Day 24, Jenny Lake – 3 miles south of Dubois

16th August, 126 Km, 80 miles. Top speed 65.9km/hr.

Wyoming, you are stunning. Our disappintment about Yellowstone has been forgotten. Wyoming is stunning. I’ve been to most of Wyoming’s neighbouring states, and have previously got the feeling that Wyoming is a fairly overlooked state. It shouldn’t be. Today’s riding was beautiful.

We needed to set off early this morning, as we had a big climb after 20 miles. Previously we’ve aimed to camp right at the bottom of climbs, to maximise our time in the coolness of early mornings, but it didn’t happen with this one, as we wanted to stay over at Jenny Lake. I set my alarm for 5, but when it rudely awoke us, Hugh declared it was too dark to get up anyway. I have no idea what we were doing all morning, but we took ages to get ready. We got up at 5.30, and rolled out at 7.18. Ridiculous. We ate a big breakfast of peanut butter bagels and instant noodles. The noodles work well.

We passed a couple of breakfast restaurant options at the bottom of the pass, but Hugh (who, opposite to me, doesn’t like cycling on a full stomach), was dreading cycling uphill after a monster eating session. There was one about 8 miles up the road, which looked doable. 2 miles from it I was hit with sudden hunger. I thought restaurant was really close, so didn’t want to scoff rubbish calories in a pie only to then turn a corner to see breakfast. Within 5 minutes though, I was really hungry, and starting to feel lightheaded. I pulled over for half a pie. I was glad I did. 2 miles uphill still takes a while.

Early morning deer. I hoped it was a moose, but nope.

It was midday when we reached the restaurant, so we actually had lunch. Powered by an elk burger, I sped off, leaving Hugh questioning ‘where did you get those legs from?’ I had felt sluggish all morning, always behind Hugh, until the elk hit the spot. There are quite a lot of things that are total opposites with Hugh and I cycling, and me preferring a full stomach and Hugh not liking a full stomach is one of them. It would be easier if we were the same, but hey ho.

Wyoming drivers are quite reserved, and I missed the cheering, clapping, and hooting that had accompanied us on other tough climbs. Only in the last few minutes did I notice people giving me the thumbs up from their driver’s seats. There was a layby ahead of me, with a sign in it that I couldn’t read. As I got closer, I could see that the lengths of the words meant it could say ‘continental divide, elev. xxxx’. Please, please, please let it be the top. I was convinced that I could start to read the words, but wondered if I was superimposing them in my mind. It was the top. As I reached the layby, the driver of a passing truck peered down on me, open mouthed. I parked my bike, and turned around to see a sign for the drivers going down what we had come up – 6% for 17 miles. It is the second highest pass of the whole trip, so we’re really glad it’s out the way.

The pass was actually totally fine. Like the passes had become to us before we left, it was just a pass. We were both nervous of this one though, because we were now high enough for altitude to get tough, and because we feared we had lost our climbing legs. I had a headache for the first couple of days after returning, and nose bleeds, both which could have been beacause of the altitude. But we have both acclimatisted whilst here, and whereas on much lower passes previously I had struggled to breathe and drink, I drank to my sweating body’s content today.

I think today was probably the best hard shoulders we’ve had all trip. Almost all day, from when we returned to the main route after backtracking from our Jenny Lake spur, we had a huge, car width shoulder, which was really good quality, nice and smooth. The second half of the day it was peppered with little stones, remnants from when they surfaced the road last, which wasn’t perfect, but was far better than a rough surface on a narrow shoulder. The shoulder was paricularly appreciated because of the long climb, and the fast decent. The drivers were also probably the most polite we’ve had all trip, nearly all of them pulling very wide, despite our massive shoulder. Luuriating in the middle of the shoulder, I sped down the pass, reaching 65.9km/hr. I give myself more room on fast decents, so often cycle on, or on the road-side of the white line – this is not really an issue, because we go so fast that few cars overtake us (not because we are breaking the speed limit – we don’t – but because there often aren’t a huge number of cars on our roads, so not many catch up with us). But with my super wide shoulder, I could hang out in the middle, with plenty of spare room for any unexpected high-speed manouvers.

As the road flattened out, a brilliant tail wind got stronger. We were flying, and the scenery was stunning. Towards Dubois, we were treated to Western style red mountains on one side of the road, and rolling green hills on the other. Even going up little gradients, I span my legs fast in my highest gear.

At Dubois, I peered into a KOA campground whilst Hugh went to locate beers. The supermarket didn’t sell alcohol. We are yet to stay in one, but I think KOA are a massive chain of private campgrounds. I wasn’t impressed with their $28 price tag for a tent spot. We asked a couple at the Bighorn Sheep Interpretive Centre (not kidding) if we could camp in the park, but they said it wasn’t allowed. We didn’t realise before, but Dubois is really tourisy, and hence expensive. People really are cashing in though, and we’ve spent a lot since West Yellowstone. Sisters, in Orgeon, is also a touristy town, and the private campsite there charged is a tenner. Anyway, the Sheep Centre couple told us about a campground 3 miles out, which was also on my map. Assuming they’d be cheaper, we set off. It’s even more, at $31 for a tent spot. Now really, that is ridiculous. The tent sites don’t even have power and water nearby, although there is WiFi. However, compared to the thirty dollars that we splurged on lunch today, I think lunch (which involvked an extraordinary number of Dr Pepepr refills) was far better value. The shower at this campsite was nice, but that’s not worth thirty bucks. I don’t think any shower would be.

Nearly at the top…