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Written 2024 June 24, last updated 2024 June 24.
July 8th, 8:20AM
odometer start: 3026.5
now 3029.9
I'm now on Rt 287 going south to Yellowstone, which I may not be able to make today. I wrote last in Butte, then found that mineral museum which was sort of disappointing - lots and lots of rocks but very little in the way of explanation. Whie I was there, it started raining so I wound up spending an extra hour or so waiting for that to clean up, than attacked Homestake Pass which was a pretty easy climb but it started raining again at the top, so I spent another hour or so under a bridge. Finally got going again down the 7 mile hill getting soaked from all my road spray but didn't get anymore rain after that the road dried out pretty quickly so things were okay from there on out.
Made it nearly to Harrison and camped right by the road at the top of a long hill. Very little traffic so not much hassle. I'm in Harrison now waiting for its only cafe to open at 0900. Hmm. just looked at my map and its only 75 miles to Yellowstone, so I ought to be able to get there tonight without any trouble. It'll be interesting to see how far from the truth its image of bears and bumper-bumper traffic is.
One of the sort of neat things a cyclist can do that a car can't is collect insects. A bike moves slow enough so that instead of going splat they just collect on my shirt. Quite a few different species. Most are lacewings with an oddly forked tail. It's really sort of neat. Mosquitos don't bother me while riding, but the instant I stop they start aiming at me. I stopped one place last afternoon where someone was having problems with his car and was instantly inundated with hundreds of hungry mosquitos. Wasn't counting, but I must have easily surpassed the 7 in 1 blow criteria for giant killing.
Might as well get going. Looks like I have one hill to cross before I reach Madison River, which I'll follow to the Park.
July 9th, 4:15PM
odometer start: 3090.8
now 3131.?
Didn't make Yellowstone - turned out it was 20+ miles further than I thought. Was going to try for Quake Lake, but ran into some misplaced Oregon headwinds, and wound up camping right by the Madison River at a rest stop along Rt 287 about 10 - 15 miles from Quake Lake. Spent a couple of hours at Cameron waiting for the worst part of the day to pass.
Cameron is neat - it's a one building town with gas, groceries, post office, cafe and bar. The grocery store has some chairs in it for visitors and idle employees so I took advantage of it and had a good chat with them. One pair of cyclists they'd met were with the Bikecentennial group and said that 287 around there was going to be part of the national bikeway that opens in 1976 commemorating both the bicentennial and cycling's centennial.
I'm now in West Yellowstone near the western entrance to the park. I have some grocery shopping to do and I'm going to visit the museum here before going into the park. Also have to find a map of it, as I'm not really sure what I'm going to do once I'm in. Guess I'll head toward Old Faithful and spend some time there trying to get a good picture of it.
Not too certain on what the hills will be like in the park. The past several miles have been pretty flat - Hebgen Lake is formed by an earthen dam no more than 75 feet high, so this whole area is on a plateau of sorts. Leaving the park will be quite spectacular I'm told. U.S. 212 goes over Colter Pass (8,000 ft) then climbs up to Beartooth Pass (10,940) above the tree line and among some glaciers. Not supposed to be too steep going up, either, so shouldn't be too hard. Lungs will get a good workout. This info from a woman in a general store today. She expressed doubts about going down - lots of switchbacks, but I doubt I'll have any trouble as bicycles are much more agile. Also I can rattle around in my lane and cut the corners. I'll be using my brakes but riding switchbacks are fun.
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Written 2024 June 24, last updated 2024 June 24.