For some strange reason, I always take pride in leaving the rental car with a hatchback while everyone else runs to an SUV too big for a parking space. Sure, I had no pickup on mountain routes, but I barely budge on a hairpin turn. Seeing the Yaris awaiting me, I had no doubt it would serve this mountain-heavy voyage well.
After curving below the ‘M’ Mountain, Bridger Canyon Road narrows and twists as it rises into the Gallatin National Forest. Cyclists regularly traverse this sparse, hilly landscape beneath the 9,000-foot peaks. Ranch houses sat below the road, with unpaved paths leading off into the forested mountains. All around, the pine beetle’s summer resurgence was apparent; patches of dead, red-brown pines broke the evergreen belts. In 10 minutes, the other cars disappeared as I passed the famed Bridge Bowl ski facility and the hills flattened into farmland into an immense valley with about a dozen farms.
The dusty burg of White Sulphur Springs was the next sign of life, and it only lasted a few blocks before the road again hugged mountainsides. The forest crept in (this time, Lewis & Clark National Forest), and it did not recede until Belt Creek dropped into a pockmarked canyon on the opposite side.
In the tiny town of Belt, wedged below cliffs eroded by the creek. It had a unique business district, and more importantly, the only brewery in North Central Montana (see beer blog for details).
Hitting Great Falls at rush hour, I skipped Giant Springs State Park and the Roe, the world's shortest river. Time has escaped me, and I didn't want to venture down those Glacier County roads in the dark. What the giant dams had done to this stretch of the Missouri killed any desire to see the falls. Lewis & Clark spent weeks in portage here, moving their boats atop the last cataract. The one time I crossed the river in Great Falls, it was a far cry from its appearance at the headwaters – placid and almost without a ripple, tamed by a dam.
Everything I read and heard told me about the beauty of Rogers Pass, where Route 200 crosses the Continental Divide. Besides, the Unabomber had a cabin out in Lincoln, and that meant a truly uncivilized place. I was all set to rumble through the wilderness, view some more exhilarating geology, then stop Kalispell for a good night’s sleep.
Then I saw the sign for Route 87 - “Glacier National Park, 120 miles.”
If I kept to the speed limit, I could arrive in time to drive Going-to-the-Sun Road at twilight. My old HLIS colleague Mark Cherry told me he had done the drive at dusk and found it amazing. Any debate was short-lived. The blue silhouette of the Rockies proved too tantalizing. I turned around on 200, headed back to the crossroads, and headed toward Choteau, the next city and part-time home of David Letterman.
From Choteau I knew the road – Bynum, Dupuyer, the Blackfeet reservation’s rolling prairies and its capital at Browning. The outer peaks of the Two-Medicine area cut off the sun, leaving me in the gloaming on a winding road overpopulated with free-range cattle.
Finally the road widened to expose St Mary Lake and the central ice-carved mountains of Glacier National Park. They were different this year, with a lot more snowfall at the higher elevations. I could have arrived weeks after last year's visit.
My heart sank and the adrenaline rushed as I turned into the St. Mary guard station – Going-to-the-Sun Road closed from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. for construction. My clock had 8 p.m. My eyes had a guy in a camper jawing with the ranger about the sites. I swung over to the second ranger and present my annual pass, asked if I had any chance at all of beating the clock to Logan’s Pass. If not, I had to turn around immediately, dodge the cattle on that narrow road, and take the 100-mile journey to Kalispell on U.S. 2, which traces the park’s southern border.
Fortune favored me. The lady ranger said without speeding, it would take 45 minutes to cover the 17 miles to the pass. I didn’t speed along any of it, but made the pass in 27 minutes.
And I received the surprises along dusk in the wilderness can bring. Snow clung to the jagged peaks, winds churned St. Mary Lake’s waters into whitecaps. At this hour, the lake had no sympathy for boaters, much less the kayakers often paddling its deep blue surface.
Within five minutes, I had shaken off all other drivers. Taking some slow turns around the Wild Goose Island lookout, my eye caught movement in the shrubs, and a female moose emerged. At the shoulder, she stood as tall as me, and those spindly legs crossed the road in two strides. I couldn’t fumble for my camera fast enough.
As I rumbled toward Logan’s Pass, construction vehicles bordered the road and gravel replaced asphalt. Going-to-the-Sun took such a beating every winter that the park service spent most of summer on repairs. A flagger stopped me and one other car three miles from the pass, assured me it would be open, and released us when a dump truck pulled out to lead.
After hitting the pass and its silent visitor center, the road took its steep descent while the combination of twilight and snowy elevations illuminated Heaven’s Peak and the other horns to the west. Within minutes, the other two vehicles sped out of sight, and I was alone in the park, the last car crossing Logan’s Pass on Sept. 2, 2010. I glimpsed some of the waterfalls rolling on the mountains as I descended the Garden Wall.
My healthy respect for heights limited my glances at the valley below, and after The Loop, Going-to-the-Sun’s sole switchback, I fired up the brights to give me the jump on any wildlife. The road bottomed out and before I reached the Avalanche stop, the high beams rewarded me – a young male black bear ambled into the road. I rolled to a stop and watched him for a few seconds, enjoying the thrill of this wildlife encounter all to myself. Finally I inched forward and he scampered into the brush faster than I anticipated.
The remaining drive along calm Lake McDonald was tense but uneventful – I expected more wildlife, but saw none in the park or on the mostly unlit drive between West Glacier and Kalispell. With a six-pack of Big Sky Summer Honey and frayed nerves finally beginning to mend, I found my room at the Aero Inn and gave way to sleep before I finished a second ale.
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