National Park Day 6 – Bike Going-to-the-Sun Road

After going to sleep at 6pm the night before, I woke up at 4am ready to take on the world.  Unfortunately I wouldn’t have anyone in my family to join me in that mission for several hours so I spent the morning researching and blog writing. 

It turns out that this exact time we’re at in glacier is a bucket list type thing for bikers.  There is a fairly short window in the spring where they’ve plowed enough snow to the top that it’s able to be driven with a bike, but still closed for cars because they haven’t cleared all of the higher elevation, parking lots, etc that you need to open it to the hoards of cars.  This combination makes it the perfect time to drive a bike up to the top, or at least as far as it’s been cleared.

I found several places close by that did bike rentals and a plan started to hatch.  I was going to try to rent bikes and somehow get them to avalanche campground so we could bike to the very top of going-to-the-sun road.  The type of bikes would be very important though.  No one in our family is hard core bikers and I think we’d fade once we got to the steep parts with regular mountain bikes.  A new option they have now for the infirm is e-bikes that have a battery and motor in them.  The kind that are legal in glacier are the ones where you pedal, but the motor gives you a boost so it’s like you are pedaling with 2x-3x the force.  That sounds more realistic for getting our group up the mountain without killing us (or the the girls killing me).  The real challenge will be finding rentals without a reservation and making sure I could get one for Victoria and Lydia since most places say age limit 16 and above for e-bikes.

When the family woke up, or at least conscious enough to ask questions, I asked them if they wanted to bike if I could find the rentals and they all wanted to do it, so I left them to get ready, grabbed a quick breakfast and strode out to the Glacier park area to search for bikes.

The first place I stopped at was called Glacier guides in the town just outside of the park.  I talked with the workers setting up the bikes outside about what the options were.  They had a ton of bikes, including some fairly small ones that looked like they might work for the girls and didn’t balk when I mentioned ages.  They also had a shuttle that would take you and the bikes up to avalanche.  Perfect!  I went inside to make reservations and they were out of the large and medium size ones that Noelle and I would need.  Shoot!  They suggested I try Glacier Outfitters which is in the park.  In the park places seemed even less likely to have reservations available, but I would not give up hope.

I left there and entered the park.  I showed my 4th grade pass and they asked if Victoria was in the car.  I admitted she was not (not yet at least) but that I was checking on reservations and she let me through with some hesitations.

I found Glacier Outfitters that was in the little village of shops that is close to the visitor center.  It looked a little mickey mouse / less professional than the last place, but I walked up with hat in hand asking if they had any reservations left.  She checked the computer and – BOOM – YES THEY DID.  They did have e-bikes available for me, Noelle, and my 16 and 17 year old daughters that are a little short for their ages.  Don’t judge me.  I put in the reservations and went back to get the girls.

The rest of the family was getting up, dressed, and fed while I was gone so they were all ready to go when I got back and we piled in and headed back over with packed lunches in tow.  We made it through the gate with Victoria this time who is required to wave and say hi to prove she is with us.  Now is the tricky part – bike pickup.

Due to the tangled web of lies I’ve made, we need to pickup the bikes without them realizing one of the riders is 10.  The plan was for us to park close by and have Noelle and I walk over and get the bikes, leaving Victoria and Lydia in the car. 

We walked over, checked in and we’re below by a nice group of college aged kids that showed us how everything worked and were only slightly confused why our other two riders weren’t here with us.  “Don’t worry, they’re just eating breakfast back there – you know how 16 year olds are – always eating.  No, I don’t need your help walking the bikes over, but thank you for offering.”. While we were there talking, I also added a bike rack that you could strap to the back that didn’t require a hitch which the jeep did not have.  It could only handle 2 e-bikes, but maybe we can make two trips. 

We started to try to walk the bikes over two at a time but Noelle dropped one hard on the pavement so we just rode them over in two trips.  I was a little worried about the height for Victoria.  We tried to do a test drive of her bike in the parking lot, but it was just a too tall for her, even with the seat all the way down.  She could maybe have pedaled standing up, but was also scared of the height of it and was getting upset.  Uh oh, what do we do now.  I drove her bike back and asked if there was anything smaller in ebike but this was the smallest one.  If we wanted smaller, we’d have to go mountain bike.  They had several options there, but asked me to bring Victoria back so we could see what worked.  Oh no, the jig is up. 

