Day 17
May 31st 2004
When your day starts with scraping off ice and snow from your motorcycle, things can only get better from there right ? That's what I was thinking anyways. Little did I know that 45 minutes later I'd be using my feet as outriggers at 20 km per hour trying to keep the bike upright on an icy road...
It started out as a nice clear (crisp) day in West Yellowstone. At the park entrance, there was a big sign saying "Beartooth Pass Closed". Beartooth Pass was my main reason for looping this way in the first place. I asked the lady at the entrance station if this was because of the snow we had last night, and her reply was "They've had a lot of snow up there in these last few days". I was hoping that by the time I'd get up there, the road would be re-opened.
Instead of heading over to the pass right away, I thought I'd swoop down and see Old Faithful. It was maybe 50 km extra to add for the day, but today was another low mileage day, because of all the twisty roads that would mean slow going.
The roads leading to Old Faithful were wet. Where they weren't wet they were icy. It was very slow going for a little while. At least I got to see some cool wildlife
There were herds and herds of Bison all over the place. Sometimes they were right on the road and as you'd approach, they would gently move over to the side to let you pass. They truly seem like gentle giants, but the only images I had in my mind was the one you see on TV where two of them ram each other head-on. I wondered what kind of damage that would do to me and the bike to be on the receiving end of such a head-butt. The youngsters were really funny and cute. They would bounce around and they actually seemed excited to see me on my motorcycle. I just sat there and watched them for a few moments.
Again, nice scenery. There are advantages of starting the day out nice and early, there were few other visitors in the park. There are thermal springs all over the place and there was steam coming out of the ground everywhere.
Finally made it to Old Faithful. As I was approaching, it was 6:50 and I could remember the old saying "Every hour on the hour", so I wanted to be there by 07:00 to see it in action. I made it before seven, but nothing happened, just this
I read one of the displays around the geyser, and it explained that the cycle is between 60 and 90 minutes and it is impossible to predict exactly when it will erupt. The display said that it no longer erupts on a regular schedule possibly because earthquakes might have changed the inner plumbing of the geyser or even people throwing trash in the vent holes ! I guess "Old Faithful" is somewhat a misnomer. It should be called "Old Irregular" Metamucil time Old guy !
I then searched for a cup of coffee to warm myself up a bit. The electric vest wasn't quite cutting it at this point. Unfortunately, everything was opening at 08:00 and I didn't feel like sticking around that long. At least the sun had warmed up the road and it wasn't nearly as icy on the way back.
As I was heading to Beartooth Pass, I saw maybe 5 signs saying that Beartooth Pass was closed. I was still optimistic that when I got there it would be open. It was so nice and sunny out, c'mon ! To be fair though, I could see some pretty nasty looking blowing snow on some mountain peaks.
Some nice scenery on my way to the pass
About an hour later, I reached the point where Beartooth Pass starts, or rather where the last road before Beartooth Pass turns off.
For a moment I felt like Clark W. Griswald when he reached Wally World after driving cross country with his family. The moment was brief, 'cause it's hard to stay angry when you're surrounded by such scenery. The other road was also designated as 'scenic', so I took that one instead.
I guess it wasn't too bad,
It had some great switchbacks and very nice scenery, as you can see here. The mountain passes were below the snowcap level though, so it felt like I was doing the 'kiddie version' of Beartooth Pass. I was still in a Very Good Mood though. There are more mountains in Wyoming than I thought there would be.
After this pass, the weather got less nice. The rain clouds started and I would get showers of either rain or snow, depending on the altitude. It wasn't raining all the time though,
I met up with 3 guys on Gold Wings. They were from Amarillo, Texas and they had come up here to see a war memorial (today was Memorial Day in the States) but also to do the Beartooth Pass. They had tried last year, but it was closed. This year they weren't any luckier. I guess Beartooth Pass closes fairly often.
There were 2 other mountain passes after these pictures, snowing during both. Oh well, I'd rather have melting snow than freezing rain when I'm on the bike. The altitude went to over 9 000 feet during these passes.
I had planned to stop right before arriving to Devil's Tower today. When I got to that city, the storm clouds were reasonably dispersed and it was still early enough so I decided to go for it today. The loop up to Devils Tower is maybe 100 km or so, so nothing too serious.
It was as spectacular as I'd hoped for. It's a pretty big tower. Actually it's an old volcano. It's one of the most impressive sights I've seen so far on this trip, especially because it just stands alone, no other mountains around it. It really does look alien... I went up to the base of it, but the better pictures are from farther away like this one. When I was there, a HUGE storm cloud started approaching, so I high-tailed it out of there and boy am I glad I did. About 15 minutes later, I looked back and the whole tower was engulfed in thick rain clouds.
I got blasted by one of those storm clouds on my way to the tower, and geez, very high winds and very strong rain, rain like I hadn't seen since Florida. You know it's been a trip with a lot of rain when you start rating it and comparing the quality of it...
Day Stats:
Total Distance: 979 km (West Yellowstone Mt to Spearfish SD
Total Time: 11 h 02 minutes
Overall Average: 86.1 km / h