previously in this series: US Roadtrip feb/march 2005 – part I,  part II and  part III

Day 8 ~ 420km (car), ~180km (snowmobile)

The dunes man, the dunes!

As lovely as St. Anthony might have been, the best thing about it was probably the breakfast we had in some stereotypical roadside diner. I walked away burdened with additional 5kg of most excellent french toast in my stomach. The portions were huge and the waitress had the nerves to ask me if I wanted some more

The day before we noticed some dust speck on the map that said St. Anthony Sand Dunes so we figured we might as well see the famous landmark. The problem though was finding them. The map wasn’t very helpful, out of about 10 roads peeling off the town’s main street only one was marked on the map and in reality all of them looked the same. Especially when covered with snow and nobody driving on them. The place is remote by any standard. There’s nothing but farmland and open prairie and somewhere between those are the sand dunes. Covered in snow… one would have expected that phenomenon when everything else is covered in a fresh blanket of snow but not us! We finally did find the dunes and we did see them but they looked just like your ordinary small bump or hill at best. At least we got to slide down the steep sides…

We continued our way up north towards Yellowstone National Park through some fabulous and especially extensive pine forests called Targhee National Forest. The curious thing about this area is the fact that everyone drives a snowmobile in the winter so along every road you also see a snowmobile trail, usually on both sides as well. Many roads close for the winter and are only open for snowmobile use and in such heavily forested land I don’t really blame them. It’s poetry, it’s a dream, it’s so much fun you have to try it sometimes. Just make sure you know your way out.

Eventually we got to West Yellowstone (Montana), the gateway to the park, and it’s basically one big snowmobile rental shop with places to eat or sleep in between them. With West Yellowstone came the bitter realization that the park is closed for cars in the winter and you can only go in with an organized group of snowmobiles. Unfortunately for us we were an hour late and found out that every group had already left for the day.
That didn’t discourage us from renting a snowmobile (a regular touring version for two people) to ride on the extensive trail system outside the park and it turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip. We got the necessary equipment, a map and some basic instructions. They forgot the most important one though… and I think I better share it with you

Idiots vs. Pine tree

The wise ass newbies that we were, turned up the gas to the max almost immediately upon hitting one of the groomed loop trails. For a while everything went well, as long as we stayed on the trail that is… But then we turned into the powder and with that came the realization that the damned thing doesn’t really turn unless you enthusiastically throw your weight around like Valentino Rossi on the Suzuka circuit.
So eventually a small pine came our way (or was that the other way around?) and with it a depression. With our luck (and brainpower) it was only natural that we got stuck in there. Trying to power out only seemed to make matters worse and dig us further into well over a meter of powder snow beneath us.
It took us the better part of an hour to dig out enough snow from underneath to free the drive system and with some help from three other guys (big thanks!) that we managed to flag down (that trail wasn’t very busy) we eventually continued our journey. It seems appropriate that I also thank Ray Mears and BBC/Discovery Channel for the Extreme Survival show. Their tips on digging out a vehicle stuck on a sand dune turned out to be right on the money. Had we been there later in the day or further away from the trail it would be unlikely that we’d come out of the woods with the snowmobile. We’d have to walk some 20km back. I’m definitely bringing a rope, a shovel and some other equipment the next time I’m doing this. Soft snow and the weight of the machine just don’t make it easy.
Eventually we switched places and I got to drive that baby. As it turned out, all the name calling and swearing when Janez got us stuck came right back at me. Yup, I hit a tree as well ;) But at least we learned something the first time. With some help in the form of gravity (the terrain was slightly downhill) and the fact that I almost made it over the damn pine, we got out almost as soon as we got back on the snowmobile. My knee did hit that tree quite hard though. From then on we mostly avoided obstacles

Bad weather and getting lost

Somewhere in the middle of the loop on some exposed ridge line the weather turned bad. High winds, thick fog that reduced visibility to 10m and absolutely nothing but woods for many miles in any direction made it quite a humbling experience. You don’t want to get lost in there that’s for sure. Walking out to a populated place would take days in the unlikely event that you actually went in the right direction of course. Fortunately the trails are heavily marked with poles to guide you through featureless terrain so getting out of the area wasn’t that difficult. But eventually we did get lost, it was inevitable, it’s fun and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
There was a fork in the road, and we took the one less traveled (a shameless adaptation of the famous quote). In other words, we made a wrong turn somewhere, don’t really know or care how or why since there were many trails around there. One of them must have turned back towards West Yellowstone and we continued further south into the emptiness left behind by forest fires. After some 30min of going up and down, twisting left and right, we realized the trail should loop in the other direction by now. But it didn’t and we turned back where we came from. Sometime later we found a sign pointing towards West Yellowstone so we followed it and eventually returned back to the original trail we were aiming for.

Altogether we did about 180km in some 4 hours. All things considering it was one memorable journey I wish I can repeat sooner rather than later. The sheer size of the forests in the area doesn’t really sink in until you realize they are far larger than entire Slovenia. Bloody hell… in those 4 hours we could drive the entire length of Slovenia through the woods and never see anything man made. A GPS and some essential survival equipment would indeed come in handy. All we had were two cameras, some drinks and a couple of chocolates. Not smart at all.

The Tetons

Driving towards Jackson, Wyoming took us partly through places we’ve already been to. The original idea was to drive through Yellowstone NP and south to its smaller neighbor, the Grand Teton NP but since both were virtually closed for road traffic we had to make our way around the Teton mountain range.
As usual we got to a motel in Jackson very late, we didn’t make the same mistake again by successfully avoiding Best Western motels and we just had to see another Who’s Line Is It Anyway? marathon on ABC.

to be continued….