Going to the Sun
20 June 2018
Someone was playing Yakkity Sax all morning.
It was a little weird waking up in a hotel room on a camping trip, but it sure was nice to have dry gear! But, it wasn’t exactly cheap, and thus began this mornings challenge/ordeal - finding a campsite.
As I was told by the camp host at the Many Glacier campground later, Glacier recieved 3.3 million visitors last year, roughly ten times as many as they had 10 years ago. Unfortunately, their budget and their campground check-in policies haven’t kept up. I was told by the concierge at the fancy hotel to check with the ranger station, which opened at 8. I pulled up at, and they had been open since 7. I asked the ranger about getting a campsite, he said to track down the “campground staff”. So I hopped on the bike and putted through the campground, looking for someone official. I found another ranger, who said she hadn’t seen anything open, and they weren’t super excited about people driving through the campground at 8am looking for campsites. So, I went back to the hotel, packed up my gear, and came back about 9. No sites yet. But there had been a bear! So I hung out at the general store across the street for 45 minutes, ate some food, came back, and now the campground was full. Apparently, this is normal, although on days when they expect lots of traffic, they will make everyone looking for a site line up at the gate outside the campground and wait for other people to pack up and leave. Overall, the camp hosts were very apologetic that “first come first serve” didn’t really mean that, it was really more of a “circle like a vulture, first serve” situation.
I left the Many Glaciers area and headed out to St Mary on a tip from the camp host that Johnson’s RV Park had nice camping facilities. As I found out though when I got there, they don’t have bear boxes, or trees, so all my smellables would be bear bait, no bueno. The people at Johnsons suggested that I try out the Rising Sun campground in the St Marys Valley part of the park, since it was slightly less popular. So I did, and I had camp all setup by 1pm. Yay. Lesson learned - Get reservations if you can.
Not wanting to waste any of the day, I sauntered over to the campground store and picked up a pack of cheese/almonds/turkey and kicked back on their front porch watching the clouds go by. I might even have taken a tiny nap. The weather couldn’t have been more perfect.
It was a little late for a good hike today, but there was plenty of time to drive open portion of the Going to the Sun Road. I hopped on the bike and headed west and up. Did I mention how great the weather was? It was probably in the upper 70’s, low humidity, and there was a nice breeze with only a few clouds in the sky. I rode all the way to the turnaround at the Jackson Glacier overlook, which is where they had chosen to close it off due to supposedly still plowing snow at the summit. I parked up there and had a look around. There’s a good view of the mountain which formerly held the Blackfoot Glacier, which split into the Blackfoot and Jackson glaciers, which are both a whole lot smaller than they were and are now buried in snow due to the time of year it is.
After leaving the Jackson Overlook it was all downhill, with lots of turnouts on the south side of the road. There were tons of people and vehicles up there, so I didn’t get to stop at all of them, but I got plenty of pictures and views of the St Marys valley. One stop in particular has a stream that was flowing very strongly. If you follow some stairs down, there is a trail that winds down the side of the valley to where the creek goes over Baring Falls, and with all the water running over, it was throwing off a cold spray that gave a nice chill even 50 feet away. It was a great place to sit and relax for a bit.
The rest of the ride down was calm and uneventful, which is the best kind of ride down a mountain. It was about dinner time, so I headed into town looking for something tasty. I saw a place on the side of the road, called the Bad Frog Cantina, which a sign that said “huge burritos!”. Perfect! They served up a pretty solid burrito, a little salty, with excellent salsa. The only caveat was the blizzard of fluffy white stuff falling off of the cottonwood trees, that was a little weird.
After dinner, I stopped at the visitors center to use their wifi, picked up a load of firewood and had a nice sit around the fire. When I went up to brush my teeth, I met Nate. He rode here on his bicycle from Minneapolis. He plans to end up in Anchorage, Alaska in a couple months. He averages 40-60 miles each day, and usually has to restrain himself from doing more to keep from passing up all of the neat things such a riyte has to offer. He actually rode over from West Glacier today over the Going to the Sun Road, which was clear all the way through, and he couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t open for cars. And, talking to another guy on a motorcycle, who talked to a ranger, people are on the schedule to work at the visitor center at Logan Pass on Saturday, so there is some belief that the road will open then. Not sure whats going on, but I’m sure we could start some good conspiracy theories.
Back at the camp, I had a nice campfire (when it wasn’t smoking profusely) and swatted mosquitos.
Tomorrow, I’m probably going to do the Grinnell Glacier day hike. Its a long one, but apparently its awesome.