Day 60: 0 Miles

Grand Teton Nation Park, WY and Jackson Hole, WY

Today was the last day of my break in Jackson Hole, WY. I started the day early, heading out with Greg and Adam to do a guided hike to Taggart Lake in Grand Teton National Park. At first it looked like we would have a small group to walk with the ranger, but at the last minute a family group with 18 people showed up. The large group wasn’t great for the hike, but did provide good people watching as we covered the 1.5 miles from the parking lot to the lake.

The theme of the ranger’s guided tour was learning how to better appreciate being in nature. She used a few examples of people who wrote about and painted the natural scenes in Grand Teton National Park and how those people influenced the conservation of the park land. It was a good message, but I think it was lost on most of the children and the family group of 18 who were doing their best to just keep everyone together. The 1.5 miles up to the lake took a while with all of the stops and waiting for the group, but when we got there we were treated to a great lake view with the Tetons in the background. As we were standing there we overheard a child say, “Wow, this would be a great place to camp. If they built a hotel here I bet they would make a ton of money”. He clearly missed the message.

Once we got to the lake we were on our own to get back down to the car. We could have turned around and done the same 1.5 miles back, but opted for a longer 2.5 mile loop which had less people on it. I walked with Greg and Adam in silence for the most part. It was nice to follow the trail and take everything in without the distraction of people talking. Everywhere we’ve gone in Grand Teton and Yellowstone has been so packed with people that you are not given the chance to just walk and listen to the surroundings. We didn’t see another person on the trail back to the car until we were about .25 miles away from the end.

When we got back from the hike we had a quick lunch and then I started to pack things up and prepare for getting back on the bike tomorrow. This is my last chance to evaluate the things I’m carrying with me. I have a few items that I will send back with Greg so I don’t have to carry them anymore. Most of these items are clothing that I haven’t worn in weeks. I think it’s funny that the number one question I got before the trip was about how much underwear I was bringing with me. I don’t know why that was such a concern for people, but I will be sending a few pairs home with Greg. The truth is I went for at least a 3 week stretch where I never wore underwear. I realized very quickly that wearing nothing under my bike shorts was much more comfortable. Off the bike I have two pairs of shorts, both of which have a built in liner, so I don’t need underwear with them either. I’ve learned I can get by on very little clothing. On the bike I’ve got bike shorts, a t-shirt and a pair of socks. Off the bike I’ve got a pair of shorts and a lightweight long sleeve shirt. Those 5 items of clothing are all I need as long as the weather cooperates. Everything else is only necessary if it is below 50 degrees or raining. When I started this trip my bags weighed a total of 60 lbs. I’ll be sending about 5 lbs. of stuff home with Greg. After getting rid of things on 3 separate occasions I think my bags are now down around 40 lbs. With the 20 lbs. of gear I’ve gotten rid of and the 10 lbs. I’ve lost myself, I’ve really lightened my load by 30 lbs. since the start of the trip. To put that into perspective, my bike unloaded weighs 30 lbs.

After packing things up I took some time to relax. We then headed into Jackson to check out a brewery and some music. The brewery in town is the Snake River Brewery. I ordered a flight of 8 beers and we split some wings and a pretzel. The beer was good, but nothing special. I’ve been to enough breweries during this trip that I’ve got some places I really liked and use those to measure other breweries against. After the brewery we went to check out the concert in town. There was a band from Austin, TX playing, but it unfortunately started to rain too hard for us to want to stay. The opener was decent though. After that we found a bar to grab some burgers for dinner before heading back to Adam’s and getting to bed early. Tomorrow I’ve got to find a way to forget everything I’ve done in the last 5 days and get back into my bicycle touring routine. I know it’s going to take a day or two, but I don’t really have that kind of time to readjust. The plan is to cover almost 240 miles in the next 3 days. Hopefully I don’t have a problem jumping right back in to big miles. I at least know my legs are well rested. I’m not sure I’ll be able to make a post from Yellowstone tomorrow. The phone service is not great there, but I will try to update as soon as I can.