Too many people - Day 24, West Fork area to Madison Campground, Yellowstone

I woke up early, confirmed that nothing was terribly wrong from last night's crash, and left before anyone took issue with my camp spot. I ate peaches and granola in front of the closed visitor's center at Quake Lake, saw a neat Osprey nest, and made it to West Yellowstone without further incident.

One of the first buildings I saw offered laundry and showers, so I stopped in, took a shower, and dumped nearly everything I have into the wash. I hunted fruitlessly for WiFi, only finding unsecured networks that ask for a password via the browser, which makes me unreasonably annoyed. I then started meeting a whole bunch of people.

First, I saw a couple loaded bikes outside an Arby's. I spoke briefly with Hamish and Angus, two Brits who have been making up their own route all over the place. They're planning to use most of their 6-month visas to wander pretty much everywhere in the US. I left the Arby's and met Lee, one of the pioneers of mountain biking and long-time bike shop owner. He showed me his first mountain bike, which was clearly just a road bike with some beefier equipment welded on. He also showed me binders full of pictures over the years, and I signed his guestbook. He sold me one of his rental helmets because it was the only one that fit my weird-shaped head, made some quick spoke adjustments on my front wheel, and topped off the air pressure in my tires. I returned to the laundromat and met Brian, a westbounder from Georgia who is doing the Trans-Am route pretty much immediately after through-hiking the Appalachian Trail. Hamish and Angus were still sitting in front of the Arby's looking aimless, so I brought them along to stop by the visitor's center to get some conflicting advice about what cyclists needed to do to get into Yellowstone. While there, we met Madi (sp?) and Grant, who I can only assume are a poster-couple for cycling ads, with matching gear and inappropriately good looks.

Next, Hamish, Angus and I went for groceries. They bought more food than I have ever seen a cyclist carry, including two large boxes of oatmeal cookies, full-size boxes of cereal, 6 bananas, and more. I got a little carried away as well, but I made it fit. I found that New York Ethan was still in town, so I arranged to meet Hamish and Angus inside Yellowstone that night after eating dinner with the other cyclists I'd met. New York Ethan, Ohio Mike (previously seen in Missoula), Georgia Brian, and I went to a pizzeria that some of them had scoped out earlier. While there, New York John and Georgia Christian rode by. We flagged them down and they joined us. The old crew was mostly reunited.

West Yellowstone itself is basically a staging area from which tourists mount daily assaults on the park in hopes of finding an open campground. As such, it's expensive, busy, and full of obnoxious advertising, including a beat up Oldsmobile that drove around while someone shouted through a distorted megaphone about a rodeo. I didn't want to stay there, so I talked Jon and Christian into riding into the park that night. No one was awake to ask for the $20 pass that the visitor's center sold me.

It took quite a while to finish chores like groceries, so we didn't get started until well after dark. You're supposed to make noise to avoid startling a bear, so we rode the ~15 miles to Madison yelling at imaginary bears, making nonsense sounds, and generally being obnoxious. The ride would likely have been more scenic during the day, but this way we had very light traffic. We did catch one nice sight: a lake we passed was steaming, heated by some nearby hotsprings. The near-full moon illuminated the steam to create an eerie backdrop for a couple large silhouettes with sparkling eyes, most likely elk. We watched them for a while then went for the campground, circling the whole place a couple times before discovering that hiker/biker camping was unmarked and stuffed behind the registration building.


Here's the osprey nest I mentioned: