Part 2: The Road to Logan Pass

This is part 2 of a multipart series about my Bike and Build experience in Glacier National Park, Montana. Before you read this, I suggest reading part one, which is directly below. Again, this is taken straight from the journal I kept while on the trip. Any additions are indicated by [brackets] (not parentheses), and omissions by ... .

8/5/2006
- 127 miles; 9h28min on bike; 6:15am - 8:55pm; Avg. speed = 13.4mph -
- Times across Continental Divide: 2 -

I woke up on Saturday actually feeling prepared for what was ahead of us. After packing in the dark and a breakfast of chocolate milk, bananas, yogurt, and bread, Elana and I were out the door at 6:15. The pastor of the church had told us the pass was so smoky on Friday that he could hardly breathe there, so our first stop was at the local hospital to pick up some surgical masks, hoping we wouldn’t need them. And then we were off.

Cold is a merciless adversary. At 8:00, a thermometer displayed 45˚. At 6:30, with the sun barely clearing the horizon, I bed the temperature was still below 40˚. My right hand, with the half fingered glove, was the first thing to go numb. Then my left. Finally my toes. My nose simply dripped – it was pointless to wipe or blow. I could barely shift. And Browning, our first scheduled stop, was still 25 miles away.

For those first 2+ hours (over which I think we averaged about 14mph), I did not think at all about cycling. I focused on feeling the sun’s warmth on my back and rejoiced as our shadows grew noticeably shorter. I looked forward to the climb, knowing it would after noon – and warm – by the time we’d begin the ascent to Logan Pass.

Soreness in my glut and tightness in my calf, neither of which I’d felt for days, threatened to nullify that vision. I reluctantly informed Elana that unless things improved, the day might not work out as planned. She admitted later that she was crushed, though at the time she showed little emotion.

We stopped at a little café/gift shop-in-a-teepee in Browning, about 35 miles into the route. I ordered a Mocha, and enjoyed it very much. It was exactly what I needed. The other 3 riders: Ben, Twyman, and Aubrey – who’d started behind us – met us there for a minute before heading back out.

I tried to go to the Subway to pack in a substantial meal, but it was closed so I went to the IGA instead, and picked up a “Breakfast Fillers” sandwich off a hotplate (how long it’s been there, I’ve no idea). Featuring a hash brown, an egg, cheese, and sausage between 2 over-buttered pieces of bread, it seemed rather unappetizing but was probably not a bad selection, in the end.


By the time we left Browning, it was considerably warmer. With the heat, the soreness in my left leg/ass subsided, and so with restored optimism, Elana and I set out for St. Mary.



The smoke from the Red Eagle Fire all but veiled the mountains, but as we approached East Glacier, the shadowy forms began to more clearly show themselves, and I noted with much enthusiasm an increasing number of glaciated peaks. We were in the foothills of the Rockies, and with each fold of the earth, so went the road: up, then down, up, and down, netting a gain in elevation each time. From the summit of the first big climb – nearly 6 miles to more than 6,000 feet, I looked across the prairie to the east and felt as if I were seeing the whole of America.



To the west, however, was fire and smoke. From a pull off on a winding downhill I observed a helicopter making repeated water drops. While no flames were visible, a wall of smoke and a blackened mountainside were evidence enough for what had, just days earlier, been a 44 square mile conflagration.



The road, 193 (or 93?), I believe, took us right through the burned-out forest. It was rather surreal – earlier in the day had been my first time seeing a forest in weeks – then this: a wasteland of charred timber and ashes matted and compressed by days of bombardment by water. And then, for no seemingly logical reason, the blackness would yield to a very much alive forest. Sometimes the right side of the road would be untouched, while the left was lifeless. And then the sides would switch. It was quite the experience, and if the trip had started a day or 2 earlier, our passage would not have been possible. [In fact, the entire area had been evacuated until the day before we got there. It was reevacuated 2 days, I think, after we left.]

We met briefly with the other 3 riders and Kathryn’s parents at the summit of this first taste of the Rockies before descending into St. Mary. There, just outside the park at about miles 68, we recouped, refilled, and split a cheese pizza, which I believe was the perfect food for the occasion. Though we were already almost an hour behind schedule by the time we left, we were in high spirits. The preparation the day before was paying dividends: ~68 miles in, I honestly felt that, except for being warmed up, I had not yet biked a single mile. I was ready for GNP, the Sun Road, Logan Pass, and the Continental Divide.

Elana and I stayed together for the next 10 miles or so, paying our way into the park and riding along the north shore of St. Mary Lake. Though smoke plumed from a number of different locations, an (oddly) fortunate head/cross wind blew it all to the south, clearing the air and our vision, while rendering our masks amusingly unnecessary. We were together until Wild Goose Island, where a friendly gentleman offered to take our picture, and finally separated as the climb really began.



I feel that it would be a foolish waste of time and space in this journal to attempt to describe what I saw on the ascent, so I will waste no words in trying to do so. The photos, as disappointing as they are due to appalling lighting conditions, document most of the sights, and there are only so many synonyms for majestic, beautiful, mesmerizing, and the like. I am no Joseph Conrad.

[This picture was actually taken the next day, when the lighting was better. It is, in fact, 2 pictures, stitched together using panorama making software. Some of the other pictures in this post are also panoramas.]

I do not wish to say the first ride to Logan Pass was uneventful, but I feel the 2nd ascent better exemplifies my feelings – emotionally and physically – than the first, so I will just say that I took lots of pictures (thus stopping often), chatted with some very impressed people along the way, and was dumbstruck by what I was seeing. A tunnel a mile from the summit proved dizzying and too dark for sunglasses, and construction 400 yards from the Visitors’ Center converging 2 lanes to 1 forced a final sprint which felt more like a triumphal release of spirit than a bane to my energy supply. And then I was at the top.

I chilled for awhile... knowing that many of the people walking by thought that I’d done was pretty incredible. Elana and I later agreed that telling people we were doing it 3x in 2 days was one of the most enjoyable parts of the day. I wondered what I would have thought of me if I’d been driving and seen me there, on my bike, at the top. Apart from thinking me an incredible cyclist (and that’s not a self-call – that’s what I would have thought, I’m sure… after all, I never would have imagined I’d actually be able to climb the mountain, so I’d obviously have mucho respect for anyone that did), I think I would have thought the cyclist more legitimate, as in his existence in the park. Thus, I felt on Saturday more legitimate than the drivers. I felt I’d have more of a right to say I’d taken the Sun Road. I still feel that way. I feel like I own it; I went up both sides on one day – in a sense, I do own it. And I feel I left a piece of myself on that mountain – a piece I can reconnect with when I visit again. I suppose, perhaps, it’s kind of like Ali [my horse from horse camp, years back] being, in a way, my horse. I rode her, cleaned her, got to know her. The Sun Road is my road. Logan Pass is my pass.



I enjoyed the Visitors’ Center, and bought a book there on Sunday [the next day, when all of us passed through Glacier on our way to Whitefish] – Undaunted Courage. I think it’s the perfect book for this trip, and so far [this part of the entry was actually written a few days later] am truly fascinated by it.



Finally, it was time for the descent. Elana and I were excited for 12 miles of 6% grade, and were still just an hour behind schedule when we left. Turns out, it was the scariest downhill and maybe the most intense 30-40 minutes of my life.



to be continued...