Sept 17th: Yellowstone Old Faithful Inn to Grant Village 45km, 691m

Bison

Elk

‘twas a cosy night in our one bed. This was the first time we had not been able to get a twin bedded room. It is hard work sleeping on the edge of a mattress and trying not to move so we were up early. TimB went off to take pictures as the sun came up and I set off to do the laundry. Our Inn was too old to have a laundry so I had to walk to the more modern Snow Lodge on the other side of a humungous car park at the back of our Inn.    

Castle Geyser

TimB was finished before I was but we were still able to get packed and out before 10 o’clock. We watched Old Faithful erupt again at 10 and then went into the Visitor Education Centre to learn about fumaroles, mud pots, hot springs and, of course, geysers. Fully mentally equipped we set off to explore the Upper Geyser Basin, the Biscuit Basin and the Black Sand Basin. After seeing these three areas we were suffering from geyser overload and TimB had 200 pictures of steam and hot water so we did not ride up to see the Midway and Lower Geyser Basins. In any case, it was getting towards mid afternoon and we had to ride the 30km back over two passes to get to Grant Village. Two miles before G.V. we visited the West Thumb Geyser Basin (just to get some more pictures) and were treated to our first close up of some park wildlife.

Sapphire Pool

TimG after a big lunch

Sept 16th: Hatchet Resort to Yellowstone Old Faithful Inn 127km, 1470m

Today was a day of passes. We had to travel from well outside the east gate of Teton NP through the east gate, bend round to exit the park through the north gate, traverse the national forest region to the Yellowstone south entrance, travel north over the Continental Divide (2435m), run down trough Grant Village and West Thumb, turn west and climb over the Divide back to the Pacific side (2558m), run down past Shoshone Point, then climb back over the Divide through Craig Pass (2518m) to get to Old Faithful Inn. This happened because there was no accommodation available in Grant Village for tonight. We have got a room there tomorrow night so we get to retrace our path over those last two passes and then we have finished crossing the Divide for the rest of this trip.

  

The Old Faithful Inn is, as one might guess, very close to the Old Faithful Geyser and we were able to sit down, along with several hundred other tourists, to watch the 18:20 eruption. The whole area here is full of steaming hot springs and geysers but that is something to explore tomorrow. The Inn is something we had to look at this evening. It is a very large structure, not only horizontally, but vertically. When you walk in to the entrance you can look up 74ft to the top of the roof and the lobby is surrounded by two mezzanine floors. Now this might not sound remarkable but considering that it was built over 100 years ago entirely out of tree trunks and branches I think it is an impressive building.

Old Faithful Lodge

Sept 15: Togwotee pass 54 km 889m 2944m high

Top of Togwotee Pass

We had 1 goal today - to climb Togwotee pass and come back down. Togwotee (at 2944m) is the highest pass we have climbed so far. From our current location (Hatchet Resort) we are at the foot of the pass and within 100 meters we started to climb. It was a steady 6% climb and after 3 hours we were approaching the top when we were stopped by construction. We had been stopped about 1 km from the top. They wanted to load our bikes into a pickup truck and drive us through the construction to the other side of the pass. All the cars were going through in a convoy. When we explained we wanted to go only to the top they got a truck for us, and a volunteer on break, to drive us to the top. The top was under heavy construction so we took our picture with our driver (Dayle) and she drove us back to the start of the construction. It was a quick descent.

Pinnacle Buttes on Togwotee Pass

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

Sept. 13th Ride & Climb to Amphitheatre Lake; Ride 54km 260m, Walk 16km 400m

Our plan for today was a hike into the mountains to Amphitheatre Lake. We rode 30km from Jackson Hole to the trail-head and started our hike. Tim G is an ex-Alpine club member and has conquered 100’s of peaks in the Alps so a 12km walk will be a snap. We bought a map at the trail-head and started the climb. One kilometre down the trail we asked each other for the map and neither of us had it so TimG hiked back to get it. After 3 kms of easy hiking we stopped for a food and photo break at Bradley Lake. We continued up until we hit the next trail junction. The climb turned into a steep uphill hairpin climb. We started up, but we set a time limit to turn around and after 2kms we had reached our time limit. We were both feeling great so we continued a bit farther. When a group of hikers coming downhill said we were at the best part of the climb, we made the decision to turn around without reaching our goal. Downhill is always easier than uphill – so they say. That wasn’t the case for us. My toes started to cramp, my feet hurt, my hips got stiff and, strangely, the trail back was longer than the trail out. At the bottom TimG was walking funny and I was walking funnier. We learned two things: cycling shoes are not the best for hiking and cycling muscles are not made for hiking. It was absolute bliss to get back on our bikes and the 30km ride back to Jackson was a doddle. Back in Jackson we celebrated our survival with a double scoop ice cream. (Cold is good for aching joints.) Tomorrow will be a slow day.

Bradley Lake from above

Bradley Lake

Sept. 12th: Driggs - Jackson 54km 735m

10% grade - Teton Pass

World record downhill with luggage

The fine weather continued (and is forecast to do so until Fri) and it was so pleasant and warm we stopped in Victor, after only 13km and sat in the sun outside a café drinking coffee. We would have stayed longer but there was Teton pass to climb. We set off climbing steadily and before long a sign warned (trucks) of a 10% gradient for the next few miles and that is exactly what we got. We were in a narrow valley forested on both sides but at the summit, 2568m, there was a clear view for miles across the Snake River valley with Jackson in the distance. When we rode in the rain last Thursday 10 inches of snow fell on this pass but fortunately there was very little left today and the road was clear and dry. Moreover, the road dropped 650m with a 10% gradient so a downhill speed record was on the cards and sure enough I clocked 90.5kph, a personal record. Now that was fun and I’d love to have another go without the luggage on the bike but we have other plans.

Sept. 11th: Driggs - Targhee pass 46km 607m

House for sale near Driggs

We had a tourist day in Driggs. The clouds had disappeared overnight and we had cloudless skies and crystal clear views of the mountains so we rode up to the Grand Targhee ski resort in the afternoon. The weather was great and as we passed through Alta, Wyoming, the views opened up giving us many opportunities to take pictures of the Teton Mountains.

The Tetons from Grand Targhee road