48.77 Miles; 4,163 Feet of Gain; Glacier Meadows RV Park to St. Mary, MTThe soft grass of the open meadows of the campground led to a unstirring rest. The sun rose early, but we didn't get up until nearly 7 am. We took our time to pack up, enjoy the large wind-blocking pavilion, charge our electronics, and double-check our new itinerary was feasible along the highways of East Glacier. There didn't seem to be too much beta surrounding road-riding this area, but we knew it provided the only sure access to St. Mary with the given blockage of snow up on the pass of Going-to-the-Sun Road. Janna and I spilled out from the campground to the highway and began a morning of climbing. In the cold, I love starting with a climb to warm up my muscles and stoke the internal metabolism of my body to catch my body in warmth. Bear Creek came tumbling down, its flow opposite our climb, its waters crashing and flowing through green meadows and darkened woods. We reached Marias Pass at 5216 feet by mid-morning where the lowest Continental Divide Crossing in Montana straddled Glacier National Park's mountains to the west and the sprawling grasslands to the east. A large obelisk sat commemorated to Theodore Roosevelt from the Lewis and Clark National Forest. After a short break, we jumped back on the highway and coasted down from the pass into the ever-expanse of waving grass on the northern prairies. We crossed the border between the National Forest and entered the Blackfeet Nation at East Glacier (Omah-ko-yis). We bought some food from a small store, ate a little lunch, and then started finally heading northwards along the creased spine between flatlands and mountain-rise on our lefts. We pedaled through thickening aspen stands intercut with waterways coursing away from the peaks. All morning we pedaled up and down hills that invariably led us higher and higher into elevations spanning off the land. The pass on Highway 89 was preceded by arriving at Two Medicine Lake - it was a spectacular alpine lake lit with effervescent green and gray, licking the land with sentinel snow peaks making its backdrop in the heart of Glacier National Park. We stopped to take an insane number of photos of the spectacular lake. We ascended the pass proper and dropped down a sharp grade into the further heart of the Blackfeet Nation. We were really in the rolling grasslands of the plans now and the snowy peaks seemed further west. Janna and I spun out on Highway 49 north spending hours in long-daylight. We passed by two Continental Divide Hikers heading south on the highway's shoulder as Glacier NP had closed part of the CDT to backpacker use due to an aggressive, food-motivated presence of Grizzlies. We also ran into two bikepackers from Switzerland riding in the opposite direction of us. Their intent was Mexico, but they were taking their time to see Canadian and American national parks on the way there. They warned us of grizzlies ahead, so we we kept our eyes peeled. Eventually, we reached a massive highway road construction project and were forced to stop riding. The construction zone was so massive that construction workers told us we would not be allowed to ride across the several miles of maintenance in front of us. We were alarmed about how to proceed forward. The "pilot car" leading traffic told us we could load our bikes and bodies in the back of the construction truck and that they would drive us, and the following traffic, through the construction. We lugged our massive and heavy bikepacking setups into the orange-cone filled bed of the pickup, squashed our bodies to, and were sped away into a gravel mess of large dumptrucks and traffic speeding to keep up with the pilot car. Our driver helped us quickly unload on the other side of the construction zone so he could turn around and shuttle as pilot vehicle the traffic waiting on the other side. We stepped off to the side and retightened/adjusted our gear. Janna and I now sat parallel to Divide Mountain on our left. To our rights, a thick, seemingly inpentreable forest of young conifers stretched into the distance. Ahead of us, St. Mary Lake and the East Flattop Mountains of Glacier National Park took up the entire plane of view. We sped downwards passing through old burn zones ripe with neon successional growth, rotting logs, and punctuated granite spires. We came to a monument to the Blackfeet Nation and stared at an overlook of the valley below. With that, we sped down to St. Mary and arrived at Johnson's RV Park and its awesome tent camping set up in the aspen grove weaving through its grounds. The owners told us to store our food in the laundry room to avoid issues with grizzlies that often patrolled the campground at night. Janna and I caught some warm showers and then rode into town to the small grocery store. We found some lentil burgers and fruit that we cooked in the store's microwave and ate at a table before returning to camp and sleeping before the sun's arc crossed past the horizon.
