The temperature dropped down to the 30’s last night, so by the time I had broken camp and loaded up my bike, I was very cold. As usual, the coldest part was my fingers and toes, which were numb. We had breakfast at the restaurant in Colter Bay, which gave me a chance to warm up. Note to those considering camping in Grand Teton or Yellowstone Nat’l Parks, there is no cell service, and the only internet is in restaurants annd the shower/laundry bldg. There is also no place to plug in electronics at the campsites. Brian annd I took all our charging gear to the restaurant and requested a table near an outlet so that we could charge while we were eating. That is why my blog posts have been apearing the next morning. We finished up a long breakfast (about 2 hours, some things take a long time to charge) and then departed at about 10:00. Another note about these parks, there are bears around so they provide a bear box at each campsite. It took about 2 hours to get to the south entrance to Yellowstone. There were a LOT of pickup trucks towing RV’s. Most are courteous, but there are some that barely move over. The entrance road parallels the Lewis river, which is in a gorge with steep rock walls.
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| Lewis River |
Grand Teton and Yellowstone are two very different parks. Whereas the striking feature of Teton is the dramatic mountains, the first feature we encountered in Yellowstone was a gorge. There are a lot of waterfalls in Yellowstone.
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| Lewis River falls |
For this particular falls I came across one of several road hazards for cyclists. We crossed a bridge on a sidewalk and then had to cross the road at a pedestrian crosswalk. I was following Brian and watching for traffic when I felt my front wheel drop. It had dropped into a deep expansion joint. I was able to catch myself and tried to pull the front wheel out of the joint as traffic was approaching. I struggled to get it out and then realized my back wheel had dropped into it as well.
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| Bike eating monster |
I was able to catch myself and managed to pull both wheels out of the monster before traffic got to me. Luckily I did not damage either front or rear tires or rims. Note to self - following too closely behind someone else limits your visibility for road hazards.
We had planned for a short day (about 40 miles) with a destination of Grant Village campground. When we got there we learned that the campground was closed, the closest campground was Bay Bridge, which was about 20 miles away. The main roads is Yellowstone are like a figure-8. We entered through the south entrance, which is at the bottom of the lower loop. The TransAm route goes around the left half of the lower loop and then out the West entrance. Bay Bridge is on the right (East) side of the lower loop. Not only did it increase the miles for the day, it also it put us on the wrong side of the loop. We didn’t have much choice, so off we went. On the way we crossed the Continental Divide 9again) and saw some of the iconic thermo-hydraulic features of Yellowstone.
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| West Thumb Geyser Basin |
I arrived at the campground at about 1830, at which point I learned that the showers and laundry were 4 miles away. Well, 4 miles is fine by car, but by bicycle that is a long way. I had no choice, so off I went. By the time I had finished showering and laundry it was almost 2100. It gets dark at about 2130. There was not time for dinner, so I stopped at a convenience store for pre-packaged sandwich, chips and a drink. This set a new low bar for dinners. I put on my bright orange reflective vest and both lights and headed (4 miles) back to camp. I got there just as the sun was disappearing behind the trees. This was a most unfriendly biker/hiker campground. Usually a campground has a separate tent area, but not this one. We were mixed in with the RV’s. RVing and tent camping are two very different things, so mixing them does not work well. Also, how would a hiker get to the laundry/showers, an 1:15 walk??
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