Back In The US of A
Cruising through Glacier National Park.
After breakfast at the grand old Prince of Wales Hotel we left Waterton and got back on Alberta 6 to the border. Judy and I had dressed somewhat warmly anticipating cool temps later on the Going to the Sun Highway. But sitting in the sun waiting our turn I thought I would suffer heat stroke. Called forward (and into the shade!) we were thrilled when the border guy looked at our passports and looked at us and said he couldn’t see our faces clearly enough. We’d have to remove our helmets. Oh, please don’t throw me in that briar patch! That felt sooo good. After leaving customs we peeled off all extra layers.
Montana 17 and then U.S. 89 took us down to St. Mary and the east entrance to Glacier National Park. Traffic was relatively light here on the east side of Logan Pass. The one big difference from the OFMC had been here in 1966 was that they had had a big forest fire. With the trees burned you could see a lot more but what you could see was not as beautiful.
Over the top of Logan Pass and down the other side it was a total traffic jam. The road itself is beautiful, similar in ways to Independence Pass in Colorado, but longer. A narrow, twisting road hugging the hillside with sheer drops on the cliff side. And so crowded.
We made it out of the park and turned south on Montana 206, the road we had come up on five days before, then Montana 35 to Big Fork, our stop for the night.
The following day, Tuesday, Judy and I needed to split off from the group and blast home. Shooting to reach Denver on Thursday, I was scheduled to leave on Friday with the OFMC for our yearly ride.
We cut over from Big Fork back to Montana 83 and went south alongside Swan Lake to Clearwater and Montana 200. Then east to Montana 141, all of this retracing our route coming up. Past the Helmville Road, however, it was new road and 141 took us to Montana 142 at Avon. Past Avon we were soon forced to stop and put on rain gear for the first time this trip. Another 25 miles, in Helena, we stopped to peel it off. Continuing on U.S. 12, now also U.S. 287, we reached Townsend, and stayed on 12 going east and leaving 287.
A beautiful ride through the hills took us to U.S. 89, where we went north to White Sulphur Springs, after which the two highways split and we continued east on U.S. 12. At this point we were dodging the interstate. We could have made better time on I-90 but instead did more miles going east on 12 all the way to Harlowton. We probably didn’t see 15 cars all the way from Townsend to Harlowton, but we did see three motorcycles.
At Harlowton we turned south on U.S. 191 to Big Timber and our stop for the night.
Biker Quote for Today
Riding is not about being different, it’s about being yourself.
