Tuesday May 4^th Antler Inn, Jackson . Wyoming

21.30

The weather is continuing to make life very difficult for us.

We left Lander yesterday morning at 7.35 and the first 30 miles, on a flattish road in cool sunshine were fine. We reached Crowheart, at about 11.00. It’s called Crowheart because, near here, Chief Washakie, of the Shoshones, fought the Chief of the Crow tribe, killed him and ate his heart. It makes you wonder about Cockfosters.

Just as we got there, a north wind suddenly blew up at over 20 mph and we had to ride into this for the next five and a half hours. Absolute hell and definitely the worst day’s cycling so far.

We were riding on winding roads but whichever direction we turned we could not escape the wind as it was being funnelled through the hills . At one point my speed was down to 3.4 mph. (You can walk quite comfortably at 3 mph.) We reached Dubois (it rhymes with “toys”) at six o’ clock after doing 75 miles and climbing 1600 feet. We decided then that we would stay a day there as we were both completely knackered and the next day’s ride entailed a climb of another couple of thousand feet with more snow predicted.

Dubois is surrounded by a number of dude ranches where rich city people come to pretend to be cowboys. It is basically one street full of log cabin shops and bars. I quite liked it as it’s a bit rough and ready and not so obviously fake as Breckenridge. We had a beer in the Rustic Pine Tavern and a meal next door in the Cowboy Cafe. Mike retired at this point but, as we had already decided that the next day was a rest day, I thought I’d explore the town a bit further.

A little further down the street, just past our motel, I found the Whisky Creek Saloon. For Archers fans, if the Rustic Pine Tavern was The Bull, the Whisky Creek Saloon was definitely The Cat and Fiddle. Much seedier and much more fun. No tabs, you paid cash for every drink

I met a nice guy called Chris at the bar. A real cowboy, he looked like a boozier version of Kris Kristofferson. An ex-Vietnam veteran , married 4 times, very amiable and with a sharp sense of humour. When I asked him to recommend a drink , he pointed to his bottle, drawled “Alaskan Amber” and insisted on buying me one. Chris was very keen on the English language. He wanted to know what "blokes" were (“Are they like ‘hands’”?) and found my glottal stops hilarious (I'd asked for a "another bo' lle of beer"). He introduced me to another younger man who was a full Shoshone Indian (I don’t do any of the Christianity shit") and another who was half -Arapaho. The two didn’t seem to have a lot to say to each other.

Chris warned me that we had a lot of bad weather ahead of us and that Yellowstone Park, our next big destination, would probably have no accommodation open for another two weeks yet. I took this with a pinch of salt because, I’ve noticed along the way that people quite like to scare you with the local weather, terrain or wild animals.

In the end Chris and I shared eight bottles of Alaskan Amber and I toddled home happily oblivious to the tempestuous rain blowing down the street.

Up this morning at seven. Snow on the ground and still falling. Gale force winds. And the TV forecast said more on the way. This is getting tedious.

A few phone calls to our intended stops for the next few days confirmed what Chris had said last night. Nowhere in Yellowstone open for another two weeks at least. A shame for Mike as he had really been looking forward to this. If I’m honest, I can handle missing a couple of days in a national park.

We looked at the maps and decided that we would have to radically alter our route and by-pass the park. Jackson was the nearest large town and from there we could rejoin the route in West Yellowstone . But it was 86 miles away and we would still have to cross the snow-covered Togwatee Pass, involving a climb to 9,800 feet. This was impossible today and almost certainly tomorrow. We needed transport again. We drafted a note to be put in bars and cafes and the receptionist made some copies for us. She also recommended ringing Scot who worked at a nearby hotel and sometimes ran a shuttle service to Jackson. Scot turned out to be our saviour. It wasn’t cheap at $210 but the receptionist said it was a fair price and anyway we had no real choice

Scot picked us up at one o clock. in his enormous pick-up truck festooned with anti- Obama stickers. He turned out to be so hilariously right-wing, I wished I’d recorded him. Instead I kept quiet in the back, trying to remember as much of it as possible. Harry Truman? A murdering bastard. 9/11? Clinton’s fault. Obama? A Kenyan. Mike sat in the front and, all in all, held his end up in the conversation quite well ( I think there was quite a lot of core common ground).

We got to Jackson at 2,30 and Scot recommended the Antler a decent place n the centre of town.

We spent the afternoon planning our route to W. Yellowstone and then went to a steak house next door for dinner. The sheriff was outside talking to a deputy and we asked them about our proposed route to Ashton tomorrow, over the 8500ft Teton Pass. They both thought it might be risky with some snow still up there. They recommended checking the weather carefully in the morning before setting out.

There was a slightly surreal moment in the restaurant when a large coach party of elderly British tourists arrived. What the hell are they doing in Wyoming (then again, what the hell am I doing in Wyoming?). I wish I’d asked one of them.

Towards the end of our meal, the sheriff came back into the restaurant looking for us. Apparently his deputy had just been over the pass, on his way home, and had rung him to say that it was clear and that if it stays dry tonight we’ll be ok. Now wasn’t that nice of the two of them to go to that trouble? It quite made my day.