Eszter gives her best Grizzly Bear pose in front of our cute little Grizzly Cabin. At $25 they are a steal, and a huge upgrade from sleeping in a wet meadow with Pooh Bear clouds that come and rain only on us.
Today we got to play cyclotourist. All dirt and paved roads.
Major roads means major services, at least by our standards. It was an absolute treat to run into the Togwotee Lodge just at lunch time and after a few hours of pedaling. We could have eaten a million of their curly fries. It was the perfect stop and led to something rare for us — well fed afternoon pedaling. We try to stop and eat real food for lunch on the trail, but the afternoons are usually an exercise in bonk avoidance and holding out for din din time.
The day started with climbing back to where we got out of the mud yesterday and descended off route. We found the Brooks Lake road to be thankfully dry. It only takes a day or so to dry out from the death mud so notorious on the divide route. We also found the road to be fantastically beautiul, as it gives you up close views of the pinnacles and cliffs. These same cliffs we could see from high on the CDT two days ago. Very cool.
We watched lightning bolts zap around a storm building on the Tetons. Just as we got to the entrance station for Teton/Yellowstone parks it started to let loose. We weren’t about to wait in a line of cars in the pouring rain, so we sought shelter under a little cabin.
It was late evening for our Teton Park ride. Great timing as most people seemed to be exiting the parks. We stopped at a few viewpoints, happily doing the tourist thing.
It’s a beautiful ride along Jackson Lake. I’m happy to see that road conditions have improved significantly since 2004 when I toured the divide. There’s a good shoulder for most of it, and especially the climb over to Flagg Ranch.
I’m also happy ro report that the forest in the big 80’s Yellowstone fire is well on its way to recovery. Quite a big difference from 10 years ago. Another 30 years and you won’t even know.
We pushed daylight a little getting to Flagg Ranch where we scored another little Grizzly Cabin — special rate thanks to reading our friend Rick’s blog — the hiker/biker rate.
We ate a fancy dinner at the lodge and are nicely tucked in out of the bugs, bears and cold. We figure if we are going to ride roads, we ought to take advantage of the luxuries they afford.
We’re planning an alpine start tomorrow morning. Climbing a big peak? Storms forecast? Big passes to climb? No, tomorrow the challenge and the worry is National Park traffic. Please be kind to us RV’s! The first 20 or so miles are supposed to be the worst as far as shoulder width goes, so we figure we can knock that out before everyone wakes up.
We talked to a couple guys riding the TransAm route at Togwotee Pass. It was funny to be exchanging ‘trail’ beta with roadies. They told us the ride through the park (same route as us) wasn’t bad, and the road surface was super smooth. The TransAm route and community pre-dates the CDT, I believe. It’s cool how we can become roadies and do the cyclotour thing, in the middle of a singletrack heavy ride. Bikes are such an amazingly versatile way to travel!
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