Day 29: West Yellowstone to Ennis MT

72 miles, 1389 ft ascent, 3131 ft descent, 4:49 saddle time, elevations:  start 6723. End 4976 ft

Looking West across Hebgen Lake

We started our day with continental breakfast at the Kelly Inn where we stayed last night.  The term “Continental Breakfast’ really doesn’t mean much because it can be anything from all packaged pastries to fresh eggs, meats, pancakes, bagels, etc.  This one was more toward the latter.  I had seen waffle makers at multiple of these hotel breakfasts, but today I saw my first automatic pancake maker.  We departed at about 0800 to temps in the upper 40’s and light wind.  The route was mostly downhill, as you can see from the ascent/descent and elevations above and the profile below.  


Yesterday we followed the Madison river out of Yellowstone NP, and today we continued to follow it.  The photo at the top is the manmade Lake Hebgen, which was created by damming the Madison.  On August 17, 1959 there was a 7.5 earthquake with the epicenter in Hebgen lake.  At the time there were 250 people camped in the Madison river valley below the dam.  The shock created waves in the lake that overtopped the dam, and a section of the mountainside slid down into the valley.  The photo below gives you and idea of the scale.  The rockslide created a dam in the river and the area upstream quickly began to flood.  The slide created a 100 mph wind as it fell. There was a large rescue effort, and only 28 of the campers died, 19 of which were buried in the rockslide.  

Earthquake Lake and the rockslide

After we left Earthquake Lake visitor center, the wind increased to maybe 5 mph northwest wind with gusts of maybe 20 mph.  Brian was feeling good so he took off at about 20 mph  (downhill, but into the wind).  I was barely able to catch his back wheel.  I have mentioned previously that typical paces for a touring bike are 10 - 12 mph because of the large frontal area and drag.  He was averaging over 15 mph.  I just hung on while he was burning up the pavement all the way to Ennis, which was 45 miles!  I guess he had a really good breakfast!  I saw this really interesting tractor as we entered Ennis. There was no plaque, so I don’t know how old it is.  

Tractor in Ennis, MT

We are staying at the Red Bear Inn tonight.  Tomorrow will start with a difficult climb where we will gain about 1900 ft in 8 miles.  Fortunately after the summit it is all downhill (heard that one before ?).

This is for Dylan, Olivia, Jackson and Liam so that they know where I am.



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