Cross Country Day 12 – Northern Loop in Yellowstone National Park

Decided to take one scooter today for simplicity and allow one person to shoot pictures while the other concentrated on the road. The GTS was the scoot of choice, due to it’s comfortable seat (super corsa is like a rock and only made for one person), gas mileage, performance at altitude, automatic transmission (starting and stopping on hills could suck with a PX). It was a bit brisk when we took off from Cody but by the time we passed through the east gate and climbed up toward Yellowstone Lake (the highest lake in North America @ 7,732 ft) the temperature had dropped to 52! Yikes! Thank the lord I brought my frog toggs. I literally wore them for the lake drive – then took them off. The ascent to Yellowstone Lake was spectacular – big, windy roads with huge mountains for a backdrop. I was surprised to find that many of the trees near the summit before Yellowstone Lake were burned and dead. At times, it seemed like we were riding through a tree cemetery. Guessing a big forest fire engulfed the area many years before (some medium sized trees had grown in the same area).

After we passed Yellowstone Lake, we gassed up at the first major “town”, Fishing Bridge where we unexpectedly ran into two other Vespa riders from Brooklyn, NY (they towed their scooters to Yellowstone). After exchanging pleasantries, we took off north toward Hayden Valley, which was a gorgeous, huge, wide-open valley with small brush, trees, and a beautiful river. On the way, we literally drove within feet of a bison – I almost didn’t see it as it was standing in the shadow of a tree! Scared the crap out of me – we slowed to take a picture, and I must admit, was a little nervous being around a “wild” animal of that size – they are absolutely enormous. I kept thinking about that scene in Dances with Wolves when the buffalo charges the Indian kid and Kevin Costner has to shoot it seconds before it tramples the child….I was within 10 feet of it! And I couldn’t help wondering “are buffalo related to bulls…the ones that charge things that are RED?”. First time in my life that I semi-regretted having a RED GTS. We snapped a couple terrible pictures (shaky camera…wonder why) and zoomed off. We ran into a lot more bison as we rode toward northern Yellowstone. Given the size of Yellowstone and the relatively lack of roads, I felt incredibly lucky to have the chance to see bison in such close quarters. As we made the way around the northern loop, we also ran into a bunch of other wildlife – including Elk, deer, black bear, and coyote.

Total miles - Day 12: 220 Miles



East Entrance - Line of Cars


























Hayden Valley

























Artist Viewpoint




Northern Loop