Sept 14th: Jackson Hole to Hatchet Lodge (Moran) 89km 648m

Morning Storm

It’s a good job nobody could film us trying to get moving this morning. It takes about 3 minutes to get my calf muscles moving pain free. TimB looks like he needs a Zimmer frame (walker). It was a slow start to the day and after some shopping for breakfast and supplies at the supermarket we rode around the middle of JH to take some photos. It was after 12pm when we finally set off north to pass where we were yesterday and continue on past Jenny Lake to Signal Mountain Lodge where we stopped for lunch. The weather forecast was for possible showers and thunderstorms and it was spot on.  We watched the weather over Jackson deteriorate in our mirrors and a thunderstorm pass across ahead of us.

Storm approaching

All we got was rough winds and a few rain spots from the edge of the storm behind us. After lunch we rolled on through the forest until we came to the Jackson Lake dam, which formed the road. We stopped to take pictures but suddenly the mountains to the left, on the other side of the lake, had disappeared in black cloud and the winds dropping off the mountains accelerated across the lake and nearly flattened us.

After the storm

My bike was blown over twice so I stopped trying to stand it up and TimB took shelter behind a pickup. After one picture we decided to adopt TimB’s suggestion and “get the hell outta here”. The road turned to the right after the dam and the wind pushed us on at 45kmh and we thought we would be at the Hatchet Lodge in next to no time but it turned out to be 10km further east than we had been told. It was with some relief that we arrived because about a mile ahead there was a full-scale thunderstorm in progress even though we were riding in sunshine.

Arrival at Hatchet Ladge