July 5 Day 5

Day 5 is upon us, and the weather forecast for today looks wonderful. As I mentioned yesterday, Going to the Sun Road in Glacier is still not completely open yet for the year (click here for more details from my blog yesterday)

So, the plan for today is to ride to the Eastern entrance of Glacier in the little town of St. Mary's. We will travel up Going to the Sun Road as far as the park service will allow us, then we double back to St. Mary's, head south around the park to the Western entrance of Glacier, where we again travel up Going to the Sun Road as far as the park service will allow. Then back to Western Glacier and on to our hotel in Whitefish Montana. This backtracking and detouring will add about 80 miles to our trip today.

From our hotel in Great Falls to the Eastern entrance to Glacier is about a 2 hour ride, so we pack the bike and trailer and we're off.

Most of the ride to Glacier takes us through the Blackfeet Indian reservation. As you can see below, the housing conditions in this are are pretty poor.

As we head toward Glacier, the Rocky Mountains start to form a nice backdrop to the scenery. As you can see, there is still some snow lingering in the peaks. The photo below was taken at an altitude of about 5500 feet as we passed through a huge meadow area. You could actually smell the pines in the air.

The Continental Divide passes through Glacier NP. This in turn creates two large lakes, one on each side of the park. In the Eastern area of the park, St. Mary's Lake is formed from the snow melt that occurs on the Eastern half of the Divide. In the Western area of the park, McDonald Lake is formed from the snow melt that occurs on the Western half of the Divide.

This photo was taken as we approached the Eastern entrance to Glacier NP, with St. Mary's Lake just coming into view.

We must be getting close....

Finally, we reach the Eastern entrance to Glacier NP. A quick wave of our National Park pass to the booth attendant, and we are on our way up Going to the Sun Road.

Glacier NP encompasses over 1,000,000 acres and contains over 130 named lakes. Here is a photo of GTTS road as it runs along the shoreline of St. Mary's Lake.

Below are two of the Glaciers that can be seen along the roadway as you travel into the park from the East. These are actual Glaciers which are present year round, not just snow pack that melts as spring and summer arrive.

In the mid 1800's, there were an estimated 150 glaciers that existed in the park. Today, only 25 of those active glaciers remain. Scientists believe that if current climate patterns persist, all of the remaining glaciers in Glacier NP will disappear by 2030.

Unfortunately the best portions of Going to the Sun Road are closed! So, it's time to backtrack and head around the southern end of the park. You are allowed to hike farther up the road, but vehicle travel is not allowed.

Route 2 which runs across the southern edge of the park, and then up to the western entrance to Glacier is a pretty nice drive. The roadway runs through a canyon floor, with towering, pine covered, mountain walls reaching up both sides.

Even with the detour due to Going to the Sun Road not being fully opened, life is grand !!!

Until those magic words appear on a passing road sign... "Road Work, Next 17 Miles."

What could possibly make it worse??? The road work is new Chip-n-Seal. I hate this stuff, especially when it is just being put down. First comes a heaping helping of hot molten tar/asphalt, yum...

Then comes a HUGE helping of stone aggregate. And to top it off, the maniacal engineer that came up with this low cost road paving approach made absolutely sure that the ratio of stone to asphalt is such that there is a ton of stone left perched on top and not completely stuck in the asphalt. This of course, allows the lightly tar coated stone to be flung by your tires, smack you about your body, and rip large chunks of paint off of your nice bike and trailer !! Oh, I forgot to mention breathing in the huge dust storms that the vehicles in front of you whip up as they drive over this freshly laid mess.

After making our way through the road resurfacing fiasco, we arrive in West Glacier, just outside the western park entrance.

With the huge amounts of snowfall this year, the snow melt has the nearby rivers running pretty fast. This section of the Flathead river, carries water from the upper peaks down to McDonald Lake.

There was an interesting pinch point in the river rock formation in this area that caused the water to really churn as it made its way down to the lake. The sound of the water was both intoxicating and deafening. You could also feel the chill coming off the ice cold water as it rushed by.

A common site within the park are these red buses. They have a roll open top, and you can take a narrated tour throughout all the main roads in the park if you wish.

These buses were originally a fleet of restored 1930s White Motor Company coaches, called Red Jammers. The drivers of the buses are called "Jammers," due to the gear-jamming that was required during the vehicles' operation. The "Jammers" were rebuilt in 2001 by the Ford Motor Company. The bodies were removed from their original chassis and placed on a modern Ford E-Series van chassis. They were also converted to run on propane, to lessen their environmental impact. Makes sense... it would be unreasonable to complain about your glaciers disappearing while at the same time contributing to global warming by burning bus loads of fossil fuels every day :)

All in all, the trip through Glacier NP was nice, however, the most scenic parts were unattainable due to the closure of the Logan Pass area. These upper reaches are also where most of the parks grizzly bears, big horn sheep, and other wildlife reside, meaning we did not get to see any during our visit. Looks like we'll have to plan on making another visit to the park at some point in the future.

Tomorrow we head up into the Canadian Rockies and make our way to Banff in the province of Alberta!

Our stats for today put us at 325 miles, bringing our trip total to 2125 miles. It took us about 10.5 hours, including gas and food stops to see Glacier National Park and get to Whitefish Montana. Below is a map of our route from today.