Part 3 Glacier and the Going To The Sun Road and more

[Terry]

Aaah Glacier...where did it go? I've been up there a number of times and all around the same time of year, give or take a few days and I've never seen it so dry. The raining wall was barely raining and the Glacier is all but gone. As you can see in the pics, almost no snow was present even on the highest peaks, which are all over 9-10,000'. I prefer it to be kinda cold up high with snow all around as my previous pics show. Seems more natural to me but the ride across even when its warm is very worthwhile. And warm it was. Mesh jacket and gloves is all I needed. Really warm, everywhere, even 34 miles from Canada and at the north fork of the Flathead river (the signs you can't quite read due to my failing camera).

The park is still a vast area of untouched land. Forests below me as far as I can see as I wind my way across the narrow lanes and temporary bridges and tunnels that make up the GTTSR. Just incredible beauty. A problem inside the park this trip was the increased traffic. See them lined up to watch the Mt goats? Way more than last time and, in addition to the old red busses, the park has added a couple dozen modern airporter sized busses to ferry people back and forth and they run constantly in caravans all day at around 25-35 mph. When you get stuck behind them your stuck, so I took many opportunities to just pull over. Lots more places for bikes than cars to pull out and let the traffic crawl away ahead of you. In the day and a half I spent there, staying in Kalispell, I road the GTTSR W to E, and E to W twice. Best time and direction was E to W very late in the day. Traffic was much much better and road thru the shady groves on the west side along the huge lake MacDonald were a real treat to ride.

Rode up to end of pavement on the NW side of the park and saw that I was 34 miles from Canada but would have preferred a KTM or ? to make that ride especially with a balding rear tire. The ride outside and around the park on the south, east and west sides is also a great ride. Not too much traffic and plenty of passing opportunities when needed. Just a very relaxing cruise thru still more tree lined 2 lanes. Incredibly beautiful country.

That lake! Oddly the pic I took there showing the rental boats late in the day turned out pretty good. It was in the hi 80s at around 8 p.m. mountain time. Stayed light almost to 10 p.m. Never understood why there is a Mt time zone. Its really quite small in area too??!! So, at the end of July 3rd I prepare to leave the area for points north and west. Early July 4th I head north past Whitefish and Eureka MT and turn west towards Bonners Ferry ID. Long empty sweepers and straightaways with beautiful country to look at. I'll bet I didn't see ten cars the whole way. Spectacular area, considering that the county I live in has a couple million people in it!

All the way into WA state past Priest River ID the country is great. Even up to Tiger where I really turn west across the state on hiway 20 and eventually the cascade crest to I-5 where I'll turn south heading for the OR coastline at Astoria. This area was completely new to me. Spent the night in Winthrop, about midway. Nice 2 lane all the way across. Not too crowded and lots of varied landscapes to see and corners to carve. Along here was where I got worried about my balding rear tire. The last hundred miles or so I had to ride on threads so I took advantage of the corners to really carve them up and for the straights, well, I just took it easy, braking completely with the fronts and so on.

Made it in to Skagit Motorsports right after they opened and in an hour or so rode away with a new rear. Got a ticket on my way to lunch with George and Dan, yadda yadda, and headed southwest to the OR coast. Man, the traffic anywhere around Seattle north and south is terrible, just like Los Angeles. Hated the freeway but its almost a necessity to get to where I was headed. Crossing the giant Columbia river over the Lewis and Clark bridge signalled another 2 lane experience, and it was about time! I'll post the rest of the pics here including some on the OR coast and one on the Avenue of the Giants but for the rest of the story...

http://s70.photobucket.com/albums/i87/j ... 0tour-P-2/