Welcome to Yellowstone National Park

Our one-night stay in the city campground in Drummond, Montana, was loud. It sounded like the trains were going right through our trailer several times during the night. We were glad we weren't planning to stay any longer! This was the third one-night stay in a row, something very unusual for us. Because we didn't unhook the pickup for this short stop, it was a fast departure the next morning. We were on the road at 8:00 a.m. for our long drive. Google maps estimated a five hour drive to today's destination, but that was based on driving 80 miles per hour on I-80. Our preferred speed towing the trailer in the mountains was 60 miles per hour.

The further we drove away from the Windy Rock fire, the bluer the skies were. We liked this section of I-80 with four smooth lanes and very little traffic.  Our path took us down some long 6% grades where passenger cars were limited to 70 miles per hour, but trucks weren't supposed to exceed 25 miles per hour in these sections.

Our destination today was Yellowstone National Park. We've been there several times in our travels, but we've never been able to camp inside the park because our motor home was too big and needed electrical hook-ups. Last night we were able to reserve a one-night stay in the center of the national park--one of the advantages of traveling with our little trailer with solar! Even though the smoke forecast said that Yellowstone was clear, we found the mountains shrouded in smoke as we approached the north entrance of the park.

We also started seeing wildlife as we got closer. We spotted antelope, two eagles, and ten elk. These three elk were resting in the sage brush in the middle of the day.

We also crossed the state line into Wyoming this morning. This was our eleventh state on this journey! This was the first time we had ever entered through the Gardiner gate into Yellowstone National Park. Even though it is one of the most visited national parks in the country, there was no line and no reservations needed at this north entrance in the middle of the afternoon.

We had never seen the Roosevelt Gate, just inside the north park entrance. We took a picture as we drove by because finding a parking spot big enough for the pickup and trailer inside a national park was almost impossible.

That's why we drove right by the travertine formations on the north side of Yellowstone. Driving through these crowded areas on a pretty day in August towing a trailer was a little tricky.

Even though we were already inside the national park, we still had a 90-minute drive to get to our campground in the center. We've mentioned it many times before, but some of our national parks are huge! We spotted one deer and 2 bison close to the road. We saw dozens more bison in the distance as we drove through Hayden Valley. When we plotted our route home across the country, we found that driving through Yellowstone was actually the shortest route in miles. It was not the fastest route, however, because of the 35-45 mile per hour speed limits inside the park. But with beautiful natural landscapes and animal sightings, it was a great route for us.

We arrived at Bridge Bay Campground in the center of the park in the middle of the afternoon, and got the trailer set up. We'll talk more about that fiasco at the end of the blog. Instead of staying around the campground, we jumped back into the pickup at 4:15 and started exploring the park. We made a stop at West Thumb Geyser Basin, where we parked and made the walk around the geothermal attractions. Our favorites were "The Abyss" . . .

and "The Black Pool." Even with such sinister names, both were delightful shades of turquoise. But through the clear steaming water we could see the bottomless crater beneath.

This boardwalk was right beside Yellowstone Lake, where a large flock of ducks was trolling together near the shore.

We watched as the leaders dove under the water, and the whole flock followed and flipped down in some natural version of a synchronized swimming routine.

We also made a stop at the Kepler Cascades. Most day visitors had left the national park by this time, and we had the viewpoint all to ourselves. That's one advantage to camping inside the park that we've never gotten to experience before.

We were on a bit of a schedule, as we were headed to Old Faithful next, with a scheduled eruption time at 6:32. We arrived around 6:00, surprised to see that all the benches around the perimeter were full even at this time of the evening.

The local birds knew that the visitors waiting for the show were probably snacking, and they were quite bold to check out the food options.

The 6:32 estimate had a qualifier. Old Faithful was faithful, but that estimate comes with a +/- ten minute qualifier. We got a teaser at 6:30, but the full geyser show actually started at 6:33.

It's hard to take a picture that shows just how tall the water sprays into the air. But the whole crowd hushed as we all watched another of God's wonders in this wonderful place.

We filled up with some $3.99-per-gallon gas at the gas station in the Old Faithful complex, and then headed down the road for another highlight. We've seen most of these things many times before, but how can you be so close and not feast on some of the best natural landscape in the country? We paused only for a moment to take another bison picture on our way, because we were losing daylight.

Our next stop was the Grand Prismactic Spring. Because it was so late, we got a parking spot in the closest lot, and started the mile hike up to the viewing platform above the spring. Even though the fading light didn't show the bright colors that made this spring famous, it was easy to take a picture.

Last time we were here, it was crowded with people. But this evening there were only seven of us on the platform. We took turns taking pictures for each other without anyone else in the frame. At this point, we were half-way around the south driving loop of the national park. We decided to finish the 58 miles it would take us to make a circle around this loop to get back to our campground.

