Day 70: Into the Mountains

I made it to Glacier!! This is a big trip milestone. One of the reasons I chose this route was to get to see Glacier National Park. I’ll be spending four whole days here hiking, exploring, and biking over the continental divide. The mountains here are epic!

Out of the Plains

Today was a tough one. I got up a bit early and got biking a bit after 7:30. It was a long slow ascent (the kind where it looks almost flat, but your legs disagree) with a headwind on a gravelly shoulder all morning. I had hoped to get to Browning closer to 10. In reality it was closer to 11.

In Browning I went to the Museum of the Plains Indian. It had all of these beautiful paintings and artifacts. The beadwork was just stunning. Very cool stuff. I had a picnic lunch there then kept going. Browning is a pretty poor area and there were a lot of dogs roaming around. None of them chased after me meaningfully, but I definitely got barked at more than usual and one dog really thought about making a go of it.

Out of Browning the roads became a bit more rolling and I was on a quiet back road for a stretch. Watching the mountains get closer and closer was mesmerizing. The back road ended and I was back on highway until Glacier. The shoulder was wide, but lots of gravel, so not always very rideable. I took ample advantage of all of the pullouts to admire the view though.

I hit a construction zone as I got closer to the park. I knew it was coming, but was under the impression that a pilot car might be able to give me a ride through and it not, the surface wasn’t too awful. Sadly, no pilot car for me. The surface was not awful for stretches, but really rough in others. I got through with a combo of biking, walking, and hitchhiking the last couple miles. A nice Canadian named Glenn finally took pity on me.

Glenn dropped me off at the end of the construction zone and from there it was a stunningly beautiful descent towards the park. Lakes and big mountains and lots of green. That downhill took me all the way to the entrance to the park where I ran into Heidi, my cousin Karin’s former student who she’d connected me with. We chatted for a bit and made a plan to meet up later then I kept heading into the park to the campground.

I got settled at the campsite and then met up with Heidi for dinner. It was nice to have a great meal and great company after a tough day in the saddle. After dinner, I squatted by the hotel to take advantage of the wifi. then Heidi and I were off to Hook’s Hideaway, a ranch/motel/bar up by the Canadian border. On the way up, we took a detour to a lookout over Chief Mountain, one of the most sacred places for the Blackfeet people, to admire the sunset. The bar was pretty quiet, but it was fun to check out a real western bar and meet a bunch of the folks who work at the park.

Tomorrow, I’ll sleep in and then do some leisurely exploring on the east side of the park.