Anxiety increased.  The night before, Google Maps had shown me a cutoff route which I had determined to be unsuitable. All of a sudden, it seemed like a much better idea.  The deal was sealed when I passed some touring cyclists going the other direction and shouted across the road "is there any shoulder up there?"  They shook their heads in misery as trucks rumbled by.  That was it, I turned onto the gravel road and I didn't care if I had to push my bike 30 miles through ranchland.

It turned out to be OK.  The road surface was variable, with some loose gravel and potholes and soft earth from last night's rain.  But there were hardly any vehicles at all.  Occasionally a rancher wearing a Montana-sized hat would drive past slowly in a Montana-sized pickup, and we would wave.  I think you'd get by in this country if you had two heads and gigantic tentacles, as long as you waved at everyone.

After 30 miles on gravel (bless my tires), I got back to the two-lane road which hadn't gotten any wider but was less busy.  I cruised through Virginia City which is an old ghost town with lots of tourists.  I find that I am often the main tourist attraction when I wheel by.  There was a tourist bus driving along with kids waving at me instead of listening to the narration.

An unnamed beefy 1900-foot climb at the end brought me up and over into the Madison Valley, with the Madison River and the Madison Range coming into view.  The range presents a huge panoramic wall of peaks as far as the eye can see.  Tomorrow I ride south through the valley and into West Yellowstone, which is 71 miles away.

In Yellowstone, there is supposed to be cyclists-only camping, which I am excited to check out.  There are also supposed to be a lot of bears.  Tony, the cop I passed a few days ago, said he sprayed a bear from his bike.  He proudly showed me his bear spray can which mounted in place of one of his water bottle cages.  He said that if it wasn't for the bear spray, he would have been lunch.  I acted interested but I can't see myself going that route for a variety of reasons.  I need my bottle cages, and there's just no way I'm going to ride around spraying bears.

Tonight I am camped at the Ennis RV Park, which is really big.  There are probably 100 RVs here but it's very quiet and it's a beautiful night.  A German family pulled in next to me in a rented RV and we chatted.  Dad's name is Herman, and his teenage boys are Alex and Michael.  They seemed pretty amazed that I was riding my bicycle around.  They said they are headed to the park tomorrow.  I've been dreading the ineptitude of all the RVers driving around Yellowstone.  Being from Germany, Herman is probably safe.

Dinner-plate sized moon is coming up and the Big Dipper is above, but the smoke in the air still hangs like smog.



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Bumpy ride, lots of hills and sand traps but no traffic

This old beast was parked at Nevada City ghost town.  Lots of old rail lines met there.

Tours of Nevada City

The thrilling descent into the Madison Valley

And in anticipation of Yellowstone, allow me to share my favorite Youtube tourist-trampling video.  I've watched this dozens of times and it never gets old.  Notice how the guy first threw a rolled-up newspaper at the buffalo to start the action.

Jackson, MT - Dillon, MT

Another question I am often asked: are you actually enjoying yourself?  I am.  I really like riding my bike, and it makes me feel strong.  I like the smells and the scenery is fabulous.  Certainly I like the feeling of accomplishment.

With that said, I made it into Dillon, MT this afternoon, soaked.  The day started off well, as I BS'ed with some Harley folks at the last joint this morning.  I rode out of the Big Hole across two mountain passes, neither of which were brutal, although the elevations keep climbing.  The last one was at 7400 feet.    It was a beautiful road with very few vehicles.

About halfway through the ride, dark clouds showed up on the horizon, and it didn't take long for them to merge into a huge gray wall of evil.  I picked up the pace as lightning was striking a few miles away and thunder was booming.  I figured if I could make it over the next pass I could outrun it.  I actually made it over the pass in time, cranking away, beating the storm.  Unfortunately, as I crested the hill, I saw that another big storm was in front of me.  Dillon was only 15 miles away, and I flew down in high gear trying to get to town before the storm did.  I didn't make it.  The headwind roared and rain pellets were stinging my face.  Eventually it got bad enough that I took shelter under a bush.  After awhile there was a bit of a lull and I rode the rest of the way into town, wet.

I got a room since I didn't feel like getting soaked tonight.  The desk guy was grumpy about letting me bring my bike into the room, but he relented and let me put it in the maintenance area.  There is a big rodeo and fair in town tonight, but I'm going to skip it because it's on the other side of town and I don't feel like riding at night.  It would involve going through a highway interchange and down a busy road in the dark, which wouldn't be much fun.  Tomorrow I should be back on the deserted roads again.  It's supposed to be sunny and nice and I'm looking forward to it.






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No services, nice view

Big empty

The storm approaches.  I only stopped for a second before hauling my ass out of there.

