Lamar Valley Yellowstone National Park

Tuesday,  July 11, 2023

Gardiner to Cooke City

Bison, Antelope, Elk, Eagle, Bears, Oh My!

(Sandra took this picture) 

We left at 715am to tackle the giant climb from Gardiner to Mammoth first thing this morning. It is 5 miles and 1,000 feet of elevation gain with some 10% grades and lots of curves. We planned on about an hour and a half. 

We got to the entrance and were told,  as of today, no bicycles were allowed on this section.  Whew! And panic for Lynn as she is attempting a world record and must ride every inch.  A quick call to the record keeper confirmed that a section can be skipped if the official (me and Kay) deem the section is unsafe. In this case, the federal government said so. We packed up into the car and drove to Mammoth.  Lynn will make up the miles.

Lamar Valley really was spectacular.  The Lamar River winds through a huge valley.  We saw lots of Bison and Antelope. 

After the 2nd construction zone, we caught up with the traffic due to a bear sighting. We heard it was a bear with 2 cubs. I saw a bit of fur as I went by.. it looked golden to me. It may have been the sunshine. 

There were three construction zones due to the flood damage from June 2022. We rode through the first and second zones with no problem.  The third construction zone was a different story. It was fun for me and, initially, panic for Lynn. We moved up to the head of the line thinking we would let all the cars go then fall in behind them knowing that the pilot car would know we were there. But, the very nice young lady driving the pilot car said we could not ride through the zone (it was 1.2 miles uphill). She said we could get into the back of her pickup though! So, once again we loaded up and got hauled uphill. Yay! It really would have been unsafe for us to ride as some of the road was gravel and we would have been way too slow for the long line of cars going through on one lane. In total, Lynn had about 5.2 miles to make up which she did throughout the day and once we got to Cooke City. 

When we were admiring the large herd of Bison by the river, a family mentioned that they saw us load up into the pickup.  Anyway,  they were nice and interested in our trip. I gave the the kids a pocket token. We saw them again at another stop a few miles down the road. 

I noticed lots of places where you could see the flood had done damage. There were many spots in the road that were patched (and a few still being fixed).

We got to Cooke City around 4pm. It's a cute little town. 

51.34 miles

3,494 feet elevation gain

Check out my activities on Strava: https://strava.app.link/299bvUpZnBb

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Relive videos: https://www.relive.cc/view/vDqgK2g93Gq

https://www.relive.cc/view/vPv4RZX7N36

Tomorrow to Top of the World!