Day 70, Grant City to West Yellowstone, Montana.

entering the town of West Yellowstone.

Montana, state number8. Two more to go.

I followed that trail thinking it would lead me to somewhere neat. Wrong! I almost got lost down there.

If I knew I was that handsome, I wouldn't have taken that good care of myself.

We crossed this stream on our way to the geyser field near Old faithful.

At almost every turn I was tempted to take pictures. Incredible place Yellowstone.
I can't get enough of all these wild flowers.

Old faithful going off. We waited almost 45 minutes. But it was worth it.

I held the camera as close to the water as I could for this shot. You can even see the bottom.

They call this Lake Isa. The other half is on the other side of the bridge. The east end drains into the Atlantic via the Mississippi into the gulf. While the west end drains into the Pacific via the Colorado river into the Sea of Cortes.

You can see two lakes from here. Sorry, I don't know their names.

While on one of my breaks, I took this shot of an unknown lake deep in Yellowstone.

The Kempler cascade. One of the main attractions in Yellowstone.

This is the inside of the Yellowstone Inn built in the early 1900's.

Continental Divide crossing number who knows. I gave up counting.

Part of the geyser field at Old Faithful.

The geyser basin is a strange place. You feel like you are on the moon or something.

Those are hot water springs boiling up from under ground.





The deep woods. There could be anything in there.

I guess this is some sort of lily that was growing in Lake Isa.

We saw a lot of statues like these all over West Yellowstone.

Our camp site at grant City.

I spotted this guy grazing about 50 yards away. There was two more close by.


Day 70, Grant City, Wyoming to West Yellowstone, Montana. “Old Faithful”. 57.82 miles. Total=3,216.42

Monday, July 20, 2009. It was very interesting last night. It was the first time that we had actually camped primitively in bear country. The sign read: “Be Bear Aware”. This meant storing all food, including water, deodorant, tooth paste, etc. in bear proof boxes. These bear boxes are large metal containers designed to be bomb proof. The problem was, the box was within ten feet from my tent. That meant if the bear did decide to come, he would come for one reason. Food. So if the food is in the bear box ten feet away, that means he would come real close to me. I did have my bear spray ready. I read the instructions, and felt confident I would be able to deploy the apparatus if necessary. Luckily, no bear showed up.

We are now in Montana, we left Grant City after a buffet breakfast at “The Lake House Restaurant”. It was pretty cold when we left, but with clear skies, it didn’t take long before the temperature warmed up enough for us to shed the warm stuff. This part of Wyoming is probably the nicest piece of real-estate in the country. So green, lakes all over the place, and alpine forests as far as the eye can see. If it weren’t for the roads, the place would be un touched. We rode through miles of heavily wooded mountains. Climbing over a number of passes, and crossing the Continental Divide at least twice today. The pictures you see, speak for themselves. This is one incredible place. I for one, plan on coming back here again, to explore more of this hiking paradise.

As we entered Yellowstone, the attendant at the toll booth told us that it was a free weekend. Good news, we saved $12.00 each. Old Faithful was 22 miles north from here. The unforgettable scenery kept us occupied as we pedaled away the miles. We saw water falls, canyons, elk, deer, you name it. The only thing we didn’t particularly care for was the traffic. It was almost non stop once inside Yellowstone. It seems like everybody and his brother were there. And most of them had huge RV’s. Some of them so big, you probably need a special license to drive them. And about 3 out of 4 would be dragging a vehicle of some sort behind them. We reach Old Faithful right about noon, we had our lunch at the Old Faithful Lodge where we found throngs of people waiting for her to erupt. We later went out to watch the main event. A huge crowd was on hand. I would saw about 2,000 or more, it was like being at a sporting event. Old faithful it seems isn’t as faithful as let to believe. There is a cushion of about 45 minutes as to when it would go off. So patience is the name of the game. It’s a good thing too that the high altitude keeps the temperature down, because there is no shade unless you are back a ways in either one of the buildings, or under a tree. We waited about a half hour from the predicted time of eruption, but it finally went off, and it was well worth the wait.

After the show, we walk around the geyser basin to see some of the other smaller geyser in the area, We were surprised to see so many of them. They all had names, and they all went off at different times, making for an interesting walk. At 3:15PM., we decided to head on. We still had over 30 miles to go, and a lot more to see. To keep this entry reasonably short, I’ll let the pictures above speak for themselves.

We made it to Montana and the town of West Yellowstone by 6:30 in the evening and proceeded to look for a place to stay. Tomorrow would be our rest day, so we wanted a nice place with Internet access since we were behind on e-mails and updating our blogs. Since this is peak tourist season, we ended up going to seven, motels before finding one that had vacancy. Only thing, this one has no Internet. So it’ll be some time before this will get posted. Aloha from The Big Sky Country, Ted.