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66.8 Miles; 3,565 Feet of Gain; Glacier Park International Airport to Glacier Meadows RV Park Three days prior to the start of this trip, I casually turned on the news to check the conditions of Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park. I was shocked to find that in late June a blizzard had descended only days before to dump nearly 2 feet of snow that were proceeded by subsequent avalanches burying our route under snow so deep that the road wouldn't open until late July. With a string of camping reservations carefully made months prior across the Canadian Parks system (there are no hiker/biker sites in Canada), we had a strict schedule to keep to meet our nightly camp spots. With Going to the Sun Road submerged under Arctic conditions, I jumped immediately onto Gaia GPS and began scouting out a southerly route that still passed through Glacier National Park but guaranteed to meet our original route on the other side of the great range. Not only that, I learned that our original Border Crossing site was now closed indefinitely. I spent hours determining a route that would take us through Glacier, north to an open Border Patrol Station, and then spit us westward towards Waterton Lakes National Park. And we left to drive northward. Three days would take us to Kalispell, MT, nestled in that neat valley of early summer green with the walls of glacier montane sucking into valley views. As night faded into morning-of, a glaze of deep set fog and settled dew smeared the land scenery. We drove the car to Glacier Park International Airport; we've found that long term parking at small regional airports is always safe and convenient while we do our long-distance riding. Barreling out onto the highway, we rode clips through side-neighborhoods and little-used dirt roads that wound us round family farms and green fields parallel to the ranges we aimed for. We quickly booked it to the local banks up reaching Columbia Falls. The aim was to exchange USD for CAD; no opportunity ensued as none of the three banks would only do the reverse currency transaction. We shrugged and headed north. The route wound us onto dirt roads that ran through the surrounding Flathead National Forest land. Heavy late-season precipitation leading up to our arrival meant the land lay saturated with deep moisture. This, in turn, precipitated insane greenery and flower emergence. I kept stopping along the road to take photo after photo of beargrass blooms rising in super nova puffs, scattered in trees, pale and brilliant. We crossed several swollen streams heady with snow runoff and lapping at the bellies of the bridges spanning them. Dirt roads merged with the paved trails as we swung into West Glacier. Here, we deviated from the official route (Going to the Sun Road was closed) and swung southeast along the minuscule shoulder along the Highway 2. The highway quickly plunged into the mountains we had been only looking at and set a thread parallel to the swollen Flathead River. It passed grey, mottled, wide, and powerful next to us. Waterfalls thrust from narrow chutes along the mountain walls of the road. Blue skies with bent light caught the green evergreens on escarpment sides and made them truly pop with color. The further we biked into the southern mountains of Glacier National Park, the more distant craggy, snow-packed peaks began to loom on every pass we rode up. The cars for the most part were smooth in our direction as it seemed drivers were coming back from East Glacier in the opposing lane after a day out on that end of the park; we relished not having too many vehicles coming up behind us. The Great Bear Wilderness came flush with the highway on our rights. Large bear crossing signs dotted the road, but no roads were seen. After crossing the highway bridge near a grassy slope, a car from the other direction quickly slowed and rolled down the window to let us know some mountain goats were grazing nearby. We crossed the bridge, parked our bikes, and walked down a small trail that dropped below the highway bridge. Several mountain goats lay in the shade right in front of us, nonchalantly chewing the grass and obviously comfortable in what must be a commonly-used spot. After seeing them, we jumped back on our bikes and sped off down the highway. The Middle Fork Flathead River curved away from us as Highway 2 jutted eastward. Smaller Bear Creek rose up and sauntered downhill parallel to our direction of travel. We stopped at Bear Creek Trailhead where a notable, massive waterfall cascaded down the mountain. Snacks were pulled from our bags and a good rest was taken in the late afternoon sun. We were far north enough now that the Sun cutting the sky at 6 pm looked like it could be 2 pm anywhere else. In fact, we would come to rely on the sun not setting until nearly 11 pm to help push several days worth of future big days. For now though, we had plenty of hours left. Post-eating, we heading down the highway once more before arriving at a Glacier Meadows RV Park. It turns out the park had only just opened for the season given the early-summer snows. The RV Park was one of the best we had ever camped at. It was a sprawling verdant glade ringed by aspen and fir woods, nestled in a valley with Glacier National Park's mountains rising to the North and the ranges of the Great Bear Wilderness rising to our south. There were free hot showers, a massive pavilion with electrical outlets and walls to block the wind, and the owners kindly let us store all of our scented items in a locked room to keep the bears out. We got in early enough that I spent part of the end of day reworking all the slipknots on the Seek Outside Eolus - our shelter. |