June 22, 2021
Living the dream
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I have literally been dreaming of this day my entire life. Bike riding the Going to the Sun Hwy up to Logan Pass. The reality of the ride far far exceeded any dream I have had.
First a brief overview of what we did on the rest day prior to the ride up Logan’s Pass. On the rest day we rested. We rode a total of 7 miles. We slept in, then went to West Glacier village and bought lunch. We rode to the Apgar Campground and had a picnic lunch over looking Lake McDonald. Then we rode back to the village and went to the post office. We shipped some stuff home and picked up the replacement tent pole. Thanks again to Big Agnes for providing the replacement and shipping it to us. You guys are awesome! After the post office, we had a beer and then bought dinner groceries and went back to camp and made dinner. Then it was early to bed. It was a pretty restful rest day.
The next day we got up early to make the ride up the pass. The day was sunny and warm, a perfect day to climb a pass. The Going to the Sun hwy had 2 restrictive areas. There is a 9 mile segment at the start of the road that does not allow bicycles from 11am. til 4pm. The 8 mile segment at the top from the big loop until the pass cannot have bikes on it until the maintenance crew is done working some time between 3 pm and 4 pm. Our plan was to start early so we make it through the first segment by 11 am and then ride up slowly to the big loop and wait until the rest of the road opens. We packed our lunch to eat while we wait. We got up early and we’re in the village by 8 am to have breakfast sandwiches and buy lunch. We hit the Going to the Sun hwy at about 9 am and had no trouble getting through the first segment by the 11 am deadline. We stopped for a break at Lake McDonald Lodge and then continued riding to Avalanche campground. This is as far as automobiles are allow. The last 18 miles are bikes only. This made riding up the pass a very relaxing climb. There were lots of other bikers and many e-bikes going up the pass. Many of them went up to the big loop and then turned around and rode down. Several waited with us for the gate to the pass to open. We made it to the big loop by 1:30 and hung out for about 2 hours. After the road opened it took us about 1.5 hours to climb the steady 8 mile and 6% grade to the pass.
Now I get to talk about my amazing princess warrior bride Janet. At the big loop she told me “I want you and Ross to ride your pace to the pass and don’t wait for me. I will take my time and when I get tired I will turn around and wait for you at the big loop and re-join you on the way down.”. When the road opened, Ross and I took off and road it up to the top together. Ross was very kind and let me get to the top of the pass first. At the top we took a couple of pictures, ate a quick energy bar and then started back down the pass. We probably spent 10 minutes at the top. I wanted to get back to Janet who I assumed was waiting at the big loop. We start down the big hill and within a 1/2 mile from the summit we see Janet trucking up the pass. She is cooking it. I was so surprised and proud that I almost cried. We waved as we went streaking by. No, we stopped and cheered her on and congratulated her. We then climbed back up to the summit with Janet and took a few pictures of her at the top. Now it is about 5:30 - 6:00 and we need to ride 35 miles to get back to our campground. The descent was actually slow and under control. There were lots of rocks on the road, no guard rails and high cliffs to fall off if you go around a curve too fast. Lots of braking on the downhill. We eventually make it back to Lake McDonald lodge and we eat dinner. We have about 15 miles to go and it is about 8:45 pm. We also realize that the batteries on our back lights are dead. We ended up taking our headlamps, putting them on red and turning them to face back. We ended up getting back to camp by 9:45.
I am not a very eloquent or descriptive person. It is hard to describe how beautiful, amazing, awesome, outstanding, humbling, inspiring, spiritual the ride was. We took lots of pictures so you can see some of what we saw.
Today's ride: 70 miles (113 km)
Total: 868 miles (1,397 km)
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2 years ago
2 years ago
I’ve ridden this road in a car. What a different view on a bike. The photos are amazing! Love this journal.
2 years ago