Day 6 - Butte MT to Idaho Falls ID - 440 miles

Pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/brandonjhuff/CanadaSeptember10

By the numbers:
8749 – height of the tallest pass in Yellowstone we visited (Bear Tooth Pass is taller)
5 – elk sighted
10 – minutes late to old faithful
8 – miles of wet gravel roads to Teton Park

We were tired from our long ride the night before and didn’t get a good start. We made some instant brown water….err, coffee but that didn’t get us going any faster. About 9:30am we were finally moving and I was glad we got gas the night before despite it being after midnight. We thought we had enough time to get through everything but it was a day of bad timing…

Butte to Yellowstone was uneventful after dodging deer and horses and the weather got warmer as we approached. We met a nice couple from Texas at the last gas stop before the park and, again, we’re told we should have taken a different route! They recommended Bear Tooth Pass and we decided we’d just have to come back again soon.

We enter the park and are handed a map of the place which I quickly shove into my bag. After all, how big can this place be anyway? We head up through the northern gate and traffic isn’t bad but it’s slow. 25mph slow. We were told to expect this and decided to play nice since multiple riders warned me about how easy it is to get a ticket in the place. Bummer – the roads are awesome!

We roll past steaming sulfur geysers, expansive fields, babbling brooks, and distant peaks all in about 30 minutes. The scenery changes so fast you don’t really have a chance to put your camera down – each turn has a new sight to capture. We pull over to capture a close up of a boiling sulpher geyser and I pull out the green map that has a road closure on it. Let’s see, we’re here…and Old Faithful is here….and the road we take is…closed. Shit. Talk about bad timing.
So, how do we get around? Only 87 miles to Old Faithful. At 40 mph that’s two hours to just get there not to mention actually leave the park. We make the trek to Old Faithful and head over a pass at 8749 ft – the highest of the trip so far.

We *finally* make it to Old Faithful and the place is a zoo. There’s enough parking for a Metalica concert with 18 different bathrooms and concession stands. We wander over to the geyser and have to fight the crowds leaving it. Hmm – we must have just missed the last one. Bummer. Talk about bad timing. I make a perverted joke about asking the next good looking woman “when does it go off again”. We chuckle at my immaturity and go to check it out. The area is pretty large, much larger than I thought. Clearly, they’ve planned for this many people with a well constructed deck above (made of TREX, I think) with benches and different vantages circling the famous spout.

Sure enough, everyone has left and we indeed missed it by just 10 minutes. Damn. 87 miles for nothing. The viewing deck has cleared out quite a bit and I see two women nearby (one was just my type) so I wander up to find out when Old Faithful will be faithful again. Instead, I say “Excuse me but do you know when it goes off again?” Errr – I mean…ummm…nevermind. Luckily (or unluckily???) she wasn’t a pervert and said it would be another 3 hours. 3 hours?!? By that point we need to be well outside of the Grand Tetons. Oh well, we’ll need to come back anyway to hit up Bear Tooth Pass.

We head back to the bikes to make up the lost couple hours as best we could. As we head back, the two women I embarrassingly queried happen to be walking past us to their car. I give a short, friendly wave and they come over to check out our bikes. Hmm – maybe I should make more obscure sexual references in the immediate future. We start talking and they’re from Arkansas and one is working in Lake. She mentions that we should come by for a drink. Talk about bad timing. I comment that we need to be out of the park well before then but that we’d love to. Oh well, next time.

We head out of the park and to the Grand Tetons. I was really looking forward to seeing them – hell, any grand Tetons are OK by me! We leave Yellowstone and enter Grand Teton Park just a couple miles later. Unfortunately, just a couple miles in, we’re stopped for road construction. Talk about bad timing. We’re stopped for almost 20 minutes before they finally let us through. We start rolling through the bad road to find out it’s pretty bad – the pavement is completely gone and we’re left with wet gravel. We assumed it would be done in a few hundred feet. Wrong. Try 8 miles of the stuff. Uggh.

As the sun it setting and the views are amazing, stunning, and gorgeous. I almost can’t comprehend the size of the peaks some 7000 feet above our 6500 foot elevation. As the sun sets all I can really see if the sharp outline of each mountain top which is quite breathtaking but bad for pictures. I snapped a handful anyway.

We make it to Jackson Hole (which apparently, likes to be called just “Jackson” now) and stop for gas and a nice meal. We stop at some fancy restaurant on the main strip and ordered a steak. Delicious. Now we just have 100 miles to go to Idaho Falls. The road looks flat on the map but it’s actually just a little pass over 8300 feet. I bet it was beautiful but I won’t know until I come back through.

Idaho Falls can’t come soon enough and as we take our luggage off I can hear the falls just two lanes away. I wander over to see the illuminated falls. Pretty neat. I’ll have to snap a few pics in the morning. Our room is huge so we enjoy being able to spread out. We hit the sack as fast as possible knowing we need to be up early the next day.