Day of Coyotes

Yesterday finally contrived to be the perfect day to take the motorcycle out for a ride. Tired from the hike from the day before, we were debating on what would be the perfect trail, Bunsen Peak (short, but steep), Grizzly Lake (flat, but longer and involving either some hitchhiking or bike riding). Our early start was snafued by Alex providing prolonged assistance to A, who was moving out and heading back to New Mexico. What was supposed to be a short drive into Gardiner turned into delays while waiting for A. to get his room checked (who himself had to wait), finalize departure paperwork, cash his check, and say good-bye to co-workers. Finally, it was lunch time and the sun had come out and the day had warmed up (the weather after our return from SD had turned too cool for us to venture out riding).

We hit the road, destined to traverse the upper loop. (When looking at a map of the Yellowstone roads, you'll note that they make a good impression of a figure eight, the upper loop being the upper half of the eight, the lower loop being the lower half.) While the entire drive is roughly 60 miles, we knew it could take the rest of the afternoon to make the loop. Speed limits in the park are limited to 45 mph and are often 35, and there are frequently "animal jams" and almost always slow moving tourists.

As we bundled up, I was reminded that Alex has the habit of taking up expensive and uncomfortable hobbies. As I was standing in the sun waiting for Alex to start the bike, my costume of jeans with lycra pants underneath, 2 shirts, scarf, leather jacket and gloves, and full-face helmet, starting to toast in the warm day, reminded me of the various times we've stood on sea shores in our heavy black wet suits, starting to broil, waiting to don our weights and tanks to go scuba diving.

Our drive started south, to Norris. On the way, we checked out the 2 ends of the Grizzly Lake trail head, preparing to bring our truck and bicycles south to tackle the loop, then pedal back to our truck along the road. While we had a successful hitchhiking adventure on Tuesday, we are both reluctant to finish a trail and have to rely on hitchhiking to get back to our truck 3 miles away. (Or maybe the 2 of us are too adept at self-reliance to want to be dependent upon the kindness of strangers.)

After turning left at Norris, we took the Virginia Cascade bypass, enjoying the stream and cascade, Alex slowing down so as to not drown out the families fishing the stream with the trademark rumble of his Harley. (Here's a Harley question - Many Harley owners upgrade their tailpipes in order to get the distinctive low rumble traditional to Harleys. We are then obliged to wear earplugs in order to not damage our ears while riding due to the noise. The point of the louder tailpipes therefore is?)

At Canyon, we stopped at the Canyon Visitor Center, taking in the display about the Yellowstone caldera. For those of you who aren't aware yet, much of Yellowstone is the caldera of a giant volcano. Should Yellowstone erupt again, it would devastate the earth, covering most of North America in ash and plunging the world into another ice age. 2012 anyone? The visitor center also touched on earthquakes, of which Yellowstone is second only to California in quantity. There's a really cool map display that lights up various parts of the park as a voice recording and written text are talking about them. We also learned about monitoring of the changing elevations of the caldera (for all you surveyors out there, imagine setting a benchmark, then discovering it has changed up to 3 feet in elevation due to the caldera pushing up the earth's crust). We also discovered that the upward pressure of the caldera caused an increased elevation, making the Yellowstone area more susceptible to past glaciers. We were tempted once again by the Yellowstone Association bookstore (Alex really wants to read the book "Death in Yellowstone: Accidents and Foolhardiness in the Nation's First Park"), but decided to postpone any purchases as we are in the midst of reading Dan Brown's latest book and I have yet to finish "Sometimes a Great Notion." We debated waiting for the Canyon EDR to open, but decided to eat our apples and push on without having dinner at Canyon.

The road between Canyon and Tower-Roosevelt passes over the highest pass in the park, Dunraven Pass. I think we have only driven from north to south in the past because I don't remember any of the amazing views that we enjoyed throughout this stretch of road. Perhaps I was tired and grumpy from being hungry and stuck in the truck all day, so maybe I missed the views. Spots of the pass give the "top of the world" feeling as we were looking over the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone all the way to the Beartooth Mountain range. In the future, we can garner an even more expansive view by hiking up to the top of Mt. Washburn. Perhaps we'll save this hike for a little later in the season as both trails to the top were swarmed with tourists hiking up and down the mountain when we passed by. While enjoying the grandious views, Alex and I don't forget to look for the minutia - the reds, purples, oranges, whites in the fields of wildflowers that we drifted by all the way down the mountain.

We finally arrived at the Roosevelt Lodge for dinner, by-passing the extremely crowded hiking trail to Tower Falls (this also looks like a hike we will want to do in September). We splurged on bison steak and elk burger for dinner, taking advantage of our 20% employee discount to enjoy a unique and fabulous meal.

Not having brought our binoculars and the discomfort of standing for long periods in our motorcycle gear, we bypassed the chance to stop in a couple of "bear jams", satisfied with our glimpses of them and having already had much better bear watching opportunities during our stay here. On our way back to Mammoth, we did get the chance to spot four coyotes along the side of the road. Traffic, along with us, stopped at all but the first (which only I saw), giving us the chance to watch the healthy dogs watch us, then wander off up the hill and out of sight. Wily coyote, trickster coyote, coyote, the harbinger of what??