56.94 mi / 4:35:17 time / 12.4 mph avg. / 33.0 mph max. / 2722 ft. climbing
Staying at Canyon Village Campground

I started the day with a 15-mile gradual climb to the East Entrance of Yellowstone National Park. Just after paying my $12 hiker/biker fee (I think a car is $25) and passing through, a construction woman waved me over to her pickup and had me load the bike inside so that I could get through the 7-mile construction zone. It sort of felt like cheating, especially since those seven miles were a 2500-foot climb to Sylvan Pass, but it sure made my day a lot easier. It was also fun listening to the construction crews talking over their radios, giving out the days “points” for hitting stupid drivers. They seemed like a pretty laid-back bunch, which I guess is what happens when your job puts you in Yellowstone for the summer. My driver was sad the 4-year project was coming to a close, but she was trying to get a job on the new contract her company got in Glacier National Park. Nice work if you can get it! She even mentioned me and my route over the radio, so now I’m really famous. She’s still waiting to find someone from Chicago who works for Oprah, though. At one point when the whole line of cars was stopped for about twenty minutes, a man came up to the pilot truck in a huff, asking how much longer the wait would be. He stormed off muttering “This just isn’t right!!!” Ah, poor drivers. The workers would identify the cars at the end of the line by vehicle type and state, which highlighted how many different license plates are driving through the park; it’s almost a different state for every car that goes by.

After getting my bike off the truck, it was mostly downhill to cold Yellowstone Lake, lunch at the diner at Fishing Bridge, and then north up to Canyon Village. Since I had my day made significantly easier by the lift up the hill, I considered doing another 15 miles to Tower Campground, but it had started to drizzle a bit then so I decided to stick to the original plan.

During a traffic jam caused by a herd of bison crossing the road, I came across the first touring cyclists I’ve seen the whole trip. We talked for a bit on the road, and then I met up with them later in camp. It was nice to talk to some of my own kind for a while. In the hiker/biker campground ($6.50, so I’m really getting a great deal in this Yellowstone region) there is also a second trio of tourists doing Alaska-to-Tierra del Fuego, and yet another couple just rolled in in the dark a few minutes ago. Add to that several conversations with people about what I’m doing (including one with an ultramarathoner), and it’s easily been the most interactive day of the trip so far.

More on the park tomorrow!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 4th, 2007 at 2:02 pm and is filed under bike. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.