Bike Trip Yellowstone Falls

Gibbon River Overflow
June 5, `72

It was great to be peddling in good weather for a change. I kept
running into the same guy with his chick over and over again. It's
fairly common to see the same people more than once since cars cover
lots of territory up here, and there's no place to go. At each
marvelous wonder the people congregate. I first met this couple at
Norris Geysers, but I didn't spend much time with them until we met
again at Gibbon Falls. They offered me a beer, and the three of us
enjoyed another one as we marveled at the surrounding beauty. I hadn't
had a beer in a long time, and those beers were just about the best I
had ever tasted. I guess viewing a beautiful waterfall with the hot
sun beating down on my back sort of put the exclamation point on the
beer. It was pure ecstasy.

After Gibbon Falls, I was off to Yellowstone Falls and Yellowstone
Canyon. It was a healthy climb, but the prize was spectacular. It's
useless to try and compare these marvelous wonders of Nature. It would
be a travesty to say, "This one is better than that one", or "Make
sure you see this one if you don't have time for both." If you don't
have the time, don't go to Yellowstone, and, if you do go, I believe
you will see each natural beauty as being no less remarkable than its
counterpart. Yellowstone Falls and Canyon are truly majestic; I can't
express the beauty in words, sensation prevails.

On my way to the falls, I biked the Cascades, a highway cut into shear
rock, overlooking a 1000-foot drop to the Yellowstone River. Traveling
along that beautiful highway, I came to a long line of cars. I knew
there must be an animal at the end of the line (usually that was the
case), but I couldn't see it, so I biked along side of the cars until
I came to a couple large travel homes at the front of the line. There,
off to the side, I saw the big black bear. I considered stopping, but
I still didn't have a good view and besides, I was on a bicycle and
everyone else was tucked away in his or her safe automobile. In order
to see the bear, I had to pull out around the travel trailers. When I
pulled back in, I found myself riding straight at the bear. I was only
twenty feet away when he took off running. It took him all of two
seconds to figure out I was not the threat, he was. When he turned and
came running after me, I put my bike in gear and didn't look back till
I was safely down the highway.

Up in the canyon area there were a lot of bears; that's why the
camping was restricted. There were other areas in Yellowstone with
restricted camping also, but I didn't camp in campgrounds. You had to
pay to camp in campgrounds. Anyway, I didn't come to the mountains
just to picnic. After spending time (not enough) at Yellowstone Falls,
I went back to Norris Junction and then headed north. The other road
out of the canyon was snowed shut, so unless I wanted to sleep in the
snow (with the bears), I had to go back the way I came in.