Mellow Yellow

Mellow Yellow – Yellowstone Nat’l Park, Wyoming, 5/20 & 21/09

From our hotel in Butte we headed East on I-90 toward Bozeman, a great looking mid- size town in a verdant valley surrounded by snow capped mountains and home to Montana State University. After cruising Main Street, looking around a bit and stopping at a grocery store we left the interstate and drove south on 191 along the Gallatin River toward Big Sky and the town of West Yellowstone - our next stop. Looking at a flat map of Montana you just see roads, but where there are roads there are valleys and where there are valleys - in the spring - there are hell rip roaring white water rivers. The spring snow melt was at near peak and for sixty miles or more we followed the Gallatin River and watched tons of rafters and kayakers braving the near flood stage rapids. We looked at each other and both said – we gotta do that!

West Yellowstone is a funky little spot just outside of the park’s west entrance with lots of touristy attractions, shops, restaurants and lots and lots of hotel rooms and RV Parks. We made our typical pass through town looking for the key ingredients - a place to sleep, mtn. biking trails and beer – not necessarily in that order. First we spotted the Gallatin Nat’l Forest cross country ski & mtn. bike trail facility and then the Wolf Pack Brew Pub both only about two blocks away from the nice and new looking Grizzly RV Camp Ground – Perfect! Given the near freezing night time temps and the name of the camp ground we decided not to tent camp and rented one of their small log cabins for $40. We unpacked and headed to the Wolf Pack - surely they would have the Cavs game on. The owner was friendly and the wheat brew was good but she had the place up for sale to help pay for a mid life career change as she prepared to enter Law School. Patti tried to talk her out of it for the next two hours with one eye on the game.

Wednesday morning after studying cloud formations from my porch swing we hopped into the truck ventured into the Park and made our way towards our destination for the day - Old Faithful. Driving through the park and past the still frozen Yellowstone Lake we noticed that the mountains are not as spectacular here as in many of the other areas that we have recently passed through and unfortunately the 1988 fire that burned over half of the park’s forest is still quite evident. What is spectacular is the geothermal geysers – and aside from that, the picturesque rivers, river valleys and waterfalls will be the most memorable aspect of the landscape. Especially when you see these areas sprinkled with all of the wildlife like lots of buffalo, deer and elk. We also saw a grey wolf on the hunt and a sleeping grizzly that caused a small bear jam of camera wilding tourists jumping out of their haphazardly parked cars still halfway in the road. Guilty.

Thursday we suited up and peddled over to the start of the Gallatin Forest Mtn. Bike area. This large fenced network of trails is designated for non motorized recreation and is cut out of thick hilly woods with cross country skiers in mind – so not too steep or narrow and lots of good signage. We still got lost. There wasn’t a soul there probably because it was definitely still the shoulder season with the trail barely firm enough to ride and snow drifts in many areas the higher we climbed. Good thing Patti loves mud.

Our trip plan was to continue East through the Park the next day on our way to Devils Tower in NE Wyoming for a day of rock climbing and then on to Mt. Rushmore. That night I spoke to my friend Bryan who is currently in NYC but has a log home about an hour south of Yellowstone in Alta on the boarder of Idaho and Wyoming – Wydaho we call it. He insisted that we make the detour to his place and hide out there for a week or 3. We had briefly considered going down that way for a day or so and then decided against it because he and Julie wouldn’t be there. However, with Bryan’s detailed description reminding us of life in a log cabin at the foot of the Tetons in the spring with Fly fishing, Mtn biking, hot tubing, smores etc., etc. we couldn’t pass it up. What the hell Wydaho, screw our travel schedule, here we come.