Yellowstone, Jackson, Tetons. 3rd leg of the trip - August, 2014
After Libby, Montana, our next stop was the Yellowstone Park area, spending our first night in Island Park, Idaho. Island Park is located just to the west of Yellowstone, and south of the west entrance. The town consists of a gas station, a few lodges, and a crappy overgrown campground.
Maps of this area are not very detailed, but my GPS said we could take a scenic road outside the park to Jackson, Wyoming, head up north through the Tetons and exit the park almost next to Island Park completing a short loop. So much for the accuracy of my GPS as no exit exists midway and we wound up with over 320 miles to actually complete the loop.
The road to Jackson went through some Idaho ranches where the rolling hills became increasingly higher, at times providing a “big picture” view of the countryside when atop larger hills. As we crossed over to Wyoming the road became more mountainous and the final few miles were spectacular. With ten percent grades and sharp curves we definitely would not want to take the motorhome down this road, but on a motorcycle it’s terrific.
Arriving in Jackson we quickly sought out Bubba’s Bar-B-Que for lunch. We first ate at Bubba’s back in the ‘70’s, before Jackson’s Hole was ‘discovered’ (and in my opinion, since destroyed). Bubba’s has expanded to a larger location, but both the food and the service are still excellent and I like that they still call it “Jackson Hole” Wyoming.
Entering Grand Teton National Park from just north of Jackson we diverted off the main highway towards Jenny Lake. The Tetons are unique with their steeply pitched peaks and the views of Jenny Lake and the mountains are unlike any other.
Exiting the Tetons and entering adjoining Yellowstone the terrain changes a little, but basically it’s all one big park. We continued our journey up through Yellowstone, eventually exiting the park at the west entrance and returning to our campsite.
The next two days were split between the upper and the lower loops in Yellowstone. The pictures do a much better job of telling the Yellowstone/Tetons story than I could, but as you look at them take note of some of the traffic jams. For the most part the traffic wasn’t too bad considering the popularity of these parks, except for the idiot jams. Idiot jams are caused when two nitwits that have never seen a wild animal before stop their cars in the middle of the road to gawk. Lacking the skill or intelligence to pull off the road, they position their cars dead center in the lane, exactly opposite of the dummy in the oncoming lane to completely block traffic in both directions.
Then, there are the sub-idiots. These are the fools that don’t recognize the danger to a motorcyclist from these wild animals and pass you to fill up the space you left for your escape, should the animals get too close. I’ve seen the YouTube videos of buffalo/motorcycle encounters and was not anxious to participate. The park rangers are more concerned about the miles of backups caused by idiot jams and give a pretty good ass chewing when they eventually arrive, but I’d like to see more serious consequences.
Enjoy the pictures. The next, and final episode “Utah”, will be coming soon.
Slide Show HERE.
Slide Show instructions - Controls are located in the lower right hand corner.
1. There's a rectangle that will toggle a full screen presentation.
2. Choose between automatically advancing pictures or manually advancing.
3. Volume control is lower right, just above the thumbnails.
4. Turn off audio in the lower left section above thumbnails.
5. Place your cursor off the main screen to turn off all pop-ups (captions, etc).
1st leg - Glacier National Park