I walked back one more time and brought Lydia back as she would be less embarrassing to present as a 16 year old.  I instructed her to evaluate the suitability of the bike as if she was Victoria.  She test drove the small mountain bikes they had there and thought it would work, so we did the trade and returned to the car for the last time.  Hopefully Victoria’s gymnast / soccer legs can self propel this mountain bike up a mountain…

We wanted to test our bikes in the minor league before we stepped up to the majors, and there was a nice, flat, paved bike path called Apgar bike path through the woods right where we were, so we saddled up and took off.

Everything worked great on the bikes.  We tested the electric mode on the e-bikes and it definitely provided a ton of power.  The bikes had 4 different modes – eco, tour, sport, and turbo.  The different modes gave less/more boost power, but burned less/more battery.  This was the first time the kids ever rode bikes with gear shifters, so they got to test that also.

The path was easy.  It was fairly straight through the woods, went across a couple roads, through residential areas where I’d guess the rangers / seasonal workers stay, and onto one downhill windy path that went to the river.  It was a nice little ride to warm our legs up.

We gazed at the river and bridge for 30 seconds, but it wasn’t much to look at, so we turned back around and road the trail back to the village parking lot.  It was about lunch time at this point, so we ate in the car and I mounted the bike carrier on the back of the jeep.  We didn’t want to make two trips up to avalanche, which is like 20-30 minutes of driving, so I laid all the seats down, put one of the e-bikes in there, and put two of the e-bikes plus the mountain bike on the carrier.  That didn’t leave any seats for the girls, so they laid down back with the bike (the road up is very slow and safe) and we drove away.

Luckily I had the forethought to book Going-to-the-sun reservations for both full days in glacier and they waved us through again with girls doing their best to hide in the back.  This time up the road there was construction where they were pouring dirt along the side of the road.  It took 10 minutes longer than it did before.

We found one of the last couple spots in the back of avalanche and unloaded the girls and bikes.  Right when I was finished, the coffee started to hit me and I started looking for a restroom.  Luckily we’re in a campground and there are many.  I walked to the one close by and…it’s locked – closed for season.   Ok… Let’s all drive to the entrance together.  The girls continue on and I head down the lane towards the front and drive to another bathroom there…locked.  The desperation level had increased drastically at the point.  I know there was one campsite bathroom that was open by the end of the cedar tree trail so I start biking through the forest past puzzles deer until I find the brown trail and turn left and sprint down the trail… the wrong way and arrive at the entrance where I see a no bike sign.  Now I’m conflicted.  Do I bike back down the road and violate the sign it speed walk that direction instead?  My mind wasn’t working clearly so I dropped bike and started speed walking.  As I’m going, I’m considering plan B and looking for potential trees with cover but there are people everywhere.  Luckily I round one last corner, pass a family of 8 that were headed towards the same place and make it there just in time!

Back with the girls, we started the bike up the road.  The beginning was fairly flat and we all were handling it easily with or without the electric boost.  The views were incredible.  River, mountains, forest as far as you can see.  It felt very different seeing it on a bike instead of the car.  You just feel more connected to what you’re seeing instead of witnessing it through window glass.

We had traveled up a few miles with me in the lead and Lydia occasionally turning on turbo mode to fly last then turn around and wait for Noelle to catch up.  I came around a corner a little bit in front of the rest of the family and saw a black lump on the side of the road and continued to approach it.  Then I saw the lump move and saw that the moving lump was best shaped.  It was a black bear!  I hit the brakes and yelled for the family to stop who did so right behind me… Except for Lydia who turned her bike around and rode it back down the hill a ways.  She was not going to be eaten.

The bear was minding it’s own business eating grass on the side of the road, so I didn’t pull out my bear spray that I had in my bag.  Several other people drove up and stopped to watch.  The bear had enough of the grass on that side of the road and actually started walking in the road towards me.  I realized I was a bit isolated up front and drove back to join the rest of the group since bears don’t like messing with groups.  The bear changed his mind about an Evan snack and saw some yummy grass on the other side of the road and walked over to eat that instead and went off into the woods.  That was enough for people to gain confidence and we rode past the area.

We continued on to about mile 4 on the trip, with 4 left to go to “the loop”, one of the major points of interest on the road.  If you can get to the loop, it’s another 8 or so up to Logan’s pass, which is the highest point on the road and probably still snow covered.  It gets much steeper past the loop, so I was hoping we could at least make it there.  However, at this point in the road, it switched from a very incline to a much more pronounced uphill – probably something like 2-3 percent grade.  I switched my boost from eco mode to tour and felt like it was nothing – like flat surface, but Victoria was starting to struggle on her mountain bike. 

She started out with more just huffing and puffing then started to feel a little sick and overheated and grouchy.  She was wearing leggings that were getting her hot.  Lydia brought a pair of shorts that she changed into in the side of the road when no one was around, but we left Victoria’s in the car.  The higher we went, the more breaks we needed to take, and the more she complained and asked for the group to turn around, but when we kept going, she did too.

There was one point where she was starting to get very overheated, but we found a cold spring coming out of the mountain that I doused her with to cool her off and calmed her down.  I was giving her the countdown to the loop, which was down to less than a mile at that point.  Noelle asked her if she wanted her to stay there and let me and Lydia go to the top by ourselves and she refused to give up, so we kept moving.

About .3 miles from the loop, there is a tunnel that they carved into the mountain with two big windows over the valley before.  There was water dripping all over the place that felt great to take a quick walk through.  We all cooled off there a bit, enjoying the views then made our move for the final stretch.

Lydia rode up ahead of us and confirmed that the loop was just around the corner, so Victoria put her head down and pushed with everything she had left.  One more bend and WE MADE IT.  The loop is called the loop because the road turns 180 degrees in a looping switchback and continues up steeper.  The landscape you see from that spot is crazy.  There’s snow mountains, rivers, a waterfall and just an incredible reward for such a hard trek up.  The e-bike group had plenty of gas left and I definitely could have kept going to the top in sport or turbo mode, but Victoria would have had a better chance of making it by trying to ride that bear’s back up, so we did our own loop and started heading back down.

Gravity is a hell of an invention.  If riding up was painful, riding down was an absolute joy.  I didn’t need to save battery any more so I put the thing in turbo mode and gassed it down full speed until I started to get a little worried about crashing and flying off the mountain.  All of Victoria’s tears and complaints were gone with gravity on her side.  You could enjoy the views better as well when you’re burning less calories fighting up.  I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to call that downhill cruise a religious experience.  I thought of my friend David who is currently fighting brain cancer.  He loves mountain biking and had tried to get me to go several times.  David – you would love this ride – make sure you come do it once you’ve kicked cancer’s butt.  I’m sure you won’t need the sissy e-bike to do it.

We flew down the mountain in record time – maybe 10 percent of the time it took to make it up.  We loaded the bikes up in the jeep and road back down with smiles on our faces. 

At the bottom, we unloaded the bikes with the help of the college kids, no longer worried about our reservations getting cancelled and walked over to get the ice cream we promised the girls that they could have when we were done.  We sat there in the shade and enjoyed some excellent ice cream then drove back to the hotel.

We were too tired to eat out, so I ordered some door dash from “The Good Taco” a Mexican restaurant close by and had it delivered to the hotel.  Very, very good – some of the best tacos I’ve ever had.

This was probably our last chance at laundry, so Noelle worked on that while I worked on the blog and took the girls down to the pool.  Noelle joined us after a bit.  We were going to do the hot tub, but some people hogged it for 30 minutes and we gave up and went back upstairs. 

I’ll definitely miss Glacier national Park.  I would have liked a couple more days to check out the East side of the park that we heard is great also.  It just means that we’ll need to come back again.  Maybe Victoria will be tall enough for an e-bike on the next trip!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *