Planning this years ride. We are in Dallas and have been wanting to do a ride to the Glacier National Park in Montana. A couple of the guys also want to hit Sturgis again, so this is the compromise.
We trailer to Sturgis before the rally starts (1,000 miles), leaving the truck and trailer at a quiet campground and hop on the bikes for the 650 mile haul to GNP. Ride and camp through the mountains then back down to Sturgis for the second half of the week. Load the bikes back on the trailer and drive home ready for work on Monday.
Going to The Sun Road. Looking east
I like to ride it from the Eastside heading west . Less traffic. Great spot.
There is a National Park Pass $80 annual for 2 bikes and passengers. It will get you into the Badlands also,other wise $25 fee per bike at each park.
+1 on the pass. If you plan on visiting national parks. It's a must. It pays for itself if there are two of you it pays for itself real fast. On one trip we took out west we visited so many parks it was paid for so fast it was great pulling up to the gate and showing the card.
Planning this years ride. We are in Dallas and have been wanting to do a ride to the Glacier National Park in Montana. A couple of the guys also want to hit Sturgis again, so this is the compromise.
We trailer to Sturgis before the rally starts (1,000 miles), leaving the truck and trailer at a quiet campground and hop on the bikes for the 650 mile
haul to GNP. Ride and camp through the mountains then back down to Sturgis for the second half of the week. Load the bikes back on the trailer and drive home ready for work on Monday.
Thoughts?
I'd say you've got a fine plan going there. Since you're camping, take a look at Two Medicine Lake Campground in GNP. I suspect it's about 650 from Sturgis. I camped there 2 years ago and it's amazing. Apagar on the west side is good too, but busier. You've allowed plenty of time before you head back to Sturgis so you can consider side trips. Waterton, Alberta is a neat little town and nice ride just over the border. Besides The Sun Road, your group might like a ride over to Whitefish to ride the high speed quad that takes you to the top of the mountain for some great views into GNP. You folks are in for an unforgettable time.
Looks like a good plan. I did GNP a couple of years ago after Sturgis. Beautiful place. I camped the first night at a KOA on the east side. It got pretty chilly that night and I have a pretty good sleeping bag. Campground was like $38. I had a cabin reserved in West Glacier the next two nights for $40. I rode across the border just to say I did. Nice little town. Cost like $10 to enter. It was like it was a NP or something. No problem crossing the border, it just took a while getting into Canada as they were checking one group pretty good. Pictures turned out good, but as others said, they just don't do it justice. There were a lot of fires in WA and OR and there was a lot of smoke.
The guys are concerned about the number of days so I have modified the plan a little bit.
Friday after work, we trailer to Sturgis and arrive Saturday morning. We enjoy the rides and a few concerts.
Wednesday morning, we put the bikes back on the trailer and run to Yellow Stone NP. From there we can plan a loop North into Glacier National Park and back to Yellow Stone. Tuesday morning we load the bikes and make the haul back to Dallas.
That is basically 4 days in Sturgis and 5 days riding YS/GNP area.
More truck time than I would generally like, but we can cover a lot of ground quickly hauling the bikes.
I would ride YS for two days, spend a day on each loop in both directions, and then ride to GNP, ride it a day and then back to YS the next day. Maybe that is your plan according to the days you have allotted.
01-14-2017, 09:13 PM
Dallas to Glacier National Park and Sturgis
