Passes & Canyons Blog

We’re not even in the park yet but it’s gorgeous just the same.

Not to take anything away from Yellowstone National Park–it’s an incredible place, no question–but we’ve been there before, as in more than 4 or 5 times. I myself have probably been to Yellowstone at least 15 times over the years. So as we headed out of Cody toward the park the main thought in our minds was, just how terrible was the traffic going to be?

Dennis had aptly noticed that riders coming into town from the west were warmly dressed, so we followed suit. Good plan; the morning was definitely cool.

One thing you need to understand is that the beautiful scenery you come to a park for does not begin at the entrance to the park. You’ll ride 20 miles west out of Cody before you actually enter the park but it is a stunningly beautiful ride. And on this morning, fresh and cool, with–as it turned out–very little traffic, it was heaven.

We got into the park, still expecting but not finding heavy traffic, and enjoyed the relaxed ride. The road runs up and over a line of hills and yes, we did get behind some campers at times, but they usually pulled over and let us pass so it was a good run. Then, approaching Yellowstone Lake, we hit a construction zone. Good-bye pavement.

Because I was on my V-Strom I actually welcomed the unpaved road, but Dennis hates it on his Indian and Bill does not love it on his Harley. No matter; you just have to do it. It’s not like we had any choices. And it wasn’t bad. Dennis and Bill said later they had no problems.

We hit pavement again at Fishing Bridge, where we turned north to run up to Canyon Village. Now we had traffic. This is a stretch where bison are common and yes, we did find ourselves behind a camper that stopped dead in the middle of the road to look at a bison. Really? You can’t pull off to the side at least? This is Yellowstone.

While I blasted on around this guy, Bill and Dennis did not, so I rode for miles with an unobstructed view at my own pace. And yes, there were a heck of a lot more bison further along. With most of the tourists pulled off to look at them, the road for me was largely unobstructed.

At Canyon Village we turned west, heading over to Norris Geyser and U.S. 89, which goes north and on out of the park. Traffic continued to move pretty well so we were making good time while enjoying an easy ride. There were more bison along here, including one big fellow who was lounging pretty much right on top of the white line at the edge of the pavement. So yeah, we steered a pretty safe distance away from him.

Then guess what? More construction zone and unpaved road. Here we go again, only this time it’s a little slick because the tanker truck we saw filling up from the stream apparently just wet the road down to control dust. But that makes things a bit trickier on street tires. Again, though, no issues. The bikes did get dirty.

Reaching Mammoth Hot Springs we passed through the village and found ourselves descending a steep incline down into the canyon of the Yellowstone River. This was when we realized that none of us had probably ever gone this way before. We had been at Mammoth Hot Springs before, but then had turned east to go out the northeast gate and on to the Beartooth Highway. Not this time.

And it was a beautiful ride. Again, the scenery doesn’t stop at the park boundary.

After lunch at Gardiner we continued north just a short distance to where we turned off for Chico and the old Chico Hot Springs resort. This is not a place you’re just going to see riding along, and it was probably a good thing Dennis had his GPS fired up to guide us to the off-the-main-road establishment.

Although we stayed in the old lodge, which features restrooms down the hall as so many old places did, there are more modern facilities where I assume the restrooms are in the rooms. But it’s a grand old place with hot springs pools, restaurants, horseback riding, hiking, and more. We opted to play Frisbee golf which, through the sage brush and going up and down hills, was some good exercise, especially after spending the last three days on the bikes. And then the hot pools were just what sore muscles needed.

Biker Quote for Today

Why bikes are better than women: Motorcycles always feel like going for a ride.

Bison on the road in Yellowstone, as a motorcyclist looks on. — Photo by Gary France

One of the sweetest joys of riding a motorcycle is being out there in the world you’re passing through. That’s as opposed to being enclosed in a steel cage, peering out through a windshield that limits your view, shut off from the smells and other sensory inputs of the world around you.

And then you throw buffalo into the mix.

I was in Yellowstone National Park awhile back, and if there is one thing you can count on for sure in Yellowstone it is getting held up along the road by people stopping to photograph wildlife. Some pull over, while others stop in the middle of the road. Sometimes the animals themselves stop the traffic because they are roaming free and have decided to roam right there on the road.

So why does a buffalo cross the road? To get to the other side? Perhaps. And if you’re in a car and they’re crossing right in front of you, you’ve got some separation from that 1,500-pound critter with those pointy horns. It’s a little dicier when you’re on a bike.

There I was, in a mass of traffic intermingled with numerous “Bison bison” (the official Latin name for the beast). It wasn’t a threatening situation but I would have had to have been asleep not to be conscious of my vulnerability. Suppose one of those bulls suddenly feels threatened, or a protective cow gets worried about her young’un. Let’s just say I was very alert. And I made sure not to make direct eye contact with any of the big ones because I’ve heard that they consider that a challenge.

That may not have been the case with another motorcycle tourer I’m familiar with. Gary France is a Brit who some years ago took an American odyssey on a rented Harley-Davidson. Gary, who had been in Sturgis at the same time I was, also headed on to Yellowstone about the same time I did. He also found himself stopped on the road by buffalo, and he describes what happened next:

“The big bull gets most of the way across the road . . . and then turns back right in front of us! He seemed a bit upset and was snorting . . . he was about 10 feet away from me, when I looked sideways and saw the other two bikers getting off their bikes preparing to retreat . . . I kept taking pictures as I wondered what to do . . . I too then retreated. A park ranger in a car came driving up and put his car between the bull and us. He with the aid of his megaphone (told) the three of us to move even further back and get into a car. Any car.”

It all ended well, but you get the picture. I can’t help but wonder what it must have been like to visit Yellowstone on a motorcycle years ago, back in the days when bears used to hang out along the roads hoping that tourists would feed them. You almost never see bears in Yellowstone now, because management policies have been changed to discourage them from coming around, but I’d feel a lot more insecure meeting a bear on the road than a buffalo.

It kind of puts a different spin on the term, “a walk in the park,” doesn’t it?

Biker Quote for Today

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.