DAY 16 AND 17

DAY 16

July 5, 2010

From Lake McDonald Lodge, Glacier National Park

To St. Mary's, Montana

miles: about 43

Highlight: I biked across the Continental Divide!

I left Lake McDonald Lodge at 6:40 am, and as you'll see, there were wispy clouds hanging over the mountains, and the road was wet.


The first 10 miles up toward Logan Pass weren't too steep, but then around mile 11 the climb began. It was damp, overcast, and didn't improve much. We biked by a bear and I never saw it! Rats. As we climbed, the road initially had the uphill side on my right, so as it got steep, I didn't have the sense of a steep drop immediately next to me. Later, though, we had a switchback, which put the downhill drop immediately on my right. There were low rock barriers to keep traffic (and me!) from falling off the road most of the time. There were waterfalls as we climbed more and more, and the views of mountains were peeking through the increasing clouds.

Finally, at mile 21, we reached the top of Logan Pass. Imagine! 6646 feet of elevation! By then, we were in pea soup fog at the Logan Pass Visitor's Center, and it was COLD! Plus, there's no electricity at the visitor's center, so you couldn't really warm up. A ranger was starting a fire, but by then, most of us had left for the downhill ride. It was amazing to experience such a change in weather and elevation in just a few minutes. The roads stopped being wet after the first 4 or 5 miles, and the sun came out. Eventually I could shed my fleece jacket under my rain jacket.

We could look down on glacial teal green lakes and snow-covered mountains. Just breathtaking.

At the bottom was the St. Mary's Glacier National Park Visitor Center, and since we couldn't check into our hotel (the very nicest of the trip so far), we watched two of the visitor center movies. We also stopped at the Park Cafe for pie. It's well-known, and they must have 15 or 20 different kinds of pie. We also went T-shirt shopping.

Dinner at the trailer was comfort-food pea soup, cornbread, and more of the Park Cafe pies which Linda had bought for us.

Here's the final thought for the day, thanks to John Muir:

DAY 17

July 6, 2010

From St. Mary's, MT to Cutbank, MT

64 miles

The day began with a 6-mile climb that seemed awfully steep, especially having mostly come down from the Rockies. Turned out it was an 8 to 12% grade, so no wonder! At the top of the climb, though, we could look back and see our last best view of the mountains, and look ahead to what will become a pretty consistent green, mostly level but rolling, Big Sky Montana.

With a tailwind, I caught myself easily doing 17 to 22 miles an hour! We all stretched out quite a bit, and it's a good thing to have the sag vehicle pause along the way. Sometimes, I looked around and it was just me and open land and the road. Peaceful, but still, something new to get used to.

It was cool in the early morning, but warmed up quite a bit. In
Browning a few of us stopped for coffee at a pseudo-tepee that was an espresso stand.

Cutbank is not much to write home about, but it's where we are. Very un-fancy motel with a door that sticks to get into the stuffy old lobby. Old rooms that need redoing. But when you're tired, you don't much care.