Day 34: Colter Bay to Togwotee, Wyoming

The Grand Tetons

After a large breakfast, I left Colter Bay Village feeling full, but relaxed. Looming ahead of me was Togwotee Pass, a 9,600 foot pass, the biggest bastard I had yet faced, and the second highest on the entire route.



The first miles passed quickly as I retraced part of the route that I'd ridden with Vernon and Andrew, before veering east away from Jackson Hole. The Tetons shrank behind me, paradoxically offering a better sense of scale as they receded into distance. It was 17 miles before I began climbing, though the climb wasn't as steep as I'd feared. The weather was hot, but bearable. I took it a mile or two at a time as the Teton National Forest spread wide and dense below me like a pine carpet.



During one break I took a seat on an old pine root that raised like a bent knee, and soon found myself covered with ants and termites. When I leapt up to brush myself down, I found that I was also covered, butt and feet, with sticky pine sap. I turned back to the safety of the road, but my left cleat was so gummed with sap that I couldn't clip in to the pedal. While I was picking sap out of my shoe, the golden late afternoon sunlight revealed clouds of termites blowing with the breeze. I fled up the mountainside as the termites were joined by vicious black flies, and rode through two miles of dense insect fields before they began to thin in the cooler evening altitude.



It was just a few miles up that I encountered heavy road construction. I'd been warned about this by the four cyclists who helped patch my broken chain. The road up Togwotee was being entirely replaced, and bicycles were being shuttled through construction zones in the pickup beds of pilot cars. A car was leaving just as I arrived. I gratefully heaved my bike up into the truck bed and climbed in alongside it, then rode at the head of a long column of vehicles being led through seven miles of earthworks and heavy equipment.



It was 6pm when we reached the far end. We'd passed, a mile back, the lodge where I'd figured on overnighting. I asked the driver what to expect up ahead: 12 miles more to the top of the pass, and "they're going to be blasting tonight". It sounded like a recipe for a bad ride, and I wasn't in the mood to punish myself. The driver agreed to drop me off a mile back.


The view from the truck

At the Togwotee Mountain Lodge, I hissed air through my teeth when I was quoted $179 for a room. While I knew exactly what I was getting into at Old Faithful, I was caught by surprise here. I should have known that any hotel with the word "lodge" in its name will automatically charge twice the price. But once again, I was stuck. I asked the two young guys behind the counter if they had anything cheaper, and I was about to ask if they had any campsites, when one of them, perhaps prompted by my obvious discomfort, offered me a room for $99. It was that or 12 miles uphill with blasting. I was happy to take it. And, if hissing got me an $80 discount, I wondered if crying might have brought the rate still lower. I resolved to try it in the future.

Alive in: Togwotee, Wyoming

I finally returned to the road after a humanizing three day weekend at Colter Bay. Besides just being worn down, I'm fairly convinced that the altitude has been affecting me. I've been between 7,000 and 8,000 feet since I entered Yellowstone, and I can feel the impact on my breath and heartrate. In any case, the time off really helped recharge my batteries. In between reading, eating, sleeping and blogging, I spent some time contemplating my schedule. I've been behind for some time, and up until recently figured I'd expand the trip as needed, but the gap keeps widening, and I've got Mary to get home to. At this point, I feel like I want to stop killing myself, and get as far as I get by the original deadline. I think I'll be happy if I make it to Pueblo, Colorado, and catch a train from there. Anyhoo, I'll keep my eyes on the calendar and see where I am in a couple of weeks.

Incidentally, the views of the Tetons behind me are much more impressive than the ones I had coming in. I came in parallel from the north, and I'm leaving perpendicular to the east; the sense of scale is clearer from twenty miles east than it was standing across Jackson Lake from them. Huge!



Today's character building challenges: insects, pine sap, and road construction. Criminy, the bugs in Grand Teton Forest are big, aggressive, and numerous! And I finally accepted a ride from someone - mandatory, really, but I was happy to have it: I reached a seven mile stretch of road construction, nothing but open earth. I'd heard about this from Keith the mechanic and friends, back at the gate to Grand Teton. I was shuttled through in the bed of a pickup truck acting as a pace car. It was 6pm by the time we reached the far end, and Tony, the driver, said it was 12 miles to the top of Togwotee Pass and that there was going to be blasting further up the road tonight, so I had him take me a mile back and drop me off at a local lodge.


I beat motorcycles!

While at Colter Bay, I finished reading one novel - Tim Dorsey's The Big Bamboo (he's like a sillier version of Carl Hiaasen) - and picked up a left behind copy of Michael Crichton's State of Fear. I knew nothing about the Crichton novel, but he's usually a reliable entertainer. As I got into it, I was wryly amused to discover that it's his global-warming-denial polemic. It's transparent and condescending and reads like a Jack Chick tract, but I'm finding it funny, given what I'm up to.

Day 31-33: Colter Bay Village

After two days of struggling to advance, I had decided to take the weekend off at Colter Bay Village. As I reached the turnoff, a profound sense of relief settled over me.

The word "village" is a bit misleading, as Colter Bay Village is not a residential center, but a recreational area with cabins, camping, a marina, horseback riding, hiking trails, and an Indian interpretive center. I'd called ahead to try to reserve a cabin with no luck, but I was sure I'd find a campsite. I stopped at the cabin rental office anyway; I desperately wanted a bed. I confirmed that no cabins were available, but I was able to rent a "tent cabin" for the following two nights. These turned out to be half-log half-canvas structures with suspended metal cots in them, sort of like mobile army barracks. I wondered if they had in fact housed troops or forest rangers. Meanwhile, I would take a campsite for the first night.


Colter Bay Marina

Since my chain was short a few links, I also pumped the office staff for information about getting to the next town, called Moose, where my map showed a bike shop. I learned that shuttles ran daily to Jackson Hole, the tourist destination beyond Moose. As I was wrapping up my interrogation, another fellow in the office who'd overheard my conversation, offered to give me a ride to Moose or Jackson Hole the following morning. Vernon MacIntyre and his 13-year old son Andrew were vacationing in the area for a week, and they had spotted me back at Old Faithful. Andrew was a competitive cyclist, so they both took a quick interest in my trip. Andrew had once broken a chain during a race, so we painbonded. In addition, Vernon's brother was at that moment near the end of an east-west transamerican tour; I suspected that helping me offered him a way to help his brother via karmic proxy. We chatted for a while, and arranged to meet back at the office at 7am the following morning.

So now I had a plan. I went to explore the village. In the village center were a laundromat / shower facility and a general store. While I was investigating these, I saw a van with a rack of bicycles on top - a packaged cycling tour. I'd seen these before and was actually on the lookout for one, because I thought they might have some spare chain for me. The van was empty. I scanned the area for a likely driver. While I was waiting, a group of four took an interest in my bike. We exchanged a few words, and then I resumed my hunt for the van owners. This is, of course, when the van pulled away, driven by the people I'd just spoken to.

I raced after the van, losing it as it disappeared into the cabin district of the village. I traced it to the tent cabin area, where I found the van's passengers preparing for dinner with a larger group of people. I apologized for following them, and asked if they might be carrying any spare bits of chain. I was directed to a young man who was helping to prepare dinner, whom I took for a member of the crew running the tour. When I explained my problem, he gave me a funny look and said, "I ride a recumbent too." He climbed into the van, rooted through some gear, and came back with a short bit of chain. He compared it against my chain, and finding them compatible, offered me the links. I was very grateful, and we talked shop for a bit before he returned to his mess duties.

So now I had a plan and a bit of chain. I wasn't sure I still needed to visit the bike shop the next day, but I decided to leave the option open. I did still need to find a camp site, so I rode to the campground, which was half a mile removed from the cabin area. At the campground registration, I was greeted by a ranger, a young woman, who asked me, "Did your girlfriend find you?" She became very embarrassed when I told her I was traveling alone. Apparently another pair of bicyclists were also camping there. I checked in and rode to the the hiker/biker ghetto, where, naturally, I met that couple.

They were Kevin and Alanna, a hippyish young couple, she with blond pigtails, he with a long brown hillbilly beard. They were riding the national parks mountain bike trail, which coincided here with the transamerica bike trail. They were each pulling a BOB - a third wheel trailer - and we quickly got to comparing experiences and inquiring about each other's rigs. I was eager for a shower and needed to set up camp first, so after a time I politely disengaged.

There were no campground showers - only the main shower facility back at village center, a half mile away. By the time I reached it, I'd already been at Colter Bay for hours, without a moment's break. The gymnasium-like men's showers were set up in two rows, each with a little curtained foyer. I dug in my toiletry bag for the bottle of liquid soap that was so convenient, yet so unsatisfying because I prefer the solid heft of a fat bar of soap. Since Mary'd left, I'd been carrying an unopened bar of Dr. Bronner's soap that I hadn't used for fear of creating a soapy mess in my toiletry bag. Digging past it now, I realized I must use it or lose it. I considered the long day and the broken chain, weighed it against each small comfort. And that shower was the best shower ever, because I had a real bar of soap.

After showering, I washed laundry. Kevin and Alanna had the same idea, and we passed the time together enjoying the comfort of domestic routine. I shared the cherry tomatoes I'd bought with Alanna, while Kevin drank from a tall can of Budweiser. I marveled at the amount of clothing they carried; measured in volume, the two of them had easily four times more clothes than I. Afterwards we all made a stop at the general store, and then rode through the dark to our camp sites. Though I was exhausted, I set my alarm for 6am in order to make my 7am appointment with Vernon and Andrew.

Morning came too soon, and I crawled slowly to wakefulness. I left my tent and gear at the camp site, and biked back to the cabin office. Vernon and Andrew arrived shortly after, in a rented white four-door Chevy. Vernon had taken the time to look for bike shops in Jackson Hole, and found four of them. Their only plan was to have breakfast and poke around Jackson Hole for a couple of hours. We'd be there before any bike shops were likely to open, so I was welcome to join them for breakfast.

Vernon and Andrew engaged in a quiet, constant stream of chatter that did not require my participation, for which I was just as glad. It was my first time in a car in the month since I'd left home. I was severed from the elements, my view was obstructed, and the world passed unnaturally quickly. I watched the Grand Tetons scroll past as if projected on a movie screen, while the conversation in the front of the car ranged from skiing to local geology to cell phones to sidearms, from which I gleaned that Vernon had once been a cop.


The only photo I got of Vernon and Andrew

We parked in downtown Jackson Hole, passing signs for a Scottish Festival and a farmer's market, and hunted down Jedidiah's Original House of Sourdough, a supposedly legendary flapjack mecca set in a squat, century old cabin. We found it suitably crowded, and in fact, a line ran out the door from the time we arrived until the time we left Jackson Hole, three hours later. The newsprint menus reproduced century old newspaper articles that outlined the founding of Jackson Hole; faded sepia photos and rusted bits of mountaineering gear decorated the walls.



After breakfast, Vernon and I arranged to meet back at the car in two hours. I checked a town business map for bike shop listings, and found Fitzgerald's Cycles a short walk away. On the way through Town Square, I heard a band of kilted bagpipers playing pied piper to the Scottish Festival.


Six pipers piping

The clerks at Fitzgerald's were still opening shop when I wandered in unawares. I hadn't examined my chain or front derailleur carefully - I just knew I wanted options. I'd broken at least three links, and I couldn't vouch for the integrity of the remaining chain. Either I needed a few links (which I'd already obtained), or I needed a full replacement, which means two and a half standard lengths. I bought the replacement chain along with some spare master links. Later, I would wish I had left the chain and bought a new front derailleur, when I figured out that mine was not just mispositioned, but bent.


Fitzgerald's Bicycles

I was left with an hour to kill in Jackson Hole. I wandered through expensive boutique art shops, admired the green slopes bordering the town, bought a cookie at the farmer's market, shopped for a paperback, and met Vernon and Andrew back at the car at the prescribed time.



On the way back to Colter Village, Vernon wanted to stop at a fish hatchery. It wasn't a stop I would have chosen, but I found it surprisingly interesting. The main attraction was a series of cement culverts, like shallow tethered lap pools, some covered with canvas monkey huts, which were populated with thousands of fish in various stages of development. We noticed a vehicle like a fork lift covered with funnels and wide mouthed PVC tubes, and identified it as a fish vacuum.


Fish Hut

It was mid-afternoon by the time we returned to Colter Bay Village. As we pulled into the lot of the cabin rental office, Vernon received a call from his brother, who'd reached his destination in Oregon and was getting ready to catch a train home. I thanked Vernon profusely and said my goodbyes. Since I was moving from a campground to a tent-cabin, I needed to return to camp to break down my tent and collect my gear.

I did as little as possible during my remaining two and a half days at the village: resting, replacing calories, reading, blogging, and utterly failing to take advantage of the village's attractions. I almost felt guilty - while other visitors were escaping to nature, I was escaping from it. Nonetheless, I returned to the road on Day 34, well rested and ready for the miles ahead.