This was an amazing day. Day in the Mountains. Day when you feel sooo alive...
We woke up and were on bikes before sun rise, slowly biked up on Going-To-The-Sun Road, one of the most spectacular and scenic Highways in whole United States. It really is... Mountains slowly changed color from dark blue to red, orange to yellow. St. Mary Lake was like a mirror and sky sooo blue... We saw elk. Slowly another tourist woke up and the road became more busy. The road went steadily up, sometimes literally glued to the cliffs in the valley. There was 17 miles uphill before us, but with the scenery around we barely noticed it. Yes, it was quite steep, but after hills around Chief Mountain on Hwy #6, this was easy, we even didn't use the lowest gear. And we stopped a lot to take pictures, to look around, to breath... It was an amazing feeling to be back in the Mountains again, after more than one year, funny... Even the traffic on the road wasn't problem, because it was after season and because of some construction works on the road. They always stopped whole traffic for couple minutes, so than we had whole road only for us, than we wait while all cars passed (like one huge noisy and stinking caravan) and again we were alone with the mountains around. Many people encouraged us on our way up, we met Linda & Warren again, they passed us on motorbike, taking video of us and yelling our names. It was fun watching again and again how shocked the people were when they saw us, or heard our plan ("Where are you heading? To the west coast... and than down to Mexico...").
We reached Logan Pass, the highest point of Going-To-The-Sun Road (2025 m) by noon. There is a Visitor Center, and it was pretty crowded this place. We took quick lunch, took some pictures of mountains goats. Than there was 12 miles long descent to Lake McDonald with totally unique views of the Mountains shaped by glaciers. The road down was very narrow with many curves, huge cliffs above and under it. And also with many small rest-stops, luckily for us and ours wheel rims - because of braking they were very hot. Again we met with Linda & Warren, this time they were on they way
back to St. Mary. They recommended and sponsored us for a Huckleberry
Ice Cream in Apgar. We used this sponsorship immediately after we
arrived to Apgar. Huckleberry Ice Cream (actually it was frozen yogurt) was delicious, thanks! In the Loop we saw what left after huge forest fire in 2003. Well, you can still see remnants of old forest, but nice new forest (still small) is growing everywhere (and without help of all mighty foresters - that's something which Slovak's foresters don't want to admit). Also met here another young guy on bike trip from Denver to here and than down to San Diego. After we reached bottom of valley, rest 14 miles were nearly even, with small river on the right side, later with Lake McDonald. And with another nice views.
Our final destination for today was village of Apgar (with Huckleberry
Ice Cream), while eating and chating with people around we met another couple (Brad & MaryJo) which invited us to visit them in Kent, Brad, who just finished here his own nine days long bike trip, gave us exact directions how to get there and promised us nice dinner and roof above a head. Well, we will see... Night we spent in Apgar State Campground, which was totally full, even it is after season (mainly because the other campgrounds are closed). This was really good day for biking...
Pictures:
Morning
Morning in the Glacier NP
Going-To-The-Sun
St. Mary Lake
Goose Island
Going-To-The-Sun with a spectacular views
Nearly in the Logan Pass
And this is view from Logan Pass with our road down.
On the way down to Apgar
This road is really on the edge...
Lake McDonald, finally down...
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