It was over an hour's drive and we ran out of daylight. We did spot three bison, but it was dark by the time we got to Hayden Valley. We were disappointed to see that people were just leaving after a bear sighting. A big group was still talking about watching a grizzly in the water, and another group watched the wolves for the third night in a row in the same place. We missed all that fun, but we did see the herd of elk that hang out at Bay Bridge Campground. They were our welcoming committee when we drove back to the trailer at 9:00. Mark had been driving for most of 13 hours this day, and he was tired. We walked several loops inside the national park today, and managed to get 6.3 miles of exercise today.

We have to have a little rant about our national park camp site that might be helpful to others making a trip to Yellowstone. We were delighted to find a one-night opening, but surprised at the $42 price for a no-hook-up camp site. On the Zanterra web site, it didn't give us any opportunity to put in our senior pass number for the half-price discount. We found out quite by accident that you can get that discount only if you ask for it when you arrive. Our camping spot was literally a wide place on the side of the campground road. It was one of the worst sites we have ever had in our ten years of extensive camping. We had to come in backwards, or our steps and door would have been in the middle of the road. It was so angled that we used four leveling blocks, and we were still a bubble off level. Driving through the campground at 9 p.m., we assumed everyone was checked in. But at least 25% of the sites were vacant. Some sites were much better than ours, and we probably should have requested a different site if we only knew that so many were going to be unused. Having unused camp sites in the middle of such a beautiful place seems a shame.

Riding the Route of the Hiawatha

Today was all about riding the route of the Hiawatha, but we had some driving to get to this interesting attraction on this moving day. 

With temperatures near 100 in August, we thought we would be running the fans inside the trailer at night. But when the sun went down past the mountains, the little valley town of Big Creek, Idaho, cooled down into the 50s. Instead of fans, we needed a blanket to keep us comfortable overnight. We left our Boondockers Welcome stop at 7:45 a.m., and headed east down I-90. 

It was a 75-mile drive across the Idaho panhandle, and this stretch of interstate reminded us of I-70 west of Denver. It was a winding highway with towering tree-covered peaks on both sides as the road snaked through the mountains. This stretch of road must be perilous in the winter, with lots of tire chain pull-offs, and signs requiring chains during the winter months. We were glad to be here in August, rather than January.

After those 75 miles, we entered our tenth state of this trip--Montana. We exited the highway at exit 0 for the Lookout Ski Resort, where we each bought a $20 trail pass and a $20 shuttle pass for the Hiawatha Trail. Then it was back in the pickup to drive another five miles east on I-90, and then two miles through construction, and then up a steep dirt road to the East Portal Parking lot.

We were early because we wanted to start our bike ride when it was cool. But we also needed to find a parking space for our pickup and trailer at a very popular trail head. They have limited RV parking, and we snagged one of those spots. We unloaded our foldable bikes, attached our trail pass, and headed out on one of the most famous bike trails in the United States. It was 57 degrees when we started at 9:00.

Before we even got our bike legs under us, it was time to face the biggest challenge of the ride. We were entering the 1.66-mile Taft Bridge Tunnel. The black mouth of this tunnel is a little ominous as we rode from the bright sunlight into pitch darkness.

We came prepared with head lamps and a flashlight. But we soon found that Denisa's head lamp was not strong enough for the pitch black inside a mile-long tunnel. We couldn't stop and readjust, because we didn't want to get ran over by bikes behind us. Our best strategy was for Mark to hold the flashlight and try to shine it in front of Denisa's path. It was cold and muddy inside that long tunnel. While it was "an experience," Denisa wouldn't say that it was a "fun experience."

She was really glad to see the light at the end of that very long tunnel ride!

You might notice that Denisa was wearing a very interesting outer garment. We had read that it was muddy in the tunnels, and mud will splatter up on the back of your clothes. Our bikes had fenders, so we weren't bothered by that mud. But she wore the trash bag for the warmth during that 43-degree tunnel ride.

We saw many bikers who didn't wear trash bags. Their fender-less bikes left them a muddy stripe down their back for the rest of the day.

We took a picture at the waterfall on the other side of the tunnel, then got ready to tackle the rest of the Route of the Hiawatha.

The trail was 15 miles long, but it was entirely down hill! That meant we did very little pedaling during this ride through the mountains 

This blog is filled with pictures of Denisa on her bike. That's because Mark is a talented bike rider that can take pictures (or shine a flashlight) while he rides.

Denisa is the kind of bike rider that just hopes she doesn't fall off her bike in the best of circumstances. So the only pictures of Mark were when we stopped to gape at the pretty mountain scenery around us.

We have been on many rail-to-trails adventures, but this was probably the most spectacular. The trail was wide because it was so popular and well-traveled. We made a point to arrive on a week-day, because it can be brutally busy on the weekend.

The billboards on the highway boasted that the Route of the Hiawatha has ten tunnels. We were glad that the other nine weren't as long as the first one. But all of them were long enough and curved enough that they were totally dark inside.

We stopped often, and noticed that the mountains around us were hazy from wildfire smoke in the distance.

As we went through more tunnels, we developed our strategy. Denisa got better at holding the flashlight and steering and pedaling.  That's a lot of multi-tasking for a wobbly bike rider.

Mark could do all that plus take pictures.

Sometimes we were pedaling through a tunnel of trees instead of a rock tunnel.

This was one tunnel that we didn't bike through. It was the "whoops" tunnel. When planning a 15-mile route through the mountains, it's probably understandable that the planners would make a mistake or two. This tunnel was a mistake that was never used as part of the train track.

About half-way down the mountain, we got our first distant view of the trestles we were about to cross.

But we still had more . . .

and more tunnels to ride through first.

The billboards along the interstate also boasted of the "Seven Sky High Trestles" on the Route of the Hiawatha. We had just made it to our first one. You can see that Denisa doesn't look very big on that sky high bridge.

The sign post near that first trestle explained the process of building such a long bridge with such long legs under it. A contraption called "The Traveler" was an ingenuous method to build these old bridges.

Just one of these tall old trestles would have made this an amazing ride. But we got to ride across seven of them!

 

What a fun way to bike through more of God's wonders!

Each trestle had a name and a number. The Kelly Creek Trestle was one of the tallest at 230 feet in height.

Even on the second half of the ride, we were still riding through tunnels . . .

and they were still muddy.

We were glad for the shade from the trees and the cool of the tunnels by now. Temperatures were up to 91 degrees by the end of the morning. Riding a fat-tired mountain bike was recommended, but we were proud of our skinny-tired fold-up bikes. They did quite well on the Route of the Hiawatha.

These high trestles were first built out of wood, and later replaced with iron when the wood began to deteriorate.

The bridges were wide and smooth. It was during this second half of the ride that we started meeting bikes heading back up the hill. Most of those were e-bikes that would have some electrical help riding 15 miles up-hill. We bought the shuttle tickets to ride the bus back up the hill because Mark didn't want to listen to Denisa whining for 15 miles.

Meeting bikes inside tunnels was a little unnerving in the dark.

Sorry for all the pictures, but it seemed like we needed to take a picture of each of those seven sky high trestles.

The trail was only 15 miles long, and that shouldn't take very long on a bicycle. But since we stopped for so many pictures, it took longer than we expected.

We also stopped and read the sign posts along the route. Sprinkled about every quarter-mile throughout the trail, they explained the railroad that once made this route possible. The signboards had stories of the train engines--steam, electric and diesel---over the years. They told stories of the railroad's part in transporting soldiers and equipment during the war. We read stories of the luxury class railroad cars with diners and sleepers for rich travelers. We learned that trains transporting silk were given fast passage because of the price and delicate nature of silk. We did almost as much reading as we did riding.

We finished the trail at the bottom, as we rolled under the sign at the Pearson Trailhead. You guessed it--Denisa had to get off her bike to take this picture of Mark.

Then we got in the very long shuttle line. We were lucky that we would fit onto the next shuttle, because weekenders will face a very long wait at the bottom. They loaded our bikes onto trailers . . .

and we hopped on one of the old school buses that make the thirty- minute drive up the mountain. The roads were twisting and narrow and the drivers knew to meet the oncoming buses only at specific places on this drive.

They unloaded bikes and passengers at the bottom of the Taft Bridge Tunnel. That's right--we have to bike through that very long 1.66-mile dark tunnel again to get back to our pickup. But we are experienced bikers now, and well-practiced at the best techniques in going through dark tunnels. It was much better the second time. We were also glad for the 43-degree tunnel since the outside temperatures were in the 90s.

We finished at 3:00 mountain time. Today we had crossed from Pacific Time back into Mountain Time, making our day an hour shorter. That wasn't good, because we had to get to a parts store in Missoula, Montana, before they closed. Mark had found a shop with the parts we needed to fix the solar connection, and they were in-stock! We arrived 25 minutes before closing time to buy two solar splitters and two cables to replace the one with a bad connection. We also stocked up on groceries and ate dinner in Missoula. Then we drove another hour to Drummond City Campground for an easy overnight stay. As we drove further down the highway, the views got more smoky.

By the time we got to Drummond City, we could barely see the mountains around us. For the first time this summer we could smell the smoke. We found out that it was from the 3,426-acre Windy Rock Fire that was 0 percent contained and just ten miles from town. The fire was large enough that the local fire department turned it over to the larger Department of Natural Resources fire crew. We read that 500 fire fighters were on that site today. They were joined by the Montana Governor, because this was the largest wildfire in the state. The news said that the rain in July kept down fires this summer, but a dry August had led to an upsurge. Now much of Montana was under a smoke flume.

Mark spent the last few minutes before sundown installing the new cables and connectors. It sure was nice traveling with a guy that can fix anything, can take pictures while riding a bicycle, and is so darn good looking too!