Thursday, September 12, 2013

Day 7 - Cold and Wet

Cody, WY to Lander, WY - 277 miles (the long way)
September 12, 2013


Early to bed, early to rise...yeah, but 1:36am is pushing it somewhat.   Don't know why, woke up and had a heck of a time getting back to sleep.  I guess I wanted to ride, but not in the cold, and certainly not in the dark out here in the middle of no-damn-where America.  Way to many forest rats running around here.

On the road by 7:30am heading into the East Entrance of Yellowstone.  Nice easy ride.  About 17 miles from the park entrance my Garmin starts squawking "rain in the area."   As if I didn't know, I'd been watching the clouds for twenty minutes.  But, in keeping with the new "boy scout" (always prepared) me, I eschewed waiting until the rain was falling to don the rain gear (the old me) and pulled over and put it on.  I'd already armored up including the cold-weather insert to my riding jacket because I knew it was going to be chilly leaving and would not improve as I moved from 5,000 ft. to 9,000 ft.  I was absolutely prescient.  And the drizzly rain added to the cold as well.  Can't say enough about how important it is to stay dry. Fortunately, I have good rain gear.  Never got a drop on me except whenever I lifted my helmet visor from time to time thinking the sprinkling had ended and, of course, my hands.  Gloves are another story.

When I packed up I threw, I thought, four pairs of gloves, one pair cold weather, into my bike trunk.  When I first went looking for the cold weather gloves the other day while climbing up the Beartooth, you can imagine my surprise to find only one of them.  I scrambled around looking here and there, pulled all gloves out and, yep, I was missing one and it was a cold weather glove.  Murphy's alive and well, huh?  You don't know how alive and well.

Loading up this morning I again looked for the missing cold weather glove to no avail.  Consequently, my ride up to the 9,000 ft. level in the cold rain got just that, cold.  Cold and wet hands are a problem since they get the force of the wind.  But, by trading out for dry ones as I went along, it wasn't too bad.  I've experienced a lot worse.  After coming down from the great heights and about 60 miles from parking here in Lander for the night, imagine my surprise when that missing cold weather gloved peaked out from below some tools in my tool back.  I'd gassed up and was looking to put on my third and last dry pair when I noticed this thumb sticking out from under some tools and the mate to it lying off to the side.  Having the lightning intellect for which I'm so famous, I immediately deduced a) I'd found the other glove, and b) I was an idiot.  But, now, an idiot with warm hands.

Not much in the way of pictures today.  It was just a rainy day, and everyone's seen those.
 
This was coming out from Grand Teton into the Shoshone National Forest.  Everything is wet, including the smudge on my lens.

The Wind River




 





Pulled into Lander and decided to put it away for the night.

2 comments:

  1. Love the Wind Rivers. Great place to get off your bike and get into the woods for a week or so and climb a really big peak.

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  2. Hmmm? The fat guys gets off his bike and stumbles through the woods for a week and climbs a really big peak? Hmmmm?
    Yeah, don't think so. But it's enough that I can picture you doing it.

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