Chapter 11: Glacier

 Chapter 11: Glacier

 

 

 

 

It feels like I've tripped a circuit breaker. I'm in Glacier Park, the mountains are towering above me, capped with snow, there are finally trees around - beautiful evergreen forests, and streams with clean water, but I'm walking around in a daze, like it's too much to even take it all in.

 

June 7, Saturday: 72 miles (3300.6 *odometer malfunction)

Today was a bit of a push, ending with some long hills. At the Rising Sun campground, I met a couple from Anchorage, Craig and Chris, who offered me the use of their apartment when I get there. Chris is a tough little lady! She biked to Alaska last summer, and is now about to bike across the lower 48, west to east.

June 8, Sunday: 13.5 miles (3314.1)

The Going to the Sun road, which is the only road through the park to the west side, is still closed due to recent snow, so I'm in a holding pattern. I rode into the park a few miles, wrote letters, and chipped away at an emotional dam I hadn't even realized was there, until it broke. Aside from my flute, about the only non-essential thing I carried was a gift Laura had given me for the trip; a micro cassette tape player, with a few tapes of songs she knew I liked, and a recording of some of my going-away party. I played those tapes, and hearing the voices of my friends triggered a catharsis. After that I was able to fully give myself over to the unimaginable, breathtaking splendor of the place. 

 

June 9, Monday: 48.6 miles (3362.7)

 The ride up to Logan Pass (6664 feet elevation) wasn't too bad, aside from a flat tire and a broken spoke, both easily fixed. In some places the snowbanks went 30 feet straight up from the road - I don't know what they use to clear the snow! And the scenery...!

 

 

At the top of Logan Pass

Seeing the road miles ahead, knowing that's where I will be in a while, always evokes a particular feeling... "pre-nostalgia" is the closest I can come to describing it.

 The west side of the park is more lush and green, the Pacific clouds getting wrung out as they are forced up over the mountains. And now the backdrop is snowcapped peaks instead of dusty brown rangeland.

 And the water!!! No muddy irrigation ditches now!

 I hated to leave the park, but I got 4 letters in West Glacier: including ones from Laura, and Debbie Lindvig who I stayed with in North Dakota.

It started looking like rain, so I hastily set up my tent in the only place I could find; an exposed ridge on Forest Service land. The rain turned out to be a thunderstorm, so I didn't dare stay in the lightning-rod tent up on the ridge, opting instead to don my rain gear and wait it out a safe distance below. The wind got quite strong, and I was worried the tent would be blown away, but it survived intact.

June 10, Tuesday: 63.2 miles (3425.9)

What an amazing day. The beauty of this area is really starting to take hold on me now, and I'm realizing it's a different type of beauty altogether than Glacier. That awe-inspiring grandeur was a National Park/Wonders of the World kind of beauty, too overwhelming to accommodate humans as anything but gaping, gasping visitors. Heading north now, in the valley west of the park, the beauty is on a more human scale, a paradise you could actually live in, and people do. Farms nestle in the valley, tucked right up against the base of mountains that are rugged, but not so formidable that one cannot imagine exploring them, or even reaching their summits if you were so inclined, without ropes and crampons.

My ride was a day-long show, starting with early-morning fog rising out of the valleys and brushing the mountainsides, then hot sun, then a midday sunshower, then an afternoon thunderstorm which made everything fresh and clean and cool, then out came the sun again, making the wet forest sparkle, and raising mist from the road. 

I made it to Dickey lake, with its crazy aqua-blue water and lush green forest with a carpet of moss. 

 

I realize that's just 4 days, but it seems like a week, and tomorrow felt like the start of a new chapter back then, and it does now too, so I'm going to stop here, and leave you with this photo of an evening sunshower and a field and some mountains.

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