The Thin Blue Ride - Part 2 Day 26 - West Yellowstone, MT to Grant Village Campground, Yellowstone National Park, WY

Friday, July 5^th, 2019

Ride Report: 52 Miles, 1,352 Total Miles, 13.0 Avg. mph, 2,868 Ft. Climbing, 3,968 Calories, 1 Additional Rider.

I know the reader saw yesterday’s post of the pics with KnK when they arrived in West Yellowstone.  The additional rider mentioned in today’s ride report is none other than Keith Schoen, firstborn of Brad and Susan Schoen.  We moved Sig’s seat up about an inch and a half to accommodate his longer legs last night and we were off first thing this morning.  It was a might chilly, being in the mid 40’s when we departed, but we wanted to get over today’s TWO climbs to the continental divide early before it warmed up too much.  We’ll get right to the day’s pics, since there was an interesting side show once we got into the park.  Here we go…

This is Keith and me before heading out for the day.  Note the jacket on Keith as well as the arm warmers and vest on yours truly.  They ended up staying on much longer than either of us anticipated and didn’t come off until the second climb of the day – it just sorta stayed cold.  Which is a fine and wonderful thing for climbing mountains.

This is us less than two miles in to today’s ride.   Turns out that West Yellowstone is located right at the border of the park.  Once we were thru the gate and the appropriate fees were paid by Susan, the sign came shortly after.

(Note to readers: When negotiating fees to enter a National Park, always have a teamster do the negotiating for ya.  They were gonna charge Keith and I $20 each because that’s what they charge cyclists.  Susan told the lady at the gate that she’s just have us get in, drive us thru the gate and let us out on the other side.  She also tossed in that I was riding my bike cross country and really didn’t want to miss some of the trip just to get thru the gate.  We got in for free.  As did Kerrie, driving the rental car.  All we had to pay was the fee for the extra car.)

My apologies to the reader.  This one didn’t come out as well as I had hoped, but I’ll be darned if I was gonna leave out the 4^th state of the ride.  Apparently they don’t go in for fancy state line signs in National Parks?  I bet every place else in Wyoming has a sign with a guy on a bucking horse or something similar.  They must run a tighter budgetary ship at the Federal level?  Ha!

If you happen to be the tourers in this pic, I apologize – but the note I had your names on has disappeared and all I’m left with is the pic and the memories.  Susan and I first ran into this crew at Twin Bridges.  They’re doing a circular tour of the area.  We traded stories and updates at a pullout in Yellowstone.  I think they were a day away from finishing their tour at the time.

MOST INTERESTING SIGHTING OF THE DAY…..

Although I don’t have a pic, I saw a river otter just before we stopped to chat up the crew in the pic above.  We were riding up the Madison River and I saw what I thought was a funny looking rock in the river.  As I looked it reared up and then dove under the water.  I told Keith at the time I thought I’d seen a river otter but was unsure if they had them here in the Park.  I had just about convinced myself that it was a beaver.  But when I repeated my story to the crew, they confirmed that there are river otter in the area and proffered that they had already seen several.  How cool is that?!

The Madison River seems to be our bread and butter as of late.  We followed it upstream into Yellowstone.  This is Keith contemplating…something.  Not a bad shot, me thinks.

Yellowstone is, of course all about the geysers – among the various attractions.  At least they seem like the biggest of a number of big deals here in the Park.  This is Keith looking at upper geyser basin and contemplating…something else.

This is a pano of the Grand Prismatic Pool (GPP) – also known as the previously mentioned side show.  We had all agreed to meet there for a break since it was about halfway thru today’s ride.  It was also on my list of the two things I most wanted to see here in the Park.  I gotta say, the hour and a half we spent here was well worth the layover.  It’s basically a geothermally heated spring in which various bacteria (of the type which flourish in really hot water) have stained the surrounding mineral deposits.

This is Keith and Kerrie at the GPP.  The Park Service has constructed an elevated walkway which permits tourists to get up close and personal with the GPP.  The colors were quite vivid.

More GPP - this time with Susan and me.  I feel safe in saying that I was the only guy there wearing spandex pants. (Keith covered his with regular shorts.)  I’m pretty sure all the other ladies were wondering where Susan made such a find…

I apologize and don’t mean to bore the reader, but this pic conveys at least a little bit of how grand are the dimensions of the GPP.  The pool itself (the aqua blue part visible in the upper right of the pic) is about 200 feet across.  The bacteria laden runoff extends considerably beyond that.  The reader should check out Google Maps for an idea of the scale of the GPP).

There are also a good number of minor pools of a similar nature scattered about the GPP.  This is me with one of them.

All of the runoff from the GPP reaches the Madison River in short order.  As the reader can see, the bacteria stains the surrounding rock right down to the river.

Not too far South from the GPP lies the other of my two favorite attractions in the Park – Old Faithful.  Both the GPP and Old Faithful are just off the ACA’s T/A route thru the Park.  How convenient is that.  The reader won’t see any pics of Old Faithful today.  We’re scheduled to head up there tomorrow on our Rest Day.  Delta made some snarky comment about the Park Service putting up a sign just for me…

This is Keith and me at what we thought was the top of the first of two crossings of the Continental Divide today.   Turns out we still had a ways to go.  Once we figured that out we weren’t smiling any longer.  But cross it we did.

This is Keith climbing to the second crossing of the Continental Divide.  It was a pretty tough climb, but he handled it quite well for having done all his training at Kansas City elevation.  I just sat behind him for the entire climb and kept pace.  We only stopped once on the way up.  A bit of an accomplishment in its own right.

OK – we made it.  You read that right: Elevation 8,262  We solicited an enterprising Foreign National to take the shot for us.  She kindly agreed to do so.

And finally, I include this pic to confirm the reader’s suspicions that it’s all fun and games out here.  Nary a frown to be found.

Tomorrow being a Rest Day (planned in order to do the tourist thing here in the Park) I’m sure there will be plenty of interesting pics.  So, tune in tomorrow readers.  Same bat time, same bat channel.  (Google it.  What can I say, I’m a child of the 60s.)

Till next time.