Me riding riding fast to try to get into town

Narrating from under a bush

Missoula - Sula - Jackson, MT

Yesterday morning I left the warm embrace of Missoula.  By the time I finished stopping for excellent coffee, getting supplies (bread, plums, proscuitto, cookies, trail mix, Twizzlers), and chatting with a somewhat erratic Missoula denizen on a street corner for far too long, it was 11:00am.  I still managed to get 80 miles since it was flat terrain and calm winds.  About 30 of it was on a bike path from Lolo to Hamilton, which was very pleasant.  Although the bank thermometer said 90 degrees, if I kept pedaling and hydrating and evaporating I was pretty cool.

The most striking thing about the day was the severity of the smoke.  Visibility was reduced to about four miles.  Beyond that, the mountains just disappeared into the grey/brown haze.  It was unfortunate because people say it's a pretty valley when you can see.  Everything smelled like a campfire and the smoke burned my eyes and throat.  I breathed shallowly because a full inflation of my lungs made me cough painfully.  It wasn't completely miserable, it was just unpleasant.  Later in the day it got even worse.  As I got further into the mountains and toward the fires, visibility dropped even further and the sun was dimmed to a small red disc.  I kept getting nervous because it seemed like the sun was setting and therefore it was time to get off the bike.  At 4:30pm I checked to see when sunset was, and it wasn't until 8:15pm.  Eerie.

The Sula Country Store and Resort has a Conoco station and a restaurant, with campsites around back.  This area was scorched by fires in 2000 (?) and looks a lot different now.  Beautiful vacation homes are built on hillsides completely barren of vegetation except for blackened burnt-out stumps.  I'm sure there are also some foundations of beautiful vacation homes which didn't make it.

I set up my camp in a warm breeze filled with falling ash and finally got arranged in the hammock.  You have to be acrobatic and also patient, for any adjustment requires a balancing act.  Taking off socks, for example, makes the hammock go sideways unless you are careful.  I performed all the manoevers necessary to get into my bag and immediately fell asleep.  Sometime around 4am, I woke up again, freezing.  The temperature had dropped drastically.  I mustered the courage to go outside and gather up my remaining clothes.  I got back in the hammock and flopped around putting everything on while the cold wind blew outside.  Finally I was warm, mostly due to the exertion of wiggling around.  I fell asleep again and woke up an hour later, still cold.  The sun wasn't up yet so I just pulled my hat down lower and curled into a ball.  I drifted off for awhile until there was some light on the horizon, when I got out of the hammock and went to the shower block.  I got in the shower and stood there until my core temperature came back up.  There is an exact moment when your body reaches temperature equilibrium and a fuzzy narcotic sense of well-being sweeps over you.  When I walked out (furtively since I had probably cost them $5 in hot water), a guy was walking his dog and said it was 36 degrees.

After I packed up camp, I stopped in the store/restaurant.  Before I could even get through the doorway I was beset with questions about my bike and my trip.  A fellow named Gordon told me some stories about past bicycle tours he had done.  He and others wished me well.  Everyone was very kind and I left with some really nice vibes.

I climbed up Lost Trail Pass and Chief Joseph Pass, which were nice humps but not drastic.  They take time, though.  I try not to get out of breath and I stop sometimes.  I don't like using all of my energy because I might need it later.  On the other side of the pass I came out of the mountains into the "Big Hole", a large expanse of dry sagebrush prairie, perhaps 30 miles squared, ringed by mountains.  The wind picked up out of the south and blew me into the lane a few times.  The few cars out there were all very polite, though.  This road is on the American Cycling Association "Trans-Am" route and a lot of cyclists come through here.  As I came into Wisdom, MT, I passed Tony, a recently-retired Greeley, CO police officer on a trike headed the other direction.  He said he had just had heart bypass surgery and that this probably wasn't the greatest idea but he was doing it anyway.  He was an enormous fellow and I'm sure he'll at least drop a few pounds doing it.  I wished him well and continued on my way.

I stopped in Wisdom and bought a cherry Coke from the market, which didn't have much in the way of provisions.  The whole town seemed a little bit like Invasion of the Body Snatchers so I headed south towards Jackson, my final destination.  This turned me into the wind, which was picking up.  It was only 18 miles but it was slow going.  Ominous storm clouds came into view and I began to get worried.  Pretty soon there were dark clouds all around me with lightning striking the peaks.  I was sprinting by now, not wishing to get caught in the tempest.  There was no shelter out in the flat treeless expanse and I didn't think sitting in a ditch would be fun for long.  As it began to sprinkle, I pedaled all-out into the headwind, hoping that Jackson was right around the corner.  I was very hungry and was trying to eat trail mix through the packet with my teeth while pedaling furiously to beat the storm.  Eventually, I pulled into the Jackson Hot Springs Resort (a fancy name) and grabbed the last of their cabins as rain began to fall.

This place is the only accommodation in Jackson, MT (pop 37).  It is also the only bar, restaurant, and casino.  It has a big lodge with lots of animal heads and Lynyrd Skynyrd blasting at top volume.  My bicycle is parked next to a row of gleaming Harleys.  There was a band setting up (I believe the name was "The Good Ol' Boys") and people were fixin' to have a shit-kicking time.  After having a ribald conversation on the front porch with some gentlemen, I filled my belly with Montana fare and retired to my bed.  I will be going to sleep in the next several minutes or less.



