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Day 23 - June 30 - West Yellowstone, MT to Flagg Ranch, WY - 76 miles

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Welcome to Wyoming and Yellowstone National Park.		The Madison River.		Yellowstone recovering from the 1988 fires.
The elk were plentiful.		Cliff Mountain.		Herd of buffalo.
Yellowstone is home to some 10,000 thermal features, over 500 hundred of which are geysers.  The ground is constantly steaming and boiling.		Old Faithful in all her glory.		We crossed the Continental Divide three times in the park.
This guy has the woods all to himself.		Lewis River Falls.		Lewis River Canyon.

We were able to get started at 6:30 after an excellent breakfast at the Old Town Cafe in downtown West Yellowstone.  The temperature was 40 degrees when we began, but it soon heated up into the 80's. We sweated and drank, and sweated and drank all day long.

Last night the wind howled and rocked our tents all night long, but at daybreak it stopped and we were able to leave with no wind at all.  However, soon after we entered into Wyoming a breeze started and gradually grew stronger as the day went along.  By the time we reached Lewis Lake we were biking in a 20-30 mph crosswind/headwind that gusted to 40 mph in the openings by the lake.  It was difficult to keep our bikes on the road.  We could feel our arms and backs tiring from the extra work of keeping the bikes upright.

The ride through Yellowstone Park took us over the continental divide 3 times.  Craig Pass at 8261' and two no name passes at 8391' and 7988' were significant hills in anyone's book.  Each time we went up there was an enjoyable downhill, but we got to the point we didn't enjoy the downhills anymore.  We knew once the bottom came we had another hard climb ahead of us.  Did we mention we drank a lot of water going through Yellowstone?

We had heard about the tourist traffic in the park, but never imagined it would be as bad as it turned out.  At about 7:00 the cars, RV's, SUV's, pickups, etc started passing us and got worse as we went along.  The traffic was bumper to bumper for the entire 71 miles we were in the park.  We saw a lot of excited tourists "having fun" as they were rushing from one sight to another.  An early lesson we learned was to stay out of their way.  National Park's at their best!

Yellowstone National Park is a beautiful sight to see.  There was the Bald Eagle sitting in the top of a tree along the Madison River looking for something to feed it's young.  We saw herds of buffalo grazing on open range, elk feeding and resting along the river, beautiful stone faced mountains, and lush green river valleys.  We were in awe of the hot, steamy thermal area that was home to the infamous "Old Faithful", and the healing of a land burned by the fire of 1988.  We could have spent many days riding around and enjoying the beauty of Yellowstone if it had not been for the tourists.  As it was we couldn't wait to get to Flagg Ranch to camp for the night.  Maybe tomorrow will bring a more relaxing day.

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