Vespa Cross Country: Cross Country Day 14 – West Yellowstone, Montana to Southern Yellowstone Loop, through Grand Teton National Park to Jackson, Wyoming.

What a day – took off from West Yellowstone, Montana and headed back into Yellowstone National Park, taking the southern loop before heading south on route 191 to Grand Teton National Park and Jackson Wyoming. Southern loop was great – the south west part of Yellowstone seems to be the mud volcano/geyser center of Yellowstone. There were steam plumes seemingly every couple miles. Stopped by Old Faithful 5 minutes before eruption and managed to get some great personal shots (sorry guys, no scooters allowed near the guyser). I was surprised by the number of people who had gathered to see Old Faithful – the spectator bleachers and platform that half circled around old faithful was pretty packed with spectators – and it was a Monday!

My couple observations about Yellowstone:

1) I would advise anybody to avoid Yellowstone on Sunday if possible. It was quite crowded, and not uncommon for people to stop their cars in the middle of the road, completely ignoring the people behind them, to take a picture. It became easy to see when animals were around – the traffic would stop and 20+ cars would come to a standstill. It did help to have a Vespa – it zoomed around the traffic at a couple instances (much to the annoyance of others – I made sure not to cut anyone off) and I cannot imagine how much time it saved us.

2) The weather in Yellowstone is incredibly volatile, depending on time and altitude. Mornings are generally calm and the most “pleasant” (I’ll explain in a sec what unpleasant weather is). Temps I the morning ranged from 70 to as low as 50 as you hit the highest altitudes. In the early afternoon, temps spiked to high 90s – we were sweating around 2:30 as the GTS thermometer showed 97! Near 4 pm, the sunny skies suddenly darkened and we found ourselves in a vicious storm – hard rain and really strong wind gusts that blew us around the roads. We managed to ride through some of the storm and get down to lower elevations, but man – I don’t think I’ve ever encountered such strong winds.

So to those of you looking to go to Yellowstone, you can totally do it on a motorcycle/scooter – but have enough under the hood to zoom up steep mountains and perform at altitude. Would advise avoiding weekends if possible and get to the park early to avoid traffic and severe weather that seems to always hit in the late afternoon (at least that is what the park information seemed to report). And be prepared for ANY type of weather – hot, cold, rainy, windy, etc.

After getting our shots at Old Faithful, we took off and headed south on route 191 toward the Grand Tetons. It is tough to describe the Grand Tetons – they may be the most spectacular mountains I have ever seen in person. We tried every imaginable way to snap pictures of them, but it is nearly impossible to capture the magnitude and beauty of these mountains without seeing them with your own eyes. It was amazing to drive next to these enormous mountains - was glad that I didn’t have to climb UP them! As we left Grand Teton National Park, ran into a herd of bison! There must have been a hundred of them – how cool!

We stopped off at Jackson, Wyoming for the night. Jackson is a very charming, cute town. It seems to have a good mix of locals and tourists, and compared to the other towns we have been through – seems very wealthy as well. I believe Jackson Hole, the ski slope is based here. Judging on the mountains that surround Jackson, I can imagine it is great for skiing during the winter.

Tomorrow, we head off to Idaho Falls to get the rear tire replaced! Until then, careful careful riding.