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Missoula isn't all hippies

Is there a reading for "actually burning at this instant"?

Great bike path

If only you could see them

The smoke creates great sunset light even early in the day

Gloom later in the day

The Sula Country Store, where I camped.  Red moon rising through the smoke.

First Continental Divide crossing this trip.  There will be more.

This camp robber was really insistent.  Finally I gave him some bread.

These Canadians stopped at the top of the pass to take pictures of me.

Into the Big Hole

Tony, the retired policeman, on his contraption

Clouds looking nasty over the Bitterroots

Time to pedal faster

This is where I am staying tonight.

This guy is getting ready to play

Thompson Falls - Arlee - Missoula, MT

Yesterday was a fairly difficult ride.  I got from Thompson Falls to Arlee, which is 25 miles outside of Missoula.  It was 75 miles according to Google Maps.  I would have happily stopped earlier but it's just not the way it worked out.  The first half of the day was very pretty, but I left the mountain canyons and got out into some less-forested hilly prairie where it was hot with a headwind. I'm not sure how hot it was but I wouldn't have wanted it any hotter than that. I had sticky salt caking my face and hands. While riding, I rehydrate with water and also this briny electrolyte solution I mix in a water bottle. The salty swill must work OK because I don't feel bad now. I went through about 5 liters (1.3 gallons) of water for the ride.

Early in the ride I passed through a little town called Plains.  I rode past a roadside stand selling burgers, and to my surprise the proprietor started yelling at me excitedly.  I couldn't make out what he was saying so I pulled over.  He ran up and told me that he had heard all about me from some people who had eaten at his stand earlier in the day.  He said he had been waiting for the guy on the crazy contraption to go by.  It really made his day.

In the second half of the day, I rode into a huge cloud of smoke from wildfires in the vicinity.  It blotted out the entire sky and the sun turned red.  It remained like this the rest of the day.  My eyes burned and I put in some eye drops.  The eye drops were hot but it felt good anyway.  I kept the bottle close at hand and periodically sprayed my eyeballs.  My face was so caked with salt and sunblock and grime that I didn't bother to wipe the excess.

Google Maps showed a couple of camping/hotel options but nobody answered any of the numbers I dialed. I was getting psyched up to sleep in the weeds somewhere when a lady called from the campground. She gave me directions so I ate a banana in three bites and ate some melted cookies and pedaled the remaining 10 miles. It was lucky.  Having a shower was delightful.  The sticky salt is all over everything.  My hands stick to the handlebar grips and stick to my water bottles. 

This morning I rode the rest of the way into Missoula.  I stopped at the headquarters of the American Cycling Association to see what was there.  They are a nonprofit organization that makes maps for long-distance cyclists and does some advocacy.  The maps are kind of expensive and I didn't get any of their materials for this trip because I think that Google Maps is just as effective.  In the West there aren't a ton of road choices anyway.  Upon walking into their office, I was given the royal treatment.  A lady gave me a long tour of their facility.  It was surprisingly expansive -- either they do a lot of work or they are good at acting busy.  Then I had a few pictures taken, a Polaroid to go on their wall and another picture for this fellow's portfolio.  He seemed to think that my profile might make a good magazine article.  They weighed my bike, 95 pounds (most modern road bikes are in the low 20's).  Feeling sheepish from all the kindness and attention and free soda, I bought one of their maps.  It is supposed to get me from here to Yellowstone.  We'll see how it impacts my strategy over the next few days.

The rest of the afternoon was spent cruising around downtown Missoula, which has a great network of bike lanes and little car traffic.  It is so nice that I just looped around for fun.  It is a college/hippie town so I was happy to be merely one more oddball.  It seems like a very nice place.  It's sort of a mini-Boulder, but less obnoxious.  It has the standard progressive college town things like tapas and wine bars and sustainable espresso.  It has itinerant hippies with their dogs, one of whom tried to sell me an electric razor at a street corner ("Gosh, I'd really love it, but you see I'm already carrying plenty of stuff").  There are a lot of beautiful and healthy-looking people and lots and lots of bicycles.  It's an alluring place, and I am a little sad that I don't live here.

It's hard to leave such a town and go camp on the outskirts, so I got a Hotwire hotel room.  I took a long shower, used all the products, charged all of my electronics, and washed all my wadded and mildewed clothes in the sink.

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The beginning of the day outside Thompson Falls.  This is actually a long downhill (hard to tell the perspective).

Found this on the side of the road.  My guess is that they threw it out during "Chicken Jamboree".

It started getting hot.

Smoke cloud

Red sun through the smoke

Another odd road find.  I didn't keep this one, but I did keep a carabiner, a bungy, and a nice strap.

My photo is the latest addition to their wall

Downtown Missoula

Can you really just make your own car and drive around?