Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Ride Days 103-4
I took two days to ride from West Yellowstone through the park and out to Gardiner Mt only about 60 miles total with a couple thousand feet of climbing in mixed weather of sunshine, rain, thundershowers, hail and high winds. I still enjoyed the ride despite some bad weather. I left West Yellowstone and slowly meandered into the park watching the bison which were all over the park and the few other birds and animals I encountered. I set up my camp at the Norris area of the park and went looking around at all the geothermal stuff and of course more bison. In the campground the bison were wandering all around the tents. There were two incidents of bison human while I was there. One idiot got too close taking flash pics and a bison charged him but he ducked behind a tree and got away. The rangers scolded him but did nothing else about it. The second was after two big males were butting heads and pushing each other around when one of the bison stormed off all excited and headed straight at a young couple sitting in lawn chairs with their backs turned to the bison coming at them. At the last minute another camper yelled out and the couple just managed to get up and out of their chairs before the bison gored the chairs and stomped on their jackets that they dropped when they fled into and across the river to get away from the pissed off bison. They were scared but unhurt. However the darwin award goes to the idiot wearing only jogging clothes that went around the giant sign stating that a trail was closed due to grizzly bear activity. Only 20 yards down the trail he ran into a sow grizzly with three cubs. He dropped to the ground and covered up as the sow came at him and cuffed him rolling him over on his back then cuffed him again rolling him back on his belly. Lucky for him but not our gene pool a ranger with bear spray immediately responded to the reports of someone going down the closed trail and was able to use his bear spray to rescue the idiot before the angry bear was able to do more harm to the guy. Another 6 year old boy was gored by an elk when his parents let him run ahead of them and he got too close to an elk with a calf. He has a bunch of stiches now to show his buddies when he gets back home. Despite these close calls that others had I loved my time in the park and had no problems whatsoever. On my ride out of the park I got caught in some rain, some hail and some high wind as well as thundershower cells blowing over with thunder and lightning. I ended up stopping in Gardiner instead of going all the way to Livingston which was my morning game plan. Oh well such is life you have to just roll with the punches and keep pedaling. Some pics....
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Yellowstone Lower Loop
Today I visited Yellowstone National Park, the lower loop. I left West Yellowstone early after a poor night of basically no sleep. I took a tour for a change to get a feel for the park before I bike around in it. Glad I did. The lower loop alone would have been about 75 miles of hard riding over large rolling hills with a few climbs up to 8400' and that alone would have hurt my old body but coupled with all the walking required to see things it would have put me in the hospital for sure. I enjoyed the tour. The guide was new but tried her best to give us whatever we wanted. I liked her spirit. The first thing we encountered after getting into the park was a bison traffic jam. There was a small herd of about 50 animals slowly moving along a narrow stretch between the river and some high cliffs. We were all going the same way but the bison just go slower is all. Eventually when the backup got too long the rangers came in with sirens blaring and lights flashing to speed up the pokey bison so the traffic could get moving. Nobody was complaining about the jam and lots of people were out taking pics of the shaggy beasts. Once we were through the jam we headed to some hot springs, old faithful geyser, the waterfalls, Yellowstone lake and all the other goodies. In between stops we saw more bison, bald eagles, elk, a black bear, lots of birds like blue heron, various ducks, pelicans, ravens, hawks, and lots more. I enjoyed the day but it hurt me because almost everything required some walking and walking absolutely kills me. I know it sounds weird that I can ride a bike all day but can't walk, but that is the way it is for me. I tried to get permission to ride my bike in the prohibited areas but never was able to get an official to step up for ADA compliance. I will pay a big price tonight for the limited walking that I had to do today. I hope I am able to ride by morning but I may have to take another day off to recover. I won't know until morning. If I can I will start the upper loop tomorrow. Until then enjoy life I know I am trying to do that but it isn't always easy.
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