Day 54: Jenny Lake to Grant Village (62 miles)

7/19

Israel Golden
Jul 22, 2017 · 5 min read

As per usual, I was up and breaking down camp before the others. I ate a crumbled blueberry pop tart while stuffing my sleeping bag into its sack. As I went to grab my toothbrush I noticed some visitors outside of sleeping Lila’s tent.

By the time Lila and Aaron rose, our visitors had left. I hung around while Aaron and Lila ate breakfast. Aaron made scrambled eggs from a questionable breakfast product called Ova Easy egg crystals. Just add hot water to the crystals and you’ve got an edible egg-like substance. Ova Easy, the perfect addition to an edible breakfast-like meal substitute.

After waiting to make sure Aaron was physically okay, I decided to get some coffee from the visitor center. Lila joined me and we got caffeinated. She wanted to have a more leisurely morning, stopping to take photos whereas I wanted to charge my phone and drink cold things as soon as possible. To satisfy both of our desires, we decided to split up for the morning and regroup at Colter Bay.

I stopped to take a photo of my bicycle in front of the Tetons about 5 miles from our campsite.

Apparently, the Grand Tetons were named by French explorers. The name, Grand Tetons National Park, roughly translates to Big Tits National Park. They named the mountains “the Big Tits” because the lewd Frenchmen believed their jagged, pointy peaks resembled breasts.

To be honest, I don’t really see their resemblance to breasts, but then again I am not a French frontiersman who hasn’t seen a woman in months, maybe years. I have sympathy for those poor Frenchmen, their promiscuous youth forgotten and traded for the harsh, unforgiving American West. Like their youth, so too had their memories of the appearance of breasts had faded and blurred until they were indistinguishable from the jagged alpine peaks of the Tetons.

Either way I’m glad these deprived Frenchmen didn’t get a chance to name other iconic American landmarks. If they had continued their journey, rather than the Grand Canyon perhaps we would marvel at the Grand Ass Crack. Rather than take our families to see the Old Faithful Geyser, instead we would visit Ejaculation Station. We can all be grateful for the fact that the sexually frustrated French frontiersmen were stopped.

I arrived at Colter Bay at around 11. When I got there I found an outlet, the wifi, and went to buy some lunch from the grocery. I decided to check out the deli and there got a serving of their orange chicken. Being a big fan of Chinese food I was sorely disappointed when I discovered that it was hot garbage. The chicken tasted like chunks of stale bread that had been marinated in orange Fanta. If you’re thinking about planning a trip to the Grand Tetons National Park, while the views are amazing, the Chinese cuisine leaves much to be desired.

After I ate Lila and Aaron arrived. We sat for a while, talked to some Great Divide cyclists, and charged our electronic devices. Our bodies nourished and our phones fully charged we set off towards Yellowstone National Park. On the way we stopped at Jackson Lake to take a swim.

There was this little lodge between the Tetons and Yellowstone. We stopped there to refill water and to take a rest. When we stepped inside we saw huckleberry everything. Huckleberries are not commercially grown but they grow in such abundance in Wyoming and Montana that many businesses are able to harvest them to make products. A huckleberry is something like a mix between a grape and a pear. I got a huckleberry slushy. We were then offered free cookies by the lodge greeter.

Once we had consumed lots of sugar we made the final push to Yellowstone national park! This is the busiest park at its busiest time of the year but we were able to glide past miles of cars stuck in traffic on our bicycles to get to the entrance.

Not more than five miles into the park we found Moose waterfall. We stopped to enjoy it.

Lila found her way under the waterfall but struggled to get back. I documented this. Below you can observe her giving me the finger while stuck on a rock.

We still had to do quite a few miles until our campsite at Grant Village. Along the way we saw some pretty amazing sights.

Unfortunately, I began to have some bowel issues in the middle of these amazing views. I’m almost completely positive the Teton Chinese food is to blame. However, on the bright side, the pressurized gas in my bowels allowed me to feel more in tune with the volcanic, highly pressurized features of Yellowstone. Like the park, I too felt tremendous pressure in my core and let it out with occasional, forceful, sulphuric bursts. I finally understood that the horrible food in the Tetons was all part of a greater, more interactive experience with the park. I had to stop at a campsite to use the bathroom before Grant Village.

After I was done I arrived at the campsite just as Lila and Aaron were getting their spots. We got to the campsite, made a fire, and fell asleep almost instantly. Tomorrow we will penetrate deeper into the park!

    Israel Golden

    Written by

    Bicycling, Music, Science

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