The Trail's End Dubois

... are passing us, their tires as big as the Armada. Finally a pilot truck comes and they tell us to follow him down the road. As we drive through the construction site we can see they are drilling to blast the mountain and carve out more road. The asphalt ends and we kick it into 4-wheel drive. It's bumpy and rocky, dirt in the air. I can't imagine how the motorcyclists and bicyclists do this! Yes, we saw ...

was soll ich schon grossartiges über den so bekannten yellowstone nationalpark erzählen? denke jeder besucher kommt dort auf seine kosten, sei es beim tiere, geysire oder touristen beobachten, welche beim 'old faithfull geysir' auf den rund stündlichen ausbruch warten. ich hab mich für letzteres begeistert und mich ein stück hinter der frontlinie über die ellbogen-spiele, das nervöse herumschauen und sonnencreme nachtragen vieler schaulustiger begeistert. allerdings ...

So I was only just out of the park when the rains hit - moderately heavy but not to bad. It produced an amazing rainbow (2, actually) for over an hour, arching over the incredible scenery of Grand Teton Park. The ride continued that way for the next hour, and then nature got nasty. The sky went pitch black and a bolt of lightening struck the top ...

So, who has been keeping the secret of how beautiful northern Wyoming is? I've only been along I80 in Wyoming and we all know that there is NOTHING to see there! But, head north and it's a different story! I can't get over all we saw aside from Yellowstone and the Tetons. Just south of Yellowstone is the Grand Tetons, so south we went! The Tetons are a beautiful mountain range that jut right up from the ...

Start of the trip. End of the summer at TVRC. Time to hit the road! Can't contain shouts of joy; a sunny 3 hour ride to Sarge's ranch on the other side of Lander. A good lamb roast and some time with good friends. Great smores.

Left Sturgis and Sheldon at about 9:30a.m.. He remembered to wish me Happy Birthday. Left on my own, aiming in the direction of Jackson Hole. Beautiful, hot day. At about 2p.m. realized I was getting very burnt. Temp today 96F. Great roads. Lots of bikes. Travelled to Buffalo, Worland.... In Thermopolis ran into winds that were making my bike dip and weave like the birds. A bit of rain that felt like needles. Solution....speed up and race and rain ...

... and watched the sunset from the shore of Jenny Lake. Unfortunately, mom and dad had to take off Tuesday morning, so it was a short but sweet visit with them. Not ready to leave the beautiful Tetons, Matt and I headed out on a two night backpack up Cascade Canyon. We got a killer campspot with the back side of the Grand Teton peak dominating our view. This was our base camp for a dayhike up to Hurricane Pass the next day. The pass certainly lived up to its name with strong gusts of wind ...

... we didn't want to go into the long grass.. lots of snakes. We tried lots of different traditional American food, the portions were even too big for Stewart. We stayed for three nights and had a fantastic time, thank you so much Brian and Joan.

Ashamed of my California license plates, Jeff and I will arrive in the place formally known as the best place in the whole wide world (my previous dubbing of Lander although Wyoming maintains this lofty title) this afternoon. I'm only ceding Lander's placement in the event that I'm not able to return there...but Wyoming is an uncontested display ...

... to it it started to attack her, if not for an alert ranger who extricated her from the confrontation she could have been hurt pretty bad. he then gave her a ticket for disobeying the rules, one well deserved (however I must confess that I do feed the chipmunks even though I was warned that I could get all kinds of diseases-I guess I am still at risk because I have some in my backyard that will come up to me and run ...