Yellowstone National Park

The trail bypasses Yellowstone National Park, so the four of us rented a car for three days. While we had trouble coping with all the people, traffic and bad food, it was still worth it. Yellowstone is so unique and absolutely stunning, no wonder it is America's first national park.
Old Faithful of course is a must. It erupts every 44 to 125 minutes; the exact time can be predicted from the length of the last eruption.

The Old Faithful Inn was built in 1903 and is the largest log hotel in the world. Unfortunately the top levels were damaged during an earthquake in 1959 and are inaccessible. The number of trees this place required is mind-boggling!

The area around Old Faithful contains many other geysers, boiling pools and springs. The colours and patterns are amazing!

Mammoth Hot Springs in the north of the park are travertine-depositing hot springs, forming ever-changing terraces. The colours are due to different thermophiles, i.e. heat-loving micro-organisms, depending on the water temperature.

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River is 20 miles long and over 1,000 feet deep. Two waterfalls, many hydrothermal features and multi-hued geological substrate - absolutely stunning!

Bison herds regularly disrupt traffic throughout the park.

There are so many amazing places in Yellowstone, it is impossible to see it all. Our last stop was the Mud Volcano with its spitting springs, boiling mud, fumaroles and cooking ponds. 

Our last breakfast with Alba and Gerard before parting ways. Check out how much food four people can eat and still lose weight! Thanks for your company and all the laughs!

Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (Lima to Jackson)

Riding on a flat trail all day for the first time..... but the next campground was 57 miles away.

Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1935 to provide protection for the last 70 Trumpeter Swans. Now there are over 46,000 in the US. The refuge also provides habitat for many other fauna and flora species. The visitor centre has the interlocked antlers of two male moose, found in the mud of the lake. Imagine the force of their collision and all because they were fighting over a girl!

Our campsite at Upper Red Rock Lake.

Pine forests are changing into Aspen as we head south.

The first border crossing since entering the US. We were in Idaho for only two days before crossing into Wyoming.

Big  Spring is  a natural spring with water seeping through the volcanic rock of the Yellowstone basin. It provides a perfect breeding habitat for trout as the water is clear, cold and nutrient poor.

Even golfers carry guns around here. Apparently, moose are more dangerous than grizzly bears.

Our first cold morning. Kirsten's GPS suggested 4 degrees!

We teamed up with Alba and Gerard from Barcelona for several days. There are many riders on the trail from all over the world, but most of them are going much faster than us (and are much younger). Alba and Gerard came specifically for the solar eclipse and had to slow down, so they wouldn't ride past the umbra.

I didn't even know about the eclipse until I read a National Geographic article. What an amazing coincidence that we were at exactly the right place at the right time! 

We decided that Moose, just north of Jackson was the perfect spot to view the eclipse. There were thousands of people everywhere! A local told us about an abandoned farm where we could camp. It was fabulous, with a view of the Tetons and we had it all to ourselves! Here's the view from our tent...

Watching the sun disappear...

The sun got smaller for about one hour, then the total eclipse for two minutes and then another hour back to full sunshine. It was very quiet and eerie. It never got totally dark, but the temperature dropped drastically and it looked like a sunset all around. The eclipse is impossible to photograph without specialised equipment and we were too busy watching anyway. Below an impression of how the colours changed.

After the eclipse there were major traffic jams for miles! Lucky we were on bikes and could pass everybody! 

Gerard's bike went belly-up. It had enough!

The Tetons are amazing! 

Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (Helena to Lima)

Another week and some amazing landscapes! The first day out of Helena was the toughest one of the trip. We were totally unprepared for the 5,000 feet in elevation and the 10 miles of hiking trail up and down Lava Mountain. By 5pm we were still going uphill!

Alina and Freddy from Texas invited us to stay at their camp site over night. In the morning they gave us strong coffee (the best one of the trip!) and blueberry pie for breakfast! What a treat! The Merry Widow mine is an old uranium mine where people come and breathe radon to cure all sorts of ailments. Note all the giant RVs and our little tent!

Butte is another mining town, mostly copper. It has a giant pit in the middle of town, which has been filling with rainwater since mining ceased. The toxic sludge (containing arsenic, copper, cadmium, zinc and sulfuric acid) is anticipated to reach the water table by 2020!

The mansion of one of the copper kings. 

Back on the trail, after a long climb, we decended the famous Fleecer Ridge - too steep to ride down and too slippery to walk!

Bannack was Montana's first capital. Hard to believe, since it is now a ghost town with only a hand-full of residents.

We got harrassed by some weird grouse. Every time we walked away it attacked our ankles and when we turned around it pretended not to see us.

The landscape during the next few days was amazing! Mt. Fleecer, ...

.... Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest, .....

...., Pioneer Mountains Scenic Byway, ...

... Medicine Lodge - Sheep Creek Divide and... 

...  Big Sheep Creek Backcountry Byway.

The sky was looking very dark but miraculously the rain missed us! So far, we only had rain over night!

More amazing camping spots...

Some photos along the trail...

Antelopes (or Pronghorns)

Lima is tiny. We had to camp because the only motel was full. The pub looked like it was permanently closed from the outside but had great atmosphere inside. We had a fabulous evening chatting to the locals.