Going to the Sun Road
This past June my wife and I vacationed at Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks in Wyoming and Montana. We did lots of hiking in both, but when we got to Glacier our timing gave us a great biking opportunity.
They had record snow in Montana over the winter and they were still plowing Going to the Sun Road in late June when we got there. That shuts the road down to cars but when the plows are not working, the road is open to cyclists and walkers. We arrived on Thursday pm and found that the plowing would stop for the weekend, so I arranged to rent two hybrid bikes (with disc brakes) for Saturday.
We picked up the bikes at the Apgar end of the park and biked over to where a shuttle bus takes you to the start of the closed section at the Avalanche Creek area - on the part that is open to cars, bikes are prohibited between 11a - 4pm. The elevation there is about 3300 feet and over the next 5 miles you only climb about 400 feet, with just stunning scenery all around - a river on the left, steep mountains on the right.
At that point you reach "The Loop" - a scenic view area where Going to the Sun Road takes a switchback turn and the real climbing begins. The next 11 miles or so are a near constant 6% grade up to Logan Pass at 6700 feet. I told my wife, who is a flat road cyclist, "When it stops being fun, you can turn around and glide back." She lasted a few miles and turned around.
I continued on with stark cliffs and waterfalls on my left and the beautiful valley view on the right. It was a brilliant sunny day, temps in the 60s but there was still 3-6 high snow drifts along the side of the road and all the snow melt made the many waterfalls and the Weeping Wall just awesome. The downside was my wife had the cellphone/camera with her - I took no pictures!
I kept slogging, stopped to look at a mountain goat a bit above the road, and finally made it to Logan Pass - with no camera to take the traditional picture next to the Logan Pass elevation sign! Turned around and glided 11 miles back down the Loop, riding the disc brakes quite a bit, and then made the turn for the leisurely pedal back to Avalanche Creek.
The full bucket list experience would be to do the entire Going to the Sun Road on my own road bike, but this filled my bucket up enough in a very memorable way.
John P.