Thursday, June 15, 2000

We only went 39 miles today. However, the 39 miles was on The Going to the Sun highway. We thought that we would need to go back to West Glacier MT and go around Glacier National Park because of bad weather. We went for breakfast at 6:45 AM. The sky was gray but the clouds had numerous open areas. At the lodge we found out that Logan Pass was open again. So we ate breakfast, loaded the bicycle, and headed for the top of Logan Pass, 22 miles away.

We got started at 8:15 AM and a bicycle must be at the top of the pass at 11:00 AM or the National Park Service stops the bicyclists and hauls them back to their starting point. The first 6 miles to avalanche creek was relatively level and we made very good time. The route followed McDonald creek, which was big enough, in my opinion, to qualify as a river. We saw several rapids and waterfalls along the creek. For a couple of miles after avalanche creek we continued to make very good time. Then the road began to climb. From that point to the top of Logan Pass we never got going faster than 6 miles per hour.

The scenery was incomparable. Shear mountain cliffs and forest-covered mountains. With all the rain they have gotten in the last few days, every creek was running full and in many places the bicycle was going through an inch of water covering the road. We had covered about 18 miles when we got into a fog bank. Fog is made of water and in just a few feet the water in the fog began to fall upon us. It rained for about 10 or 15 minutes. We continued to climb past a rock area where the water comes down upon the road in a continuous waterfall for about 100 yards. It is called the weeping wall. When we reached a point where we could stop and take a picture, the weeping wall was obscured by fog.

We reached the top of Logan Pass at 11:05 AM. We climbed 3,450 continuous feet. After going through dense fog for 4 miles the summit was in bright sunshine. I took several pictures. We changed our wet clothes for dry clothes and explored the visitor center. We then went to our bicycle to start down the hill when 1/8 inch and smaller ice began to fall from the sky. We immediately hurried onto the bicycle and headed down the hill. Within a short time, Mary Kay was frozen and my hands were so cold that they shook. Those little ice balls hurt the face when they hit you as you are going 20+ miles per hour. Finally we got to a low enough elevation that we were rained upon instead of being hit by ice.

The temperature was also warmer. Within a short time we came upon an area where no rain had fallen. We continued down the highway until we reached St Mary MT. We were both so tired from our long climb that we decided to stay in St Mary. The problem was that it was 1:30 PM and we could not get into the room until 3:10 PM. Mary Kay sat on a couch by the motel desk and I went to a Laundromat to dry our wet clothes. We finally got into a room and Mary Kay had a very hot shower which warmed her up and made her much more happy.

You can see a 360 degree Quicktime VR of the road. However, this may take some time to load and requires Quicktime version 4.0 on your computer.