Tag: Grant Village

Bike Tour 2022 – Grant Village to West Yellowstone

The Lake House restaurant overlooks Yellowstone Lake. It’s a tad pricey but they make a mean spinach ravioli. Corey and Mark report that the bison burgers were pretty tasty too. Breakfast was a buffet. I ate all the Cheerios and some eggs and sausage.

In between meals I froze in my tent. Message to self: choose your sleeping bag for the most extreme conditions. Mine is rated to 55 degrees. I add a bag liner that brings the rating down to perhaps 50 degrees. I bought a fleece throw at the Grant Village store. It helped some but I sleep poorly in a tent anyway. Suffice it to say, today was the second day that my riding suffered because of sleep deprivation.

We broke camp and started to climb over the Continental Divide. It wasn’t particularly hard. Oddly after climbing to the divide we continued going up.

This was followed by a plunge and another climb to the divide. The last 40 miles or so were downhill. Thank you Jesus.

The scenery and the weather couldn’t be beat. Rock formations, deep blue streams with rapids, mountain meadows, geothermal wonders.

We stopped at Old Faithful and saw it do its thing. Today the tourists were back in force. Every geothermal site was mobbed. I’ve seen them all before so there was no need to stop. I was actually enjoying the rivers and streams and woodlands at 13 mph.

I saw two bison today. One was at the Old Faithful complex, just grazing near a bike path. The other was along the road. A car had stopped to check it out causing a back up on the opposite side of the road from me. A park ranger pulled up behind me and used a bullhorn to tell the driver to move along. (There are signs every mile telling drivers not to stop in the roadway to gawk.)

Miles today: 56 Tour miles: 1,994

One Divide conquered
And another
Very fun family we met from the mountains of North Carolina, traveling across the country in a old bus
Thar she blows
Bison munching
I could have taken hundreds of pictures like this today
Bye, Wyoming. Hello, old friend
Lewis River canyon (from yesterday)
Lewis River near the top of the canyon (from yesterday)
Yesterday’s Divide crossing
Scott and Sarah with their awesome coupled DaVinci tandem
I didn’t do a selfie at either park entrance so I posed with the pamphlets
View of Yellowstone Lake from our first climb

Bike Tour 2022 – Hatchett Campground to Grant Village Campground in Yellowstone

Another tough one in the books. I sleep poorly in a tent especially when I’m freezing. It was in the 30s when we woke up.

After breakfast in the resort next door we lit out for Grand Teton National Park. It was mostly downhill and the views defy description.

We stopped often to gawk. Throughout the day we stopped to chat with eastbound riders from both the TransAm and the Great Divide mountain bike route. We gave up after a while because there were so many of them.

We rode along Jackson Lake for many miles. It’s water level was obviously low.

When we entered Rockefeller Wilderness the trees were mostly dead. Wildfires? Blight?

There was a 6% climb that killed my legs. When we rode into Yellowstone we had to ride over the Continental Divide again. I was on fumes. To my right was the Lewis River. It carved a spectacular canyon into the landscape. It gave me vertigo to look way down there. It didn’t help that there were no guardrails in many places.

Traffic was strangely light. It looks like many visitors cancelled their plans to visit the park after the floods wiped out the roads to our north.

It was a relief to see the sign for Grant Village. The check in for the campground was chaotic. The clerks had no idea what they were doing. We ended up with a decent campsite after much agro.

We all had hot showers which felt divine for me since I hadn’t had a shower in three days.

After our bathing, we rode to the restaurant. Reservations are normally needed but there were so many cancellations that we were seated immediately. Mark and Corey had bison burgers. I had spinach ravioli which was amazingly good.

I bought a fleece throw to supplement all the clothes I could wear in my tent. Fingers crossed that, unlike last night, I don’t have to visit the toilet at 3 a. m. like last night.

We had planned to ride 30 miles to Madison in the park but it is closed as are most other facilities. Tomorrow we’ll ride 50 miles to West Yellowstone and go as much sight seeing as the day allows.

Pictures when I have a better signal

Miles today: 60 Tour miles: 1,938

Money shot of the Grand Tetons
Jackson Lake at low level
Tree blight? Fire? Between Grand Teton an Yellowstone
Tom and John: a couple of British blokes riding the TransAm in good humor