Km 5544
The Yellowstone national park was the first park to be established in the world in 1872, and probably the greatest American contribution to the world’s culture:
The creation of the national park concept.
They exist now all over the world, and protect ecosystems, that otherwise would be destroyed by the greatest predator of all: man itself.
Yellowstone is a huge park, which to cycle around, one needs a few days. It has 4 distinct areas; mammoth hot springs to the northwest, the remote and mountainous area to the northeast, the alpine lake of Yellowstone to the southeast, and the geysers basins to the southwest. The 4 areas are connected by a 300 km loop road. Most of the park facilities where already closed for the season, so I had to carry food for several days.
It’s a high altitude park above 2300 meters and with some good grades. I’ve registered the highest altitude so far (2583m), and it wasn’t even a pass, but an elevation of the road trough the rim of the gigantic grand caldera, one of the biggest craters in the world. Due to one of the roads to the north been already closed and the upcoming unsettled weather, I’ve decided to do only the lower loop though the geysers basins, Yellowstone grand canyon, and the alpine lake, on my way out into the next park of the grand Teton.
Yellowstone is a great place to see wild life. I’ve seen, amongst others, many elk, antelopes, one black bear, one wolf (just recently reintroduced), and a lots of bison, some a bit too close!
The weather was pressing on me, and as I head south on my way to the grand Teton national park, known for the enormous craggy volcanic mountains. I look trough the mirror of my bike, and watch the dark and heavy clouds to the north on the horizon. It was another 160 km until Jackson Hole and no facilities at all on the way. Everything closed for the season.
On a normal situation, it wouldn’t be a problem to found 10 square meters of land to set up my house, but I was traveling in altitude, and know for experience, that the weather can turn very nasty in the mountains. I needed some sort of shelter to cook, and maybe to make a fire. So I decided to cycle to the Bridge Bay campground, that was already closed but would provide some sort of shelter. I set up my tent and found one of the shower houses open, that I used as a kitchen. It was –4 degrees and absolute darkness. Cooked dinner and went straight to the comfort of my sleeping bag, turned on my petrol stove, as I did in other cold nights, to work as a central heating, and wrote a few line on my journal. But my fingers where too cold to write, so I scroll trough the pages instead. My eyes focused on something I have wrote over a week ago:
“With each day that goes by, life seems to be less complicated, without having to worry about what’s going on in the world. But I should think more about the real world, and what’s my role on it.
The “burra” is heavy loaded, but even so, I travel light, so light that that I don’t think much of it. It crosses my mind, why did I leave school so early? I’ve changed the state school teachers for the teachers of nature and life, because I thought, I could learn more my self. I wanted to live the moment, rather then the future.
But to live each moment is difficult. It means to cycle without destiny, without knowing which road to take next. But at least, I’ve got a shelter; my tent. My tent, almost 3 months after, feels like my house, a nest, a fort, a cave.
The human desire to live in a cave must be by instinct.
Humans must have basic needs to make a cozy, private space where to spend the nights, where they are free to be themselves, to hide from the world.
I have my tent, my fort, my cave, but more important then that, I’ve got myself in it! Hours upon hours of myself living in this fort that is my tent, spending so much time alone, I start to discover myself….and I like it!
When you are surrounded by other people, constantly distracted, you end up forgetting what’s made of the soul that lives in your body. Living like this, it seems to me that the true happiness lies under layers in the body, layers of convenience, of comfort, of compromises. Removing those layers brings as closer to the fundamental reasons of happiness. Here inside my tent, life is simple, but nothing in the world created by man is as complicated as the small fossil, I’ve found on the side of the road this afternoon.
The more I cycle on this solitary road to the land of fire, more the landscapes I see grow inside me. In fact, I’m loving to travel like this, lonely, living an elementary life with the wild nature.
That must be one of our biggest needs, almost religious; to live a life entranced with the cosmos, with the mountains, the air, the water, the sun.
Would I be able to readapt myself in the world where I came from after this trip? That world that seems so distant?
Do I belong to it?
To travel like this, solitary, day upon day, as set me apart. Life seems so much simpler like this...so basic!
The nights are what I fear.
The sun is my consolation. After a cold night, it warms up my body and my soul all day long. And makes spectacular things in the skies and in the rocks at the sun set. With each end of the day a different picture."
Next day I woke up, not with a warm sun, but with the camp covered with snow.
Not very far away, a wolf scrolls trough the fresh snow in search of its prey. I take a reinforced breakfast. 4 packets of oat meal with 2 bananas, 2 hot chocolates, and 6 slices of bread covered with nutella, and to finish, one coffee with 2 Danish, a multi vitamins tablet and a cigarette (yes, dam habit!). It’s amazing what a cyclist can eat! I pack everything very fast, not that I'm in the hurry to go anywhere, but maybe because I think that fast movements will keep me warm. By the time I was ready to leave, it started to snow again. I had no other option but, to continue. If the weather gets worst, they could close the road and stop maintain it. And I didn't like the idea of pushing the bike trough the snow...
It snowed all day long. Some times with huge flakes, some of them would stay in my beard.
If some one has invented sunglasses with snow removal, they would have been very handy that day.
I doubled everything; 2 pairs of warm socks, 2 trousers, 4 layers, poncho, 2 pairs of gloves, and plastic bags in both hands and feet. In fact, the front bags, where I carry all my clothes, where almost empty.
One more night camping in the snow at signal mountain campground.
This time a good foot of snow overnight. But somehow, been a Latin and not used with snow, I was enjoying the experience of riding on it...
Grand Teton national park is about 500 meters lower then its neighbor Yellowstone, and the downhill brought nicer weather; it was only cold, damp, dark and rainy. At one point I managed to have a glimpse of the mighty Teton, amongst the dark clouds, a ray of sun illuminated the bottom of the valley. I could just imagine how they would look in a sunny day. I found a hostel, here in Jackson Hole (they are not very common in the States), where I share the 20 plus beds with only another tourist, a Californian, and the Mexican employees. As soon I reestablish my energies, I will turn west and cycle until I reach the sea. I will see you again in the warmer waters of the pacific
Nuno Brilhante Pedrosa, in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, USA
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