Riding a mountain bike on the roads of Yellowstone National Park is a pleasure and privilege. And every autumn, I watch the calendar and weather forecast and hope that I win the YNP bike lottery. It all came together this year, on November 1st, and I was able to honor a twenty year ranger ritual by pulling off a long ride in Yellowstone National Park. I’m feeling awfully grateful for Tuesday’s ride, as I sit in the office with temperatures in the 20’s, looking out at a blanket of snow.
Each autumn, the park’s interior roads close following the first Sunday in November. For former fly fishing guides and anglers, we always dreaded when the roads closure as we could no longer fish the haunted waters of Yellowstone, but I always looked forward to the closing of the roads, knowing that if the weather cooperated, it’d make for some stellar riding conditions. After a summer of battling clueless drivers, for those willing to bare the elements, we get the roads nearly to ourselves.
This year, following the historic floods that crippled the road from Gardiner to Mammoth, the new road built upon the Old Gardiner Road (otherwise known as the OGR, a historic road dating back to the 1880’s when stagecoaches transported visitors through the park) didn’t open to the general public until Sunday, and with this relatively quiet reopening, the NPS closed the interior roads to all but admin travel Monday evening.
While I often start this ride from the Upper Terrace Drive, I opted to for a twist this year. Starting and ending from the Albright Visitor Center, where my Yellowstone ranger journey began twenty-one years ago—it’s hard to believe that I celebrated my 21st year of working in Yellowstone this summer—I journeyed south, into a strong headwind. My goal was simple: make it to Madison Junction and Firehole Canyon Drive—where I’d turn around and begin the trek back to Mammoth Hot Springs.
It was a banner, bluebird day in our beloved Yellowstone. The forecast was for 30-40 mph winds, with 60 mph gusts, and while it was windy, it wasn’t gale force and remained manageable throughout the day. After passing through the hoodoos of Snow Pass and Terrace Mountain I encountered a small band of three bull bison on the main road, working their way up to the grasslands and prime-habitat that is Swan Lake Flats.
Only in Yellowstone. A bison escort through the shoot.
Having spent so much time up on Swan Lake Flats as the Bear Education Ranger in YNP, it’s always a special reunion being there, with memories of bear jams and 264–one of the great Yellowstone bears of all-time, 399 before 399. After twenty-one miles I hit Norris Geyser Basin and continued on along the road between Norris and Madison Junction. This is one of my favorite stretches of roads in the park as it’s a trip down memory lane. I’ve been fishing these waters of the Gibbon River with my dad for over two decades and I dedicate an essay in my book, Grizzlies on My Mind two our end of season ritual, closing out the seasons on the waters of our two favorite GYE rivers that start with a G.
The wind really started to pick up and rip as I passed Gibbon Falls and worked my way downhill towards Madison Junction. Once to the Junction, I hit 35 miles, but I had the vision of riding the two-mile Firehole Canyon Road and so I continued on for another mile. Riding along the Firehole River in Firehole Canyon, with National Park Mountain in the background felt like a deep trip through Yellowstone history. With 26 tribes associated with Yellowstone National Park, I couldn’t help but think about the sacredness that this thermal region represents. And as a bit of a Yellowstone history buff, I remembered stories from Aubrey Haines’ two part volume, The Yellowstone Story, remembering the 1871 Hayden Expedition camped along this shores.
Once I made it to the outlet of Firehole Canyon Drive and back to the main road, I took a break, three hours and 37 miles in, before starting my return trip. Though the wind shifted at times and blasted me in the face, for the most part, it kept ripping, now from a southeasterly direction, giving me wings on my return flight.
Once I made it back to Norris, I knew I had 21 miles left to Mammoth Hot Springs. I’d been pushing pretty hard all day, racing the wind, not wanting to get stuck in 40-50 mph winds with 60 mile gusts, and I was feeling the effect of the effort, so I really turned it down for the home stretch, stopping to take pictures and to enjoy a gel here and there. It was a Honey Stinger day of waffles and energy bites.
Ripping off Swan Lake Flats and through Golden Gate I almost lost my front wheel on a fast and loose descent as a big gust of wind punched me in the ribs, but I was able to course correct and keep the biking heading Cutthroat heading downhill. Once I got back to the gate at the Upper Terraces, I decided to take the Upper Terrace Drive, just to log a few more miles and a little more climbing after a fast descent off Swan Lake Flats. I used to cross-country ski this route multiple times a week in the winter when living and coaching in Gardiner during the winter months. And from there, I journeyed to the YCC to see my old Transit/trailer, which no longer exists, but instead sits a newly built modular home with a deck overlooking Mount Everts. For one more trip down memory lane, I rode the dirt road up to Joffe Lake and then called it a day, shooting down hill to the Albright Visitor Center.
A secret stash.
It doesn’t work out every year (as it’s often already full-on winter by the first week of November), but when it does, pedaling that smooth pavement, with very few rigs on the roadway, makes for a spiritual, glory day on two wheels.
Although I time-trialed the hill from Gardiner to Mammoth for over a decade, Yellowstone isn’t a bike friendly park. But twice a year (during the shoulder seasons of spring and fall), when the weather works out, exploring Yellowstone’s interior roads is like taking a step back in time and a trip down memory lane. I’ve logged a lot of miles and bagged a lot of peaks hiking in the park, but I’ll always be of the belief that there’s no better modality from which to explore our wild world, than by bike, especially if it’s got knobby tires.
This will likely be my last big ride of 2022. After a flukish chest/thoracic spine injury and bout with Covid in August, it’s been a process requiring patience and hopeful optimism, and though my summer didn’t pan out as I planned following the big Crusher in the Tushar effort, I’m awfully grateful that I bounced back enough to put in a big block of nearly 30 hours the first 22 days of October, with a long ride on some remote dirt to close out the month, believing that would be it for the season, and then the gift of the weather gods and calendar gave me this day. What a ride it was.
With nothin’ but love, mwl
Nearing the end of my down and back. Swan Lake Flats, YNP.
