Western U.S. Tour 2015 - Part VI
Previous, Part V: http://tbranyon.tumblr.com/post/132834529860/western-us-tour-2015-part-v
St. Anthony, ID to Bozeman, MT
Day 7′s route through Yellowstone National Park. 230mi after including the RT from the HQ to Old Faithful.
Today’s route was one of the shortest in the whole trip plan. We had only about 230 miles lined up, leaving us time to explore Yellowstone National Park in a leisurely fashion. I woke up probably earlier this morning than any other (excluding nights we camped), trying to finally get a good head start on a day. My first notebook entry was marked “0640″ (Yeah, so I’m weird and write times in 24-hour format in most cases). Despite this, we still didn’t roll out until about 8:45. I had to go to the ACE Hardware store in town and buy a socket (that I thought I had brought with our tools) so I could loosen my rear axle and tension my chain. Oh the joys of touring on a chain-drive bike.
The ride to Yellowstone was cold and wet. Between the cold and the moderate altitude, my bike was having a hard time making any power. To pass on 2-lane roads and keep up with my Dad’s FJR1300, I would have to downshift twice and then rev it all the way out to redline to make up for my underpowered bike and excessively tall gearing.
We got some coffee at a gas station in West Yellowstone to warm up before finally making our park entry. The weather thankfully was mostly clear during our time in the park.
Firehole Falls, Yellowstone Natl Park
Our first big stop in the park was the Geyser Basin, but we took a short turnout road on the way there that went past “Firehole Falls”, one of several waterfalls in the park. The pictures, of course, don’t do it justice.
We also stopped off to see the “paintpots” in the Lower Geyser Basin. This was a neat place. All around there were these pools of extremely hot blue water. We speculated about possible sulfur content causing the water to appear blue, but never came to a conclusion. At the end of the walkway were the paintpots, which somewhat resembles a mudhole after kids have played in it, but was caused by geothermal activity. Steam constantly bubbles up, shifting the mud around.
After this, we headed over to Old Faithful and managed to catch it at the right time to see it erupt. We took a walk around the geyser area, enjoying the beauty of a place that, despite millions of visitors every year, still remains mostly pristine.
Streams like this were all over Yellowstone. This one was near Old Faithful.
After visiting Old Faithful, we set our sights on the biggest target of the day (in my mind, anyway): Bunsen Peak.
I had wanted to do some kind of summit hike while we were in the park, originally suggesting Mount Washburn, a peak in excess of 10,000ft. After a little thought, we decided that Washburn might be more than we wanted to tackle while hiking from our bikes with relatively little serious hiking gear. Later I realized that the upper 2,000ft or so of Washburn was probably covered in waist deep snow.
So instead we settled on Bunsen Peak, a more moderate, 8,600ft peak that was on our way out of the North end of the park. It had only about 1100ft of gain to the summit from the trailhead, and I finally convinced my Dad that it was a good idea. Or at least that we probably wouldn’t die. (I’ve done a fair amount of strenuous hiking; my Dad isn’t as keen on climbing mountains).
Our transit there was terrible. A big section of the park road was under construction and down to one lane, so traffic was backed up for miles. We also got rained on, and then the dust on the roads turned to mud, which quickly coated our bikes and gear.
After what seemed like an eternity, we finally arrived at the foot of Bunsen Peak. My Dad looked up at the summit and promptly began cursing me and telling me I was insane, but we pressed on anyway.
A view from the lower slopes of Bunsen
About 3/4 of the way up, we lost the trail as we ran into a huge snowbank. We would realize on the way down the that switchback continued on, but I made the call to scramble straight up the slope, thinking that the actual trail went straight up. The snow was knee-deep in many places, making the ascent pretty taxing. I was elated. I love high-altitude, snowy, adventurous kinds of hikes, so I was pretty much living out a dream. Although this would probably be a pretty tame hike for many hikers in this part of the country, there is almost never an opportunity in Texas to tackle a snow-covered slope.
My Dad on the snowbank, about ready to kill me for taking him up this mountain
The summit made the hike absolutely worth it. The summit panaorama was one of the most beautiful I have ever seen.
Me, flashing the traditional Texas A&M “Whoop” at the summit of Bunsen Peak
The whole hike was an exhilarating experience. My dad even had to admit, it was pretty cool. We made our way down quickly and planned to make it to Bozeman, MT for the night. We thought with Montana being big in cattle ranching, we would hopefully find somewhere to get a big steak for dinner.
We ended up making it to Bozeman late. There was a nice brewhouse-style place along the main drag in town, but we got there about 10 minutes after their kitchen had closed. Not making it there faster was one of our only regrets of the whole trip. It looked really excellent. We ended up eating at a Buffalo Wild Wings at about 1am. My bike died near the hotel while just riding down a straight stretch of road, which freaked me out a bit. We pushed it to the hotel and decided to deal with it in the morning. Despite the disappointments in Bozeman, it had been another phenomenal day.
Next, The Road to the Pacific: http://beneaththewesternsky.tumblr.com/post/143334164550/western-us-tour-2015-part-vii
