Day 28: West Fork to West Yellowstone, Montana
I woke dutifully to my 6am alarm and climbed out of my comfortable bed in my comfortable cabin at the West Fork RV park. The morning was cold. Outside, I could see my breath. The park's office wouldn't open for a couple of hours. I skipped breakfast and was on the road by 7am. I cycled through the chilly dawn, toes numb, waiting for the sun to warm me, but the road turned away from Madison Valley, toward the hills around Lake Hebgen, and deep into shadow. The wind blew capriciously, frequently changing course throughout morning.
I made it 9 miles before my empty stomach cramped, doubling me over with nausea. I ate a Clif Bar by the guard rail and pushed on. Waiting just around the next bend was the top of my morning climb, and an interpretive center that explained the sudden formation of Quake Lake, below me. The 6 mile long, 180 foot deep lake was formed during a 7.3 earthquake in 1959. 28 campers were sacrificed to the lake's birth. I was just happy to find a restroom and a sunny spot to sit in.
It was another 6 miles before I found breakfast, at a cafe in an angler's RV park. It was the second such I'd passed; the first had been closed. I rode in half mumbling, half singing, "You'd better be open, you'd better be open." Inside, the tiny cafe was bustling. I sat at an uncleaned table, too chilled to care. The harried waiter told me that it might be a while. I told him I had nowhere to go, which got him muttering, "I've got places to go, and things to do." I assumed I'd come in at a bad moment, and possibly broken etiquette by sitting at a dirty table, but I sat firm and patient, and smiled whenever anyone passed my table. I really did have nowhere to go. The table next to mine filled with a family who were apparently at the end of their vacation and had become friendly with the staff. Eventually the waiter warmed to me, and turned out to be a friendly and solicitous host, who reminded me a lot of Mark Edmison, my partner at the Green Cat Cafe.
After breakfast, a new challenge: 23 miles of road construction. I was unhappy when I saw the signs, but for once the construction worked in my favor. I encountered a road crew laying new tar and gravel just a few miles beyond the cafe. Beyond the crew lay miles of road in various stages of completion.
Spraying tar
Since the whole stretch was full of loose gravel, vehicles were led through at a slow pace by pace cars, in one direction at a time. Once I was past the active construction zone, cars passed me in short waves, leaving me for the most part with the road to myself as I wended around the north side Lake Hebgen.
My own private road
The road around Lake Hebgen was beautiful, and reasonably uneventful. With so little vehicular activity, it was the most relaxed travel time I'd had in weeks.
Hebgen Lake
I passed a few other cyclists on the road, including a pair of women, one of whom was riding a recumbent. Recumbent riders are rare enough that we tend to congregate when we find each other, and I stopped to chat with them. They were Traci and Kathy, on their way from Virginia to Oregon. They had a third person following them in a support vehicle, an RV that they could sleep in. We shared the usual road stories, before going our respective ways.
Traci and Kathy
The remaining miles to West Yellowstone were also fairly uneventful, free of any special character building moments - though the day never did warm up, and by now clouds had rolled in to cover the area, filling me with the fear of more storms.
I reached West Yellowstone in the mid-afternoon. As a major gateway to Yellowstone Park, West Yellowstone is a true tourist mecca, serving up chintzy Americana to travelers from around the world who've come to see America's grandeur. I browsed a couple of book stores looking for a paperback to carry through the park, and stopped for lunch at a self-consciously kitschy burger shop with a model train running along the ceiling joint from dining room to kitchen.
The Canyon Street Grille
I made it 9 miles before my empty stomach cramped, doubling me over with nausea. I ate a Clif Bar by the guard rail and pushed on. Waiting just around the next bend was the top of my morning climb, and an interpretive center that explained the sudden formation of Quake Lake, below me. The 6 mile long, 180 foot deep lake was formed during a 7.3 earthquake in 1959. 28 campers were sacrificed to the lake's birth. I was just happy to find a restroom and a sunny spot to sit in.
It was another 6 miles before I found breakfast, at a cafe in an angler's RV park. It was the second such I'd passed; the first had been closed. I rode in half mumbling, half singing, "You'd better be open, you'd better be open." Inside, the tiny cafe was bustling. I sat at an uncleaned table, too chilled to care. The harried waiter told me that it might be a while. I told him I had nowhere to go, which got him muttering, "I've got places to go, and things to do." I assumed I'd come in at a bad moment, and possibly broken etiquette by sitting at a dirty table, but I sat firm and patient, and smiled whenever anyone passed my table. I really did have nowhere to go. The table next to mine filled with a family who were apparently at the end of their vacation and had become friendly with the staff. Eventually the waiter warmed to me, and turned out to be a friendly and solicitous host, who reminded me a lot of Mark Edmison, my partner at the Green Cat Cafe.
After breakfast, a new challenge: 23 miles of road construction. I was unhappy when I saw the signs, but for once the construction worked in my favor. I encountered a road crew laying new tar and gravel just a few miles beyond the cafe. Beyond the crew lay miles of road in various stages of completion.
Spraying tar
Since the whole stretch was full of loose gravel, vehicles were led through at a slow pace by pace cars, in one direction at a time. Once I was past the active construction zone, cars passed me in short waves, leaving me for the most part with the road to myself as I wended around the north side Lake Hebgen.
My own private road
The road around Lake Hebgen was beautiful, and reasonably uneventful. With so little vehicular activity, it was the most relaxed travel time I'd had in weeks.
Hebgen Lake
I passed a few other cyclists on the road, including a pair of women, one of whom was riding a recumbent. Recumbent riders are rare enough that we tend to congregate when we find each other, and I stopped to chat with them. They were Traci and Kathy, on their way from Virginia to Oregon. They had a third person following them in a support vehicle, an RV that they could sleep in. We shared the usual road stories, before going our respective ways.
Traci and Kathy
The remaining miles to West Yellowstone were also fairly uneventful, free of any special character building moments - though the day never did warm up, and by now clouds had rolled in to cover the area, filling me with the fear of more storms.
I reached West Yellowstone in the mid-afternoon. As a major gateway to Yellowstone Park, West Yellowstone is a true tourist mecca, serving up chintzy Americana to travelers from around the world who've come to see America's grandeur. I browsed a couple of book stores looking for a paperback to carry through the park, and stopped for lunch at a self-consciously kitschy burger shop with a model train running along the ceiling joint from dining room to kitchen.
The Canyon Street Grille
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3:04 PM
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