I’m in the middle of Wyoming now. In my mind I’ve entered the real substance of the trip. I’ve always had a fascination with the vastness and what I believed to be the desolation of Wyoming and the Dakotas. I always wondered how it would feel to cross this great barren corridor of the country on a bicycle. From what I'd seen of the place, it seemed utterly inhospitable.
Desolation and waste is not what I’ve found. At least, not yet.
East of Cody is a rolling sea of sagebrush and modest mesas. I saw a richly-patterned antelope vault across the interstate and shimmy under a barbed-wire fence. The land soon became a rich breadbasket of barley — it’s harvest season supplying Coors, I’m told — and sweet-smelling, shoulder-high field corn crowded the fields. If the long views were not shrouded in smoke I would have seen the Big Horn mountains rise from the high plain. But between Worland and Ten Sleep the land dramatically warped into a labyrinth of badlands streaked with strips of coral, white and toffee. The clay mesas split into craggy, decaying fingers above the swales of juniper and tall sagebrush. The highway wrapped and bobbed, up and through, and the weird place seemed infinite. Finally I crested adjacent to a blood-red canyon wall, and I quickly descended beside it, hundreds of feet into an irrigated valley of impossible green bounded by high canyon walls. Beyond the town of Tensleep the white walls shone like Navajo Sandstone and towered a thousand feet above the cool and brushy canyon. It looked like southern Utah there. And I adore southern Utah.
The 6,000-foot climb up the Bighorn mountains wrecked me. Finally I stood at the crest of the range at 9,666 feet -- my highest point I'll reach this summer. The wind blew fiercely from the west across the tundra. In the evening, far below in a mountain meadow, a hail storm clobbered tourists on horses. It's rumored that wolves have reached this isolated Rocky Mountain range.
The mornings are windless and, because I often have the roads completely to myself, they are silent.
I'm still enjoying myself despite some challenges. In Bighorn canyon, it took two hours to hike up a BLM trail that threaded the talus slope and crested the canyon wall. I was surprised to find myself among giants — ponderosas. There was no mesa in the highlands; the land sweeps into a rolling, high-altitude plain toward the high peaks.
I'm in Buffalo, WY now. I have left the Rocky Mountains for the last time. It’s sad realizing this. The mountains have offered respite from the blazing heat on the valley floors.
Condition report
The shoulders are huge from Cody on the ACA PPP route to Bighorn Canyon. The challenge out here isn’t traffic.
I met another touring cyclist early on who is a recovering alcoholic. He said that, of any adversity or temptation in recent years, he came closest to drinking while he was traversing Wyoming. The wind was so cruel, so unrelenting, that he sought out his old vice for the first time in years. A mystical and malevolent force, it was, prone to reversing direction on a whim. He said actually sat down at a bar, ready to doom himself, until he saw non-alcoholic beer on tap.
So far the wind has smiled upon me. It’s generally blowing lightly when it is noticeable. I hesitate to admit this in writing because the gods will surely thrust thunderbolts and gales upon me as penalty for my hubris. In my four days from Yellowstone the wind has blown from every angle. I’m laughing as I write this, recalling an impromptu meeting with two college girls who were cycling the other direction, about forty miles from Yellowstone. I saw the first one rise out of the haze literally a mile away from me, and when we finally reached each other we pulled over to chat.
“Well, enjoy that tail wind,” they said.
“Tail wind?! I’ve had a headwind all day.”
We cracked up. Both of us thought we had headwinds. Maybe we both did.
Can the wind blow two directions at once?
Two character studies
I first saw Brian sitting against a tree in Grand Teton National Park, looking exhausted. I raised my hand and he solemnly nodded as my dad and I coasted to our campsite. It was hot and hazy.
Some time later he walked over and introduced himself. A small guy, like me, and weathered, 32 years old. He wore an orange shirt and, when I glanced at his touring bike parked across the little road, I noticed his outfit almost entirely consisted of orange: orange panniers, an orange Surly cross check, an orange helmet, even orange water bottles.
Brian has lived on a touring bike for three years. I didn't ask specifically, but I imagine he does not see himself as homeless. He was raised affluently in New Jersey. As a high school lacrosse goalie, his team won the state title. He later attended Penn State during the Sandusky scandal and ultimately he worked as an engineer designing hospitals or, as he put it, "responding to aggressive emails."
He since took to the bike and has two goals: to ride to every state capital on the U.S. on his own routes, and -- more loosely -- to climb the high point in every U.S. state. Denali may not be in the cards. On the road, he’s making tremendous progress despite a serious dietary constraint: he can't eat any fructose at all, so he literally lives on potato chips and McDonald's fries.
I wanted to dive into Jackson Lake that hazy afternoon and he agreed to search for the swimming beach with me. Although, I'd learn later that he distrusts cold water and he generally loathes people. When we finally found the rocky spit of land before the lake we found it crowded with tourists. He surveyed the scene with disgust.
"I would love it if humanity went extinct," he said. He gestured to the firesmoke clouding the Tetons from full view. "These forest fires would burn and burn themselves out until there wasn't anything to burn anymore, and the skies would clear."
Brian said he always had a goal in life: to save enough money and then travel the world on a thirty-year vacation. He still has a book from his childhood that guides this journey: 1,000 places to see before you die.
After taking refuge during the hysterical first months of the pandemic, he's been back on the road for over a year now. He's full of wisdom. He charms Warm Showers hosts with kids by arriving with a bundle of toys straight from the town Family Dollar. He was instrumental in helping me plan for my upcoming trips to the Black Hills and the Badlands. At that moment he was headed north into the great smoky waste of Montana for his sister's wedding. He also hates weddings because he “can’t drink, can’t eat.” He’s “bad at small talk” and he “doesn’t like people.” I nodded seriously. “Those are all perfectly good reasons,” I agreed.
He shudders when considering dating or raising a family.
"Look at all of these parents," he said at the beach. One man frowned as his children mocked him for slathering his face in zinc. Another woman in a life vest clung to a vibrating paddle board not ten feet from shore while her children shrieked with laughter. "They look totally miserable."
A family of four walked past, all smiles. "OK," he confessed. “That was a bad example."
I'm fascinated with people like Brian who travel indefinitely. If there is any nobility or higher purpose in what he's doing, he doesn't see it. He’s eyeing Central and South America as new territory.
"I am the most selfish person in the world," he said, as we stumbled across the lakeshore.
***
#2 arriving 8.6
No comments:
Post a Comment