Day 17 - Queen of the Mountain
Day 17 - Ennis, MT to West Yellowstone, MT - 73 miles - 3,271 ft of elevation gain
It rarely happens, so when it does you make it a headline! If you’re not familiar with the ways of cycling or tracking your ride, then this little title will mean nothing to you. Strava is an app that several of us use to track our rides and keep mileage totals (among other things), it’s like Facebook in that you can like each other’s activity. Some riding routes have segments, which are sections of a course where you can compete with others for virtual awards. Some of the guys are all about getting segment goals, the top of which is KOM (King of the Mountain) or QOM (Queen of the Mountain). Today I got a QOM on an 8 mile segment. It’s quite possible that this QOM occurred about the time I was drafting off of Al to catch up to the rest of the team, but really there is no need to belabor the details, let’s just relish in the temporal glory of a QOM. It’s really ironic too, because today my legs and lungs were not feeling 100%.
This morning we left Ennis and headed south towards our goal of West Yellowstone. Our route took us through the little town of Ennis. Then for the rest of the day we were surrounded by mountains, which continues to be a favorite view for me. I also know what those looming mountains mean for my future, a big climb is coming. But what does that verse say about “looking to the hills for strength?” I’m going to need some divine intervention, I think. This is still a few days away, so I’m not going to dwell on Beartooth Pass.
I did not take a lot of pictures today. There were a few reasons for this, but mostly it was because of the roads and traffic. Have I mentioned that campers/RVs are ubiquitous? And some of them are not very courteous to cyclist. We saw one camper with their stairs down while they were driving. If he hadn’t gotten over, at least the rear of our cycling group would have been taken out. People, people, please lets put up the steps!
Roads… today I’m going to vote as the worst roads of the nearly 1,000 miles we’ve traveled. Whose idea was it for the double rumble strips on the roads? I can guarantee this person was not a cyclist or certainly didn’t think to extend the shoulder far enough beyond the second rumble strip for a cyclist to have room. Combine bad roads with fast drivers that aren’t good with the 4ft rule, and you have a recipe for few photos and thankfulness for a safe day. We all did our best to ride in the shoulder and stay away from the crazy drivers, but there were sections where it was just necessary to ride the white line.
We arrived in West Yellowstone a little early for check-in, but as we were discussing what to do for a few hours, someone came by and said we could check-in early. This always makes for a better evening! We walked to a pizzeria, where several of the boys individually devoured strombolis meant for two. Keeping this crew fed is a challenge!
Tomorrow (Sunday) was going to be a biking day, but we have decided to just take the van into Yellowstone and tour around the park. In talking with the hotel staff and a few others, this year’s tourists are rude and not the best at driving vehicles. We are going to err on the side of caution and not bike in the park to see Old Faithful, we will load up in the van instead. After today’s experience on the roads, none of the boys disagreed with this decision.
