Soaked

I woke up in the town-park in Eureka to rain. Two other bike-tourers camped with me and we shared some good chats. They were riding part of the northern-tier route to East Glacier National Park and our routes crossed for about ten miles before mine turned onto the ominous Graves Creek Road. One was from Seattle and the other was from Portland and as I had been to both places it was nice to be able to compare notes. They were funny guys with some good stories and reminded me of how much I enjoyed being amongst good cycling stock. Both Portland and Seattle harbour a lot of hardcore cycling advocates; it's great to see bikes and bikers as the epitome of cool.

I am generally a late starter preferring to stay in my tent for as long as I can defend my brain from conscious thought. There is plenty of time to think when riding solo so I prefer to stare at the back of my eye-lids for as long as I can get away with. I am not one for getting out of bed early unless I have to, which is unusual for a bike-tourer. Most of them like to be on the road for 9am, which when you have to pack up a camp and cook breakfast generally makes for a 7am rise. If I am on the road by 10am I'm delighted. Often I can start as late as noon, which means going light on stops along the way. It's funny the contrast in mood between other tourers and myself; I'm over the moon at being on the road by 10am whereas other tourers can be flustered and annoyed at their delay.

While my route was headed south in principle I had to make a massive loop inland towards West Glacier. Glacier National Park is one of America's preferred parks and is connected to Waterton National Park across the border in Canada. The route does not go through the park itself but skirts it allowing me the chance to take it in if I wish. I had pretty much decided that the weather was too threatening to bother with delaying in Glacier. Normally I can ride through bad weather but the fronts here seemed to be much bigger than I had encountered anywhere else.

I turned into Flathead National Forest and started to climb. The road soon turned to gravel but the climb was not severe so it was just a matter of pedalling. The weather was weird, one minute I'd be well wrapped up to stay dry, the next the sun would scald me through the clouds forcing me to peel some layers. It was a stop-start kind of ride as I adjusted my clothing. Once on the North Fork Road I was skirting Glacier. It should have been beautiful but the low-slung clouds were cushioned on the peaks spoiling the vista. Instead I took to house-hunting. I was surprised at the amount of private residences along the road. I was not sold on the idea of owning a house here but to be fair the weather was not being the best of estate agents. It's quite the romantic vision; to have a remote log cabin in the middle of the mountains for which you have to chop your own fire-wood. Indeed, these homes were mostly home-steaded before the Park became state land. The romantic vision remains however, as these houses are now mountain retreats for city types as opposed to year-round residences.

The jarring North Fork road was ripped to pieces and sapped any forward momentum. Thankfully, I soon turned up towards Red Meadow Lake deciding to skip the hostel that was five miles off the route in Polebridge. As I turned onto the climb the rain started to cascade from the clouds above. Being well used to rain I normally disregard it but this was particularly bleak. Typical of mountain weather it was trapped between the peaks with nowhere to go but the ground. It was an agonising ten mile ride from the turn, not due to the severity of the climb but due to the internal debate I was having as to whether it was a smart move to camp at altitude in the rain or not. I finally concluded that it made no sense to camp on cloud 9 overnight. I was wet almost to the bone, I would be pitching a tent in the rain (a messy task) and if it stayed like this I'd be waking up to take down a wet tent with no promise of being able to dry it out the next day. While it is important to keep a dry set of gear for such eventualities it is not great for ones health to be camping in the damp in what are the early stages of a marathon. Thus, regretting my stubbornness in not abandoning my route in favour of the hostel earlier I pointed my horse back down the mountain. Of course, once back on the North Fork Road I was regretting my decision as the bumpiness made it feel like another climb. I was just getting wetter and would have been inside a wet tent by now if I hadn't retreated. Still, I held my course and headed for shelter in Polebridge.

It was the right decision as I would end up hiding out from the elements in what is probably the best hostel in the world.

I hope you are staying warm and dry

Marco

Bowman Lake - Glacier National Park (this pic is not in b&w!)