Season 4 Episode 9. Our big painting!

Season 4 Episode 9. Our big painting!

8/5 Lake McDonald, Glacier NP - St. Mary, MT. 40 miles. 4,060’ climb. 

There were a number of reasons to anticipate today’s ride over Going to the Sun Road (GTTSR).

First and foremost, images I had seen of the scenery are magnificent. 

Second is its limited access. The full road up over Logan Pass is closed most of the year due to snow and avalanche risk. It gets plowed from both the west and east sides until it’s opened. It typically opens mid-June and closes mid-October. Both dates can vary by a month due to weather. This year it opened June 22. (A few years ago it opened July 13, part of planning our dates was to make sure we had this opportunity.)

Third, the climb is epic in itself. While our whole day would be close to 4,000’ of climbing over 40 miles, the climb is mostly in one section that is 3,300’ over 15.7 miles. If we extrapolate that slope over our average ride of approximately 65 miles a day, the climb would be equivalent to an astonishing 13,662’ of climb in a day. For reference, we’ve cycled > 7,000’ only twice ever, and both times were on light bikes without panniers.  On our previous adventures (with panniers), our personal high was around 6,500’.

(A reminder note: when I refer to “feet climbing” throughout the blog, that’s not the same as “elevation” which is altitude relative to sea level. Climbing measures ignore the downhills, so it’s not a net count of up and down, it’s only the up. It’s possible to ride a flat stretch while at a high altitude with little to no climbing, and it’s possible to have lots of climbing with repeated hills of ups and downs while near sea level.)

Fourth is the risk. There is no shoulder, and I’ve heard about the sheer cliff drops and fast cars. And when climbing steeply, cycling at very slow speeds, it is much harder to keep your wheel straight and not wobble a bit left into the traffic line or, right - maybe worse. Cyclists are banned from the road between 3pm-6pm for safety reasons because that’s when traffic is heaviest from the top down in both directions - and when historically there were the most accidents. 

Fifth and final, it’s cycling up and over the Continental Divide. It represents a huge milestone. Although we will have only cycled about 25% of our estimated total mileage, the Divide feels mentally like half way to me. 

Our day started with cloud cover; we rode up, through and above these clouds. We experienced fog that on the one hand terrified me as I feared motorists not seeing us; on the other hand, maybe it was better that I could not see the steep fall off to my right over the edge of the road. 

And now with that context to our day, here is our big painting:

Our view at 6:26am.

8:10am above some clouds.

Literally 2 minutes later.

Fogged in.

Another 30 minutes later.

Summit 10:24am.

Prepping to descend.

Tree line so sharply drawn.

Classic glacier path.

East side of park marked by past fires.

This day surpassed expectations! It was indeed epic and here’s maybe the best part and irony. Had the “fire boss” (who we encountered in Episode 2) let us through State Road 20 in Washington, and we remained on our original schedule, we would have been here a day prior, that is yesterday. Well, yesterday was cloudy all day, with some rain and afternoon thunderstorms. The ride would have been a crushing disappointment. Our 230 mile detour as a result of the road closure proved beneficial. Ain’t that sweet and something to ponder?!

Copyright Mark Segal 2024.