Day Six: Escape from Yellowstone
Nicest hotel at the end of the longest day and I get the shortest night of sleep. This was the first day I had residual pain from the previous days ride but all those gripes washed away when I found out the free breakfast included make your own Belgium waffles! The batter dispensed out of something identical to a soft drink machine and they had two legit cast iron flip hinged waffle makers. After downing the very solid free breakfast I stepped outside to see what the weather conditions were like. All the previous nights rain had dried up and it was sunny and some chill in the air. I packed up my gear fast and started going to where I thought the Yellowstone exit was.
When I pulled off the freeway to go to the hotel I thought I saw a separate, earlier exit for Yellowstone so I figured I should backtrack and take that (memory of an) exit. As it turns out that exit didnt exist so I turned around 10 miles down the road. Being slightly irritated and pretty damn cold I shot back to the direction of the hotel at a faster than my newly subdued speed. About 2 miles from the hotel exit I see a cop on the opposite shoulder of the opposite side of the freeway and sure enough when I look in the rear I see him ripping across the road diving into the median plowing through high grass and bouncing out hard as he starts heading my direction. Adrenaline is blasting through my veins which about the opposite of what anyone wants when police are involved. Whats the two natural human responses to personal risk? Fight and flight, two things that cops just love. I thankfully avoid both of those impulses by slowing down, downshifting and coming to a 68mph crawl on the 75mph highway. He’s on my ass and I’m not giving him the shot to tag me at any sort of unlawful speeds. I take the exit and notice on the sign that the road to Yellowstone was the same one the hotel was on, all I needed to do is turn right out of the parking lot. Sigh.
Off I go again to Yellowstone, the trip from my hotel to West Yellowstone where I’d be staying that night was 90 miles. This seemed easy as pie since the previous day was so torturous. The road was two lane and about 20 miles into the trip there was heavy construction where each direction would take turns going down a 1/4mile strip. Luckily I noticed to the left there was a classic car junkyard so I pulled in there and took some photos of their stock. While I was walking around the the closest trailer opened up and a long bearded man and a cat walked out and found the nearest lawn chair to sit and scowl at me from. I took the hint and went on my way.
The ride into West Yellowstone (this is a town just outside the parks west gate) doesn’t actually go into the park but rests around the outside of it. The rides fantastic, the view amazing, and I’m beginning to wonder how much better the inside of the park can be. There are tons of pullover spots where you can stop and take photos at. I ended up taking quite a few shots and a good chunk of video before getting into town. West Yellowstone is a total tourist town but that didn’t bother me since I’m just sleeping there. I pulled into the hotel I booked a room at ahead of time but my room wasn’t ready. Killing time always means food, I hit up the local BBQ joint called Beartooth BBQ. They had some brisket on some fancy hotdog and it was great as was the sauce. After that I went across the street in hopes the coffee shop would have Wifi but they didn’t so I finished writing the previous days blog in Wordpad which ends up being significantly more work than just typing it in tumblr the first time. After that it was time to check in.
I dumped my stuff off and shot over to the Yellowstone West entrance. $20 gets a motorcycle in for 7 days which seems crazy cheap to me. Riding in you go down a corridor of pine trees before it opens up and you start to understand the vastness of the park. This answers the previous question I had, yes it is much better inside the park. My intent was to see the Canyon Village section and Mammoth (I thought) the first day and go through the lower loop on my way out. In my head Mammoth was on the way to the falls but that was not true. I probably stopped 15 or more times before I hit Mammoth to take pictures. After reaching Mammoth I looked at the map remembered I actually wanted to go to Canyon Village and Tower. I wasnt terribly disappointed because the drive out to Mammoth was so spectacular but I wanted to get to the falls and so I did.
Canyon Village is setup so you see the upper falls first and go down the line but you cant go back up. I didnt know this and hit the entrance to the lower falls first. When I was pulling up there was an elk eating in the wooded area near the parking lot. Some heavy idiot had walked far too close to the animal and was snapping pictures, lucky for him it didnt get pissed about it. I ran over to the falls and took as many photos as the light would allow me. Right then I remembered something the husband of the Calgary couple said when talking about taking photos when he was on the Oregon coast, “Forget the photo and just enjoy the moment”. I found myself wanting to hammer out as many photos as possible and not just enjoying what I was looking at. I kicked back and gazed at the river going into the canyon for a good 15 minuets, then I realized this was a bad idea. Not the gazing but going to the falls with darkness coming soon, this. was. bad.
The visor on my helmet is made for the day and I didnt bring my street legal one to save space. On the really bright days this is really nice, when night falls on Yellowstone this is potentially fatal. I started heading back and as fast as I could which is right around 45mph if slowpokes are in front of you. Some light is still cresting over the horizon giving me enough light to see with the visor down, this is very important when the bugs are heavy. Light keeps going away and about 15 minuets into my 42 mile trip back to the west entrance and I still haven’t arrived to the first intersection and light is entirely gone. I’m now grateful for the people in front of me now as their lights provide me more visibility of the road ahead when my visors down. The grouping of 3 cars in front of me all take a turn at the first intersection and I instinctively follow, I soon smell sulfur and realize they must be going to the Mammoth section for camping and turn around. This was only about a 1/4 mile down the road so not much time was lost but all of my extra light was. After the sun had set the minimal light turned the horizon into an all black portrait of the tops of the trees, I could at least see my surroundings but now its just darkness and the lines of the road.
Visibility with my visor down and standard lights is about 50ft and all you see is the painted lines on the road, brights is 100ft and still just lines. I head back to the intersection go the right way and battle between visor up and visor down. Down means no visibility but my eyes/face arent getting barraged with bugs. Visor up means I can see whats on and around the road but I get hit with bugs. A grasshopper to the face at 50mph isnt fun. Now keep in mind the bugs tend to only swarm around the bodies of water unless they’re sulfur ponds. Good things animals are never drawn to bodies of water… I fly through the darkness and the parks getting very cold. My body starts to lose all feeling but the engine heat is keeping my ass warm. This is the absolute last thing I need to feel after all the riding I’ve been doing.
I come to the next intersection and I get spun around again but this time I need to pull out the map, 15 miles to go. Repaving of the road means the only indicators of pavement are the tiny center tabs every 50 or so feet. Deer warning signs are pretty much deer warning assumptions, they tell you distances that are the entire leg of that road. They should just say at the front gate “Deer are fucking everywhere here”. Deer signs have turned into blinking buffalo signs, great. This doesn’t slow me down, I want out. This is terrifying and I’m driving at speeds where I’ll just accept my death if something massive comes jutting out of the woods. After what seems like an eternity of panicked, freezing, dangerous riding through twisty roads I see blinking in the distance of a corridor of pines. I flip up my visor to get a better view and the pines do not look right, I remember them being smaller. Now I’m worried this might just be a campground entrance, what if I made a wrong turn? Did I read the map wrong? Thankfully no, I’m out of the park and just as I exit my gas light begins to blink. I find the nearest gas station, hit the hotel and tried to go find somewhere to eat to calm my nerves. It’s over.
