Second Backpacking Trip

I'm back into civilization again after a second backpacking trip.  The trails I hiked this time did not have the incredible vistas of the route I took a couple of weeks ago, but the Tileston Meadows, Lost Lake and Gem Lake were lovely in a quiet way.

Lost Lake

Tileston Meadows

Gem Lake

I can feel the adventure winding down--it's been incredible but "to every thing there is a season."  I saw some Aspens turning yellow on my hike out of the mountains, so it's easy to see that the season is turning....  Next week I'll be back in Chicago!--it will be good to see all my friends there after a long summer away!

Wow ... WOW!!! -- I want to do it again!!!

The second half of my first backpacking outing turned out to be even more incredible than the first half.  "Glorious" is about the only word that I can think of that even approximates the right mix of beautiful, awesome, mystical, spectacular, mind-blowing, peaceful, wondrous, etc.

Here are just a few of the photos from those days....

Majestic Mountain with Mystical Moose in Meadow (between the trees lower right corner)

Lake Nanita with Ptarmigan Mountain behind it....  It's like a fantasy landscape except it actually exists!

A view from the North Inlet Trail

A view from Flattop Mountain near Ptarmigan Point

As pleased as I am with the photos, they are only capturing the smallest trace of the experience.  On my next time out (starting today, for five more days), I'm also taking a sketch pad and some pencils hoping that even if the sketches are really awful (I'm certainly no artist!) I will nonetheless somehow be able to transmit more of the experience into the image through that manual process than through a photograph.  I'm going to be out in the backcountry again for five days, so, unless I come across an unexpected coverage pocket, I'll be out of touch for a while!

Wildlife Gone Wild!

I hit a coverage pocket near Grand Lake halfway through my 5-day backcountry backpacking trip in Rocky Mountain National Park. The highlights of the first couple of days have been the wildlife sightings.

Yesterday morning I saw two male elk rubbing the velvet off their horns. At first I thought thought the elk was caught in a tree with the branches tangled into the rack LOL. They did this for about half an hour.... but I didn't get any really good pictures because the trees were so dense I was afraid to get closer enough to have a clear photo. I got a decent shot after they were resting later on.



Yesterday evening and this morning I saw numerous moose. Two of them (a mama and a baby) decided they would walk right through my campsite this morning so close that I retreated back a little ways from my pack that I was on the process of loading up.





Besides the wildlife, of course the scenery has also been beautiful.

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Winding Down from Bicycling... Gearing Up for Backpacking

I arrived in Estes Park the day before yesterday and had a nice rest day yesterday.  I've firmed up the plans for the rest of my trip (through September 11) and, I'm almost at the end of bicycling -- I'll have two more days of riding as I backtrack down to Denver over the Labor Day Weekend.

The day after tomorrow, I'm headed out for 5 days of backpacking.  Along the bicycle portion of the trip, I would often look up into the mountains and say to myself "wouldn't it be cool if I could go back a little further into the backcountry than is possible on the bicycle."  This backpacking trip will let me experience a little bit of that!

Intense Climbs!

The last few days have involved the most intense uphills of the trip. From Cañon City to Colorado Springs was 65 miles virtually all uphill, then coming out of Denver I took 72 up Coal Creek Canyon which was really steep. This morning I rode Flagstaff Road, the most incredibly twisted road with tons of 180 switchbacks, down out of the mountains and into Boulder. Thank goodness I was going down, although I saw many bicyclists who were going up. One (or two, maybe) more rides up to Estes Park to go!

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Another Natural Wonder

Well, the Royal Gorge canyon is natural, and the bridge is pretty cool too! They have a zip line strung over the canyon.... it was amazing to watch the people "flying"across the canyon on it!





And then there is this crazy sunset happening right now--Colorado really is lovely!

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Signs, Signs, Everywhere Signs

Colorado mountains are a very welcome change from southern Wyoming sagebrush high plains.

Yesterday, I went to my highest altitude yet (9,683 feet).  Tomorrow is Hoosier Pass, the highest point I will bicycle to on this trip (and perhaps ever) at 11,542 feet.

Slogging Through Southern Wyoming

Oops--this was written two days ago but somehow did not get posted!

The past couple of days have not been particularly interesting as far as riding or scenery goes.  Today, in fact, was rather unpleasant--riding on a busy road with 65 MPH speed limit and a crumbling shoulder through sagebrush wasteland!

I did still meet some interesting people, however, Emily and Cailin, teachers who are on a bicycle tour raising money for a school (see more at http://openroadopenschool.weebly.com/), and Michael and Lee, who are riding their motorcycles to the Arctic Circle!!

Cailin, Andre, Emily, and Bullwinkle and friends!

Thermal Baths and Wind River Canyon

Yesterday I rode up through the spectacular Wind River Canyon after bathing in the Wyoming State Bath House in Thermopolis, WY.  There are mineral hot springs in Thermopolis and apparently according to a treaty with the Native Americans signed in the late 19th century, the state is required to offer free access to all people to bathe in the waters of the springs.  It was pleasant enough, but I'm not sure that soaking in 104-degree water for 20 minutes immediately before getting on a bicycle and riding in upper-80-degrees temperatures was something to be repeated!  But the scenery of the Wind River Canyon was so nice, it was easy to forget about the heat.

Too Much to Tell!

My journey back up and over the Bighorns was full of interesting people and places.  First, the big climb to 9,666 feet ... no problem I am happy to report.  I feel ready for the mountains of Colorado!

At the campground where I stayed two nights on the shore of a lovely mountain lake, Lake Meadowlark, I met Meg and John from Vermont, who let me borrow a couple of extra pads they had (since the tent sites were paved with coarse gravel!!) and were fun to talk to in the evenings.  I also met Lee and Carol from Minnesota--Lee had made a similar bicycle adventure several years ago and it was neat to hear his stories.  Unfortunately, I didn't get pictures of any of these people.  I also did not get a picture of the moose that I practically bumped into on my way to the toilet one evening--it was really quite scary but, since I did not get attacked, kind of cool in retrospect.

But I did get a picture of Michael, who is a true maniac of a bicycle adventurer!  I met him at the convenience store at the bottom of the mountain today at around 11am.  He had just come up and over the mountain, making his descent on some dirt road that wasn't even on my map, and he was going to bicycle back up the mountain and back down the other side before the day was done....  WOW!!  He said he was a "collector of mountain passes and peaks" on his bicycle and has a website at cyclepass.com.

Here are some scenery pictures from the past couple of days.

Finally, I made another video on the descent this morning--not quite as awesome as the first one, but still a pretty amazing experience!  I'll post a link to that after I have a chance to upload it.

Back Up Into the Mountains Today

I'll be up in the mountains again for a couple of days now ... another 5,000-foot climb today!

Enjoy this video of the downhill from the last time I went up and over the mountains: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPonLR6g6jI

It's long!--you probably only want to watch a few seconds of it to get the idea!

Getting high....

... and I'm not even in Colorado yet! 9033 feet high to be exact, after a 5,000+ climb yesterday. The ascent was really not at all unpleasant ... that's making me feel good about the many big climbs ahead of me. And the descent today was incredible! ... I made a video of that which I will post when I get some Wi-Fi.

Warmshowers host Blaise (in picture below) was a lifesaver in Cody while my bicycle was being repaired. Rick and Brian at the shop were awesome too, and Birdie (that's the bicycle's name) has never ridden any better than she does now! Thanks to all of them!

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Back in the Saddle!

I'm back on the road, but not without complications....  a flat tire and check out this picture (hint: the pedals are supposed to be *opposite* each other!):

I'm pretty sure the bicycle shop where I left my bike while with my brother did a very sloppy job in various ways, and now I am suffering the consequences.  We'll see if they make it right (i.e. at this point all they can do is give me a refund since I'm 130 miles down the road) before I start naming names and posting blistering reviews.  At least I made it to Cody safely and will be able to take it into a shop here tomorrow to get it fixed and checked out.

On the upside, I had a lovely visit with Paul Tackes (my canoeing friend that I met in MN) at his cabin in Red Lodge, MT last night.

View from the cabin ... Wow!



Getting ready to get on the bike this morning

 The scenery has definitely taken a turn for the better, but I can certainly feel the altitude (over 5,000 feet part of the day yesterday and pretty much all day today) as I breathe the thin, dry air.

More Grand Teton Fun

Yesterday was the perfect day for canoeing and hiking to Inspiration Point and Hidden Falls. https://goo.gl/photos/GPYLNjZY2XQEkqNK9

Today it's drizzling in Bozeman.

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Intensive Sightseeing (by car) at Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks

I thought taking a break from pedaling and doing some sightseeing by car with my brother would be restful, but it has been an intense couple of days!  We have done quite a bit of walking on little day hikes, and my legs are killing me--it's definitely a different set of muscles from riding the bicycle!

There were way too many pictures to share here in the usual way, so I created three picture "stories" to summarize all that we've been able to see in the past two days.

Click here to view a story about the geysers, hot springs, mud pots and other thermal features we saw at Yellowstone.

Click here to view a story about the many bison (and one elk) that we saw.

Click here to view a story about the waterfalls, mountain views and and canyons we visited,.

All roads lead to ... Pompey's Pillar National Monument?

What an amazing coincidence happened today!  I was at the Pompey's Pillar National Monument, where William Clark carved in the rock his name and the date when he passed by there on the Lewis & Clark expedition.  This is one of the only bits of extant physical evidence of the Lewis & Clark expedition.

In the visitor's center, while I was chatting with someone I had just met in the parking lot there who happens to own the Harbor View Cafe in Pepin, Wisconsin (which I passed by on this trip but had not stopped to eat at the restaurant), who should walk up and grab me by the shoulder but Paul the canoeist from the campsite in Minnesota that was so overrun with mosquitoes that he and his friends invited me to tag along to eat at the Olive Garden rather than being stuck trying to eat at the campsite with the mosquitoes (as described in this blog post from June 24).

Almost one month and about 1,000 miles of pedaling later, we randomly chanced to meet again!  Here's a picture of me with Paul and his family in the Pompey's Pillar visitors' center:

Pompey's Pillar itself was also pretty neat.  There were great views from the top!

 View of Pompey's Pillar as you approach it

 View from the top of Pompey's Pillar

Another view from the top of Pompey's Pillar

I've been following the Lewis & Clark Trail for a while now, and, while I've never been particularly interested in that expedition before, the exhibition at the visitors' center at Pompey's Pillar may have tipped the scales and sparked my interest to make me want to learn more than just the tidbits from a visitors' center exhibit.  I downloaded a copy of The Journals of Lewis and Clark and will give it a try.  It certainly fits the "travel" theme of my reading list, and I've just finished a couple of the books I was reading so am ready for a new one anyway.

Tomorrow I meet my brother in Billings and will take a week off from bicycling while we tour Yellowstone etc. by car.  I suppose I'll keep up with the blog, though.

The Yellowstone River

After a relatively short ride today mainly on ridges overlooking the Yellowstone River valley, my campsite is right near the river.

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