Montana Mountains

June 21, 2013

Near Helena, Montana

Distance traveled: 2609 miles

I've said my sad goodbyes to Yellowstone, as well as the state of Wyoming for that matter.  While the state was beautiful in itself Yellowstone was a whole different being.  No closer have I felt the relationship between life and death then in the deep wilds of Yellowstone National Park (the first park which I think I might be required to add by Wyoming state law).  From the bike every turn gave me an almost totally new view to take in.  However, enchanting as each new site was, almost unseen at times and boldly obvious at others were signs that the line bordering life and death in this part of the states was rather thin.  From the dead forests lacking any foliage, the hair pin turns high up on the mountain, to the predators always looking for their next kill and the bubbling pits giving of their noxious gases without a doubt living in Yellowstone wasn't always a picnic.  Its beautiful, enchanting, as well as nerve twitching watch your back all at the same time.  On top of all those hazards you have the weather.  With Rangers happily showing snow covered pictures to tourist from May(!) The life in Yellowstone obviously isn't an easy one, but the insanely abundant wildlife seem to make it work.  You can easily see bison crossing the road at over 500 pounds, and I even got the unique experience of being held up by a bison crossing leaving the park for over 2 hours. 

Without a doubt though, the number one danger in the park hands down had to be the minivans full of screaming children.  Yes you're out in the middle of what feels like the most wilderness of wilds, but at the same time their is so many other travelers out there, some respectful of the natural beauty of the place, others not so much.  In watching Old Faithful erupt I must have been joined by over 200 other tourists busily ooing and ahhing at the magnificent sight.  But while Old Faithful was epic, others were better.  Mammoth basin was huge and incredible to take in, even offering a winding one lane loop to drive through, proving truly epic on a bike pushing the speed limit ever so slightly. 

Just to get an idea of how big the park is to let me say I visited mammoth basin, Norris basin including a brief tour of the ranger museum, Old Faithful and a variety of other small stops along the way.  This took an entire 8 hours of mostly riding to see all these sights, and even them I only saw half the parks roadways.  Riding home at 7:30 hunger creeping up on me I decided I needed to make one more stop to have hot steam blown in my face, and that's exactly what I got.  Probably the coolest stop was at Midway basin.  With its massive streaming pools and the mile stretch of walkways it was by far the nicest area to check out with plenty of informational signs along the trail explaining exactly what the breech you were looking at.  Unfortunately for you the reader though at this stop I left my camera (my cell phone actually) charging on the bike so I missed out on any pics of this area.  Sorry!

I'm now currently deep in the state of Montana, and if I'm not mistake this is by far the most beautiful state I've visited so far.  Every road I've found so far had been hugged by snow capped mountains, but the towns I do hit are nice little towns as well.  None of the old wild West burned out towns here so far that I got used to in the previous states.  And I hope not to offend anyone here, but I could only imagine being a settler and making the stop out of impatience to set up my farm somewhere in the burned out area of South Dakota.  After seeing this place though I'm sure I'd be rather disappointed and congratulate anyone who managed to make it this far, though their scenery and wildlife here surly made up for the longer trip.  Wonder if I would have made i this far?