Leaving Whitefish, we enjoyed a short and scenic ride through rolling countryside to a delightful camp at the town of West Glacier. If you are ever out this way and need a camping place this is the place to be. They have nice tree covered sites for RV's and a spacious, grassy lawn for tents. The open-air cafe offers great food at a good price and a suitably funky atmosphere. The next day was devoted to some very necessary and messy bike maintenance in the morning and a great raft trip down the middle fork of the Flathead River. The Middle Fork runs through some great country between Glacier Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness. The rapids were class 3 and had some good size waves...quite a nice trip.
WOW! Superlatives cannot describe the scenery in Glacier Park. Not wanting to grunt our way on bikes up the Going To The Sun Road (the steep, narrow, winding road which is the only way through the center of the park) we rented a car and took a big loop through East Glacier and back across the park. The weather gods smiled on us once agajn and the day which had started out overcast went blue for us. The road had only opened a week before and there was still plenty of snow up high with water cascading everywhere. The mountains and huge valleys here are just too spectacular to describe. At Logan Pass, the highest elevation of the road, we got out to gawk with the other tourists, and were treated to a mountain goat posing for pictures about twenty feet from our car. I tried to get Kelly to go up and give him a hug for a photo op but she wouldn't go for it. The road is under repair so we spent some time stuck in a hi-elevation traffic jam...not a bad place to be stuck but I couldn't help but wonder what a mess this place has got to be in mid season. I was surprised to find that the elevation of the park, in general, is not very high. The town of West Glacier sits at about the same elevation as our home in No. Cal and Logan Pass is at about 6200 ft...about the same as the hills we ski on at home.
We were now faced with biking over Marias Pass, the highest elevation and biggest bike climb of our trip. We had driven some of the road going to the put-in for our raft trip and it was not encouraging. The road is winding, narrow, has no shoulders, and (for some insane reason) a speed limit of 70 mph. Oh yeah, and the day we were planning to go heavy winds, 40 degree temps and thunderstorms were predicted...who wouldn't want to do that?! Luckily we planned ahead and drove our bikes and most gear to a hostel in East Glacier, on the other side of the pass. On departure day we were glad to have planned ahead as we woke to a lightning/hail storm as we broke camp. We loaded up our tent and minimal gear and jumped on the Amtrak train for a very pleasant trip across the Continental Divide...kinda wimpy but safe and dry.
The rest of this cold and rainy day was spent holed up in the East Glacier Lodge with many other stormbound travelers. The lodge is a huge old timber framed structure, three stories inside with three foot diameter log columns supporting the upper balconies and an 8 ft wide roaring fire. Reading by the fire with a nice toddy would have completed the day but, alas, life can be cruel sometimes...the lodge sits on the Blackfeet (or is it Blackfoot?) reservation and, as it was election day for them, no alcohol could be served. I reflected that, if the US had that rule, the world may have avoided 8 yrs of the G. Bush presidency. The hostel where we had dropped our gear ended up being booked for the night so the owner was kind enough to let us camp in the yard. However life is seldom perfect and we found ourselves sharing the yard with a large and, apparently, very well fed dog. After shoveling a spot for the tent we dined at the attached restaurant which had, in my experience, the best Mx food on the planet. We spent the rest of the evening chatting with several of the hikers at the hostel. Very pleasant and interesting folks who were heading all the way to Yellowstone. The wind blew so hard during the nit the tent was actually folded on our legs at times and we decided on a later start for the next morning.
Our next day was an easy 50 mi downhill run to Cut Bank with a screaming 20 mph tailwind. We averaged 15 mph for the day (positively blazing on a loaded touring bike) as we watched the newly snow capped Rockies recede in our mirrors. We had managed to cross the divide without doing a single climb over 1000 ft and that was in Washington! Take that Lewis and Clark!
The next few days we spent rolling over the Great Plains. I was thinking I would find this boring but am fascinated by the shear space here. This is called Big Sky Country and for good reason. The sky is a presence here and the predominant feature of the landscape. The riding was easy and the weather gods cooperated with generous tailwinds that enabled us to put in some pretty easy 60 mile days.
One of the things Kelly and I are enjoying most about this trip is all the people we meet and just seeing a variety of local cultures. As I waited outside a Cut Bank grocery for Kelly I found myself in conversation with a 30 something Indian fellow. He was (sort of) telling me something about the name of the local tribes and I wasn't following well. When I asked what he was up to today he quite frankly told me he was "drinkin"..he seemed well on his way to reaching his goal for the day but he showed me the can of beer in his pocket as if I needed proof. I was about to ask a question I'd been pondering for days; is it "one Blackfeet person" or "one Blackfoot person". It came to me that the finer points of grammar were probably beyond my new friend's mental capacity at the moment and left my unanswered question to ponder for another 4 or 5 hours of pedaling enjoyment. As I continued to wait, a pretty young lady crossed the parking lot. Dressed in stiletto heels and a nice cocktail dress (where the heck was she going at 9:30 in Cut Bank?) she was the picture of the young debutante. That picture was shattered as she hocked up and spit out a wad that would have done a longshoreman proud...Gotta love country girls.
And now here we are in Havre, Mt and I have to report some news that will, no doubt, disappoint some of you. We have decided to wimp out again and take the train to Grand Fork, Mn, skipping all of N. Dakota. Several factors have brought us to this decision. Looking at our progress to date it is apparent that we will not be able to cycle the entire way in our timeframe? A month into our trip and we are only a quarter of the way. Another reason is the unanimous reports we have heard about the conditions in eastern Mt and North Dakota (their motto"Don' even think of coming here.") It seems there is an oil boom going on and the poorly maintained roads are terrorized by drunken, methed-out oil workers. Since this is the farthest point east where we can ship our bikes on Amtrak with us we will be exploring the local Bear Paw Mts for a couple of days and shipping out for Grand Forks, Mn...the farthest point west where we can unload our bikes.
Until next time, have a great fourth.
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