Travels with Harley

Closing time at Yellowstone -- Sunday, Oct. 9

If you can manage it, I was told, wait until the early fall to visit Yellowstone — after nearly all of the three million people who annually clog the country’s oldest national park have come and gone and the leaves begin to change.

But don’t wait too long — autumn in the high country of northwest Wyoming comes in September. Winter comes in October (as Harley and I witnessed firsthand last week). Halfway up the spectacular Beartooth Highway into the park’s lofty northeast entrance the first real snowstorm of the season hit, and we had to turn back.

Three days later, however, while taking refuge in the friendly little cowboy town of Cody, Wyoming, a strong windstorm managed to temporarily clear the snow away from the park’s more accessible east entrance — and rangers there suddenly reopened the gates to vehicles without snow-tires or chains for one last hurrah.

On Saturday we made a break for it — and couldn’t have been luckier.

For one whole weekend, we virtually got Yellowstone to ourselves, waterfalls, lush meadows, super-volcano and all, which we shared, of course, with the resident elk, bear and bison, which seemed to be everywhere.

The relative handful of other visitors who’d also gotten word of the opening were understandably a cheerful lot, mostly locals from neighboring Cody and Dubois. Even the handsome and historic Old Faithful Inn put on a show – with a Saturday night “closing for the season” party for park employees and remaining guests.

Harley and I happened to be on the budget plan. I’d pitched my tent about 16 miles away at the Madison campground, where only one other tent was visible. But the next day I was able to pretend I was a guest at Old Faithful by taking (what the hotel desk clerk assured me would be) the very last shower of the year at Yellowstone.

Most all of the real guests at the hotel had already checked out, and the front desk cash register had just been emptied. Initially the clerk told me no — she was sorry, it was simply too late. Then she changed her mind.

“Can you be fast?” she asked. “We’re trying to close up.”

“Yes,” I said — and I think I was.

Though no one was waiting in line.

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What the barkeep in the “Rib & Chop House” in Cody, Wyoming said after placing (what would later prove to be) the best tasting and most generously sized chicken-fried steak EVER in front of me on the bar … before returning five minutes later and asking if there was anything else I needed, upon which I said, “You know, what I could really use is a fork…” and she said … nothing … but left again and soon returned with silverware and napkin and placed it all in front of me and then said (in mock disgust): “God, you’re so ‘high maintenance.'”

Out of the wind in Cody, Wyoming

Wednesday and Thursday we got pushed back down the mountains on the Beartooth Highway into Yellowstone — with its 11,000-foot pass — by the first real snowstorm of the season. And got pretty wet in the process.

Dried off some in Red Lodge, Montana, yesterday and took advantage of a break in the weather to ride into Cody, Wyoming — where it was raining pretty hard again by the time we arrived in the early evening.

Stayed in a hotel last night to dry off, hoping to reach Yellowstone today via the east entrance. But learned this morning the whole park got hit by snow last night and, sadly, motorcycle travel there is now out of the question.

So Plan C is to ride down to Thermopolis, which boasts a world-class dinosaur and fossil museum, but we’ll have to wait until the prairie winds here die down some. Fifty-mph gusts nearly blew Harley over on his side in our first attempt out of town, so once again we turned around.

Happy to be temporarily indoors and out of the wind right now in Cody — where a biker at a little diner just told me: “Get a hotel room, man. You can’t ride in this.”

I could tell you but everyone already knows how hard it is for the unemployed to find a family-supporting job these days in 2011 America — be it high school kid, college grad or laid-off veteran employee.

I could say that some of the college grads in particular, driven by an altruism that belies their bank balance (see current House Republican efforts to slash college loan assistance), still choose to serve their country after graduation through a two-year commitment to AmeriCorps.

I could say all that, but yesterday, during a southwest Montana thunderstorm at a pitch-your-tent-as-quickly-as-you-possibly-can wayside in Custer National Forest, I happened to share a campfire with someone who’s a living example.

Meet recent college grad Joshua Gordon …

Deer in a rainy campground -- Custer National Forest

There are five possible roads to Yellowstone National Park. They enter from all four points of the compass and they’re all pretty nice. But the hands-down nicest of them all, locals here in Red Lodge, Montana say, is the spectacular Beartooth Highway — which winds and climbs 68 breath-taking miles from here to the park’s northeast entrance.

Breathtaking not just because it’s so pretty, with a clear view of the 20 jagged peaks in the Beartooth Range that surpass 12,000 feet in elevation, but also because it’s kind of perilous, with a track record of ice-age-like snowstorms 12 months a year. The highway is only open 4-1/2 months a year and it’s the least traveled road to Yellowstone.

I badly wanted to reach the park on the Beartooth. But as Harley and I departed Red Lodge in the late afternoon on Wednesday, clouds began building on the western horizon. Ten miles further those same clouds coalesced into a thunderstorm — and let one rip. Then the rain came pouring down. I think it was just a few hundred yards further that two things happened almost simultaneously: a Custer National Forest campsite suddenly appeared and a bolt of lightning shot down. We chose the campsite.

So did one other traveler (video post to follow), and we spent the early evening sharing stories over a soggy campfire. The next morning, the rain was only intermittent. So I packed up Harley again to try once more and continued up the Beartooth. It immediately began raining in earnest. Half-heartedly we continued on. Seven miles further, where the road began to climb steeply through a series of hairpin turns, a Jeep that was descending flashed its lights at us and slowed to a crawl. We stopped too.

“You can keep going,” the driver said, “but in just a few more miles you’re going to run into five inches of snow on the ground.”

I thanked him sincerely for bothering to stop to tell me, and in driving rain Harley and I turned around — returning to Red Lodge to consider Plan B.

“The toughness I was learning was not a martyred doggedness, a dumb heroism, but the art of accommodation. I thought: to be tough is to be fragile; to be tender is to be truly fierce.”

 — Gretel Ehrlich, from The Solace of Open Spaces

About five nights a week so far, ideally before dark, I’ve found some place along the road where camping is permitted to raise my little Marmot tent, store my gear, cover Harley with a tarp, fix a meal — then retire inside for a little writing, sip of something, reading and sleep.

Once each week I’ve had to seek refuge from pouring rain in some hotel. And about once a week I’ve been able to rely on the kindnesses of strangers. Not strangers in the I-don’t-know-them sense. More like dear old friends and family I haven’t seen for ages.

Like the two big-hearted sisters of a brother (who’s since passed away) who married a woman who happens to be the sister of the woman who I married. Those kinds of relations. One of them, Penny, has a home with her husband Buddy high in the pine tree country of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. The other, Tori, lives with her own husband Barrett in the handsome high prairie land of Bozeman, Montana.

What they each seem to have in common, however, is a natural tendency toward a kind of no-nonsense western generosity. And their husbands aren’t far behind them. Each couple welcomed me into their home and gave me food and drink and a place to spend the night — and much more. They quickly rearranged their schedules to accommodate me.  They implored me to tell my stories and then they told me theirs. They offered good advice when requested. And when it was finally time for me to go on my way, each family slipped me a little something extra for the road.

A good place with very good people.

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Special reports | Seattle Times Newspaper.

Excellent report on the rise and fall of the two Elwha River dams by the Seattle Times team. After clicking on the link above, scroll sideways to “The Experiment” section and click next on the “Video: Last Best Chance for Renewal” link for a nice overview.