Today we rode from Great Falls, through Glacier and ended up in Whitefish, where we have a little apartment booked for 2 nights.
Some of you may remember my trip from NJ to Vegas a few years ago. I lived out there for 2 years, and rode around quite a bit. With that in mind, a lot of what I've seen of Montana up until today reminder ds me a lot of the Mojave desert covered in grass and with water in the rivers. When the rocks are bare, they appear to be similar to the rocks in Vegas. At least in a lot of what I've seen so far. I guess much of what we've ridden through must be "high plains". At least that's how I've been thinking of it.
The similarity to Vegas is especially true near the Missouri River. When we were riding to the Mahoney and Ryan Dams yesterday (Ryan Dam is Great Falls), the landscape looked so similar to what you see when riding Lake Mead Parkway, except here it's all grass covered! It's really remarkable.
Today, though, I was amazed at how varied the landscape was. At one point while riding north on 89 I looked to the right and saw vast plains, with what looked like it was almost desert; to my left were lush green fields with the rugged Rockies as a backdrop. It was really something. Then, as we approached Browning, everything suddenly changed. All of a sudden there were evergreens on the slopes which rapidly became more and more dense. We left the plains and entered the mountains!
We stopped for lunch in East Glacier. It just so happened to be the place's first day open for business. We had over priced, overcooked burgers..... To be fair, when the waitress asked how everything was and we told her - politely, but honestly - she got us each a new burger. And mine was already gone. So I got 2 for the price of 1, and the second one was much better. Still not worth the price, but what the hell...
East Glacier; the sign for the East Glacier Restaurant is visible. This was our lunch spot.
When we left lunch, we went across the street, under the railroad tracks and stopped to check out the Glacier Park Lodge, which I found out about by looking at the pictures on the wall in the restaurant. One of these showed the lodge under construction during 1912 and another at its grand opening in 1913. This place is spectacular! I have never seen a more rustic, magnificent building! Check it out here:
The railroad bridge over Rt 49, beyond which is the Glacier Park Lodge :
I'm not sure how long we spent here, at least an hour, maybe closer to 2. Very cool place!
Some pics of the lodge. The Web page has much better photos, but these are a couple I took:
We left the Glacier Park Lodge heading north to St Mary on Route 49. There was a sign advising motorcycles to consider alternate route due to intermittent pavement. I disregarded this and am so glad I did! There were some rough places in the pavement, but it was all there the whole way. There are free range cattle and horses - this is Blackfoot Indian territory - and these do end up in the road here and there. And there are no guardrails, and gravel shoulders, which occasionally means gravel in the road. But what a beautiful ride! There was a constructiondelay, we had to stop at a temporary light and wait for a "follow me" truck. This was our only delay on 49.
The park was incredible. This is what I've always envisioned Montana to look like. Waterfalls everywhere from the snowmelt; snow on the north face all over the place; dense forest; turquoise water in the lakes and rivers; TOWERING mountains. My wife and I both took a zillion pictures as we rode through (we'll have more time tomorrow and will stop, get off and look more closely), but the pictures don't do it justice. Big Sky Country, Big Mountain Country... the Road to the Sun is smooth and winding. And not as slow and congested as I feared. We did have a critter jam caused by a couple of mountain goats, which was cool. That was the only critter sighting. I did have to zoom around some jackass in an F150 who couldn't keep moving at a steady pace. He was constantly jerking on the brakes. The last straw was his being "considerate" to a group of pedestrians who were obviously prepared to wait for the short line of traffic to pass. He stopped and motioned them across. Very considerate. Except to those of us who were behind him. I passed him when able and had no further problems putting along behind the next car in line. I kept a sharp eye out for bears, which I hoped to see and heard from another biker that one had been by the side of the road a short time before we went through, but didn't see any. But it was a thoroughly enjoyable ride, and I will definitely be coming back here and bringing my hiking boots with me!
A few more comments about the bike, which is a 15 Limited. This is sort of funny. My wife says it's a lot more comfortable than my bike. I am pretty sure that all the things that make it LESS comfortable for me are the same things that make it more comfortable for her. The squishy, soft, bouncy suspension, for instance. If I owned this bike, I think the first thing I'd do is ditch the air shocks and put a set of Ohlins 3-3's on it. That might be the 2nd thing I did, the 1st being a Mustang seat. The stock seat is OK for a while, but I couldn't wait to get off it today, and we didn't even ride 300 miles, I don't think. I can spend 12 hours on my Mustang seat with no problem. Well, that's a stretch. Let's say it takes about 12 hours for my *** to start to feel like it did after 6 hours today. The stock seat is too soft and squishy for me. My wife seems to like it.....
However, the tires, which are the stock Dunlops, are lightyear ahead of the stock Dunlops that came on my 02. Those tires SUCKED. These are excellent. They give me nothing but confidence, including in the torrential rain on Sunday.
This bike does something else infinitely better than mine, and that is stop. The brakes on my bike (stock) are good. I can lock up either wheel no problem. The brakes on the 15 are SO much better! More responsive, and require almost no effort at all.
I really like the saddlebag lid operation of the 15. So much easier to use than the older style. And even though the tour pack is shorter than the older king tour pack, it still holds a ton of luggage. And can fit my wife's full face helmet and my 3/4 with face shield when there isn't much else in there. We're carrying a lot of crap; I thought for SURE we'd be shipping some stuff home before setting off, but we didn't.
And this bike is quite happy to cruise along at 80+ with the cruise set for hours. It gets great mileage, and with the 6 gallon tank, I don't have to stop for fuel before we've gone over 200 miles. That's pretty awesome.
Last edited by northeastconfederate; 07-15-2016 at 10:06 PM.
This is from the Lewis and Clark museum. Depicts the portage of one of their dugout canoes around the falls. These things weighed hundreds of pounds! The slope is exaggerated because of the limmited space available for the display, but accurately matches the description written of the method and the struggle.
Given your interest in the Lewis and Clark expedition (from Undaunted Courage?) you may enjoy a trip report from advrider I ran across awhile back. Guy did a nice job putting it together.
Given your interest in the Lewis and Clark expedition (from Undaunted Courage?) you may enjoy a trip report from advrider I ran across awhile back. Guy did a nice job putting it together.
I read a book about their expedition a number of years ago. I am not even sure who the author is or what the title is anymore. Something tells me it was David Nevin who wrote it, but I'm not sure about that.
Today we spent most of the day in Glacier. We rode a total of right at 200 miles all together. We rode a big loop beginning in Whitefish, where we are staying, through the park on Going To The Sun Road; then south from St Mary until we hit route 2; then west on to to 93 and back into Whitefish.
It rained in the early morning, so we took our time getting ready and walked to the Buffalo Cafe for breakfast. We hit the road around 9:30 or so by which time things were starting to dry up, though not looking real promising. We rode to the west entrance and stopped at the visitor center there, which is more of a gift shop/money grab. Little to no useful info there. We cruised along Lake McDonald, which is absolutely enormous, and stopped to check out Lake McDonald Lodge. My wife had heard that this place is a must see. It is extremely nice; very rustic and beautiful. But after seeing the Glacier Park Lodge - let's just say the Lake McDonald Lodge is extremely nice, but not as grand as the Glacier Park Lodge. That is a tough act to follow. We had lunch there in the dining room: I had an over priced, somewhat overcooked elk burger. My wife had a chicken salad sandwich. It was thoroughly enjoyable because of the lodge, our table by an open window which overlooked a fast moving, crystal clear little creek. The fare was tolerable, but nothing to write home about. I did take a few pictures of the place.
We left there and headed for Logan pass, stopping at a few of the turnouts along the way to take pictures and admire the views.
O, and I talked to one of the "gear jammers" at the lodge who drives one of the refurbished, late 30's White tour buses. He gave me a little supplemental history of the buses to add to what was on the sign that told about them. He also told me there has been a mama grizzly and her cubs around Logan Pass lately. We headed for Logan pass, me hoping to spot her and my wife hoping not to! I hiked partway up the trail there after stopping in the visitor center and being told mama grizzly was seen there this morning but not lately. A ranger was keeping watch for her but hadn't seen her.
I didn't either, but did see a mountain goat. I got a good look at him through my binoculars; I did take a few pictures of him but was so far away they aren't all that exciting.
We left Logan pass and continued on, admiring the many falls and views of the river below and the green, rocky mountains. Along the way there was a small herd of bighorn sheep by the side of the road! One of them crossed, walking through stopped traffic, parked cars, etc, and moseied on his way while the others looked on. We got a few pics of these guys, too.
Below is one of the "gear jammers" and his refurbished late 30's White tour bus. Talked to this guy a bit, he had some cool supplemental info about the history and refurbishment of these buses.
07-13-2016, 12:24 AM
