Teton Perfection

7.12.09 Dubois to Colter Bay (Grand Teton Nat'l Park) 68 miles to get there; 76 total
Started out pretty slowly this morning. We had Togwotee Pass (a continental divide somewhere around 9400ft high) first thing, and it took us 30 miles to get to the top of it. Traffic really wasn't bad, and though there were plenty of orange signs around, we didn't hit road construction crews all day. We started off thinking that we'd do a pretty short recovery-style day, but by the top of the pass, I was feeling pretty refreshed, and there was plenty of downhill to get us some easy distance. Even in the early morning, we could see Teton-like hills on the horizon. We were working our way through Shoshone National Forest and then Teton National Forest. There were tons of huge rock pillars, and if I were more of a climber, I wouldn't have been on the bike for long. We had some crystal blue streams (some carving mini canyons out of the rock that surrounded them) and forrested climbing. At the top, the longpoles opened up to some beautiful meadows, and, had I been interested, it wouldd have been pretty easy to go make a snowball. There were tons of wildflowers along the side of the road, lovely blue skies, and crests galore. Just the far side of the pass, we caught our first sight of the true Tetons, and it left me a bit speechless. Then we hit the destructed road. The construction crews weren't out, but this portion of road was left unattended as dirt with large rocks and rutts. I think a mountain bike would have been much more appropriate for traversing that bit of (kinda ruined) downhill. We still had clear streams, nice meadows, and giant mountains on the horizon, so I stayed pretty happy. Eventually we got to pavement again, went further downhill, and hit a couple of little spots with food, gas, and lodging/camping. Though we checked out the campsite in Teton National Forest (and got lunch right by it), we decided to roll on downhill in to the National Park (a pretty good call, even though the campground was pretty good). Once we got to the bottom of the downhill, we crossed a pasture and entered the park (which is darn awesome). There were some clounds on the horizon, but we managed to get into the park, through the toll thingits, and across some wildlife viewing areas that would be great in the morning and evening before we got rained on. Though we didn't get terribly wet, there was a ton of lightening in the distance, and when dad got a flat 7 miles from the campground, we were a bit worried. We inflated and ran, and the cars were at least nice when they passed us. Eventually, we rolled up into the campground, set up in the hiker/biker spots, and got some tasty food. I wandered around on the bike as dad fixed his tire. The mosquitos were definitely out, but with a little DEET, the lakeside view was super relaxing. After reading all the maps/newspapers I could get ahold of, I went to hear a ranger talk about mountain lions and then hung out with another Transam dude. Got to bed late, but the day was about as perfect as it could have been (btw, we hit our 3000 mile mark today). I really like the Tetons. Really want to know more about them. Am really coming back someday. Oh, and there was a great storm that came through somewhere around 2am. That was great (not sarcasm - I like storms). The storms we've run into the past couple of days have had some beautiful and incredibly intimidating lightening.