Let me out let me be gone

Chapter 2 – Glacier National Park and Montana – days 7 to 14

After 14 days on route we are finally having our first day off in Bigfork, a nice and chilled out resort town with nothing to do.

The stats so far are:

Days of sunshine: 14/14
Km cycled: 733
Mechanical problems: 0 – Considering the roads we have been through Dharma and Hayduke are doing great, the tubeless tires are working wonder which is sparing a lot of trouble.
Mosquito bites: no space left
Average of meals per day: 6
Max days without showers: 3 (I still stink after 2 showers)
Wildlife entries: mountain goat and hummingbird, soooo cute!

All things considered we have been very lucky. We are still taking to each other and apart from the general feeling of tiredness we feel happy and good. Today we are even spoiling ourselves and staying in Bigfork in a nice motel with a pool :)

After entering the States we have taken a detour to Glacier National Park, the highlights of the last week have been:

- North Fork Hostel in Polebridge – http://nfhostel.com/
Ending up in this hostel after a hard day on gravel road was a blessing from the sky. This place is a piece of Paradise and Oliver, the guy running it, an inspiring figure in our way. This is by far the best hostel I’ve ever stayed in. Every bit of it conveyed the story of the people that built it over the years. I usually don’t like to collect ‘stuff’ but that was not stuff, it was a collection of details reminding of the life, and memories, and stories of those who made it what it is. Oliver himself is quite a character, and talking to him was worth every drop of sweat to get to the place.

Numa lookout

When Oliver told us that Edward Abbey spent a season working as a ranger at the Numa lookout by the Bowman lake, we knew we had to get there. That was supposed to be a day off, but we ended up cycling 11 miles each way on a hell of a road to get to the lake, and then 2h no stop walking up a steep path, but, it was so worth it!

- Going to the Sun Road
With much regret we had to leave Polebridge and the hostel, and we headed to lake MacDonald via the ‘Oliver alternate’, a forest road closed to cars that leaded directly to Apgar, where we camped for 2 nights.

We knew the Going to the Sun Road is a must do cycle. It’s 46km, the first 20 being flat along the lake, and then it’s an endless up up up up, and up again. The only problem was the bike restriction from 11am to 4pm, which means we had to start at 7am, and we got there with no stops at 10.40am, dead tired and freezing cold. We did find the name quite misleading. Instead of ‘Going to the Sun’ it should have been named ‘Going to Freezing Hell’. The Lagan Pass was only 2000m high but the cold was unbelievable. Paul was in shorts and he was about to get in hypothermia so we quickly got back. The landscapes were amazing though, no wonder it's so popular.

There are so many places and people and things that happened that I’d like to share, but time in the library is limited to a hour and I need to make it short. The next few weeks will be pure Great Divide cycle, until we will reach Yellowstone sometimes in July and will get another detour there. In the meantime we will make the most of Montana, and the day off of course.

Other random pictures from this week: