Retracing U.S 2 the next morning opened up new vistas of fogged-in mountains and pristine rivers. A stretch of road, pitch black except for rows of reflective strips, ran immediately adjacent to one fork of the Flathead River. Thank goodness no animals chose to cross around here, or the hatchback would have tumbled down a 30-foot embankment.
Just 24 hours earlier I saw fog snaking through the mountain valleys north of Nashville. Similar fog blotted Glacier’s peaks, with excellent views along McDonald Lake and the flowing blue McDonald Creek. Driving in the dark eased my nerves about high-altitude driving, but I still dawdled about whether to cut through the park and ascending the massive Garden Wall or going around via the Marias Pass and the park's border.
In the end, I breathed deeply and coached myself upward to Logan’s Pass. Few cars attempted it early in the day, so I essentially drove alone to the Loop, admiring the landscape out of view when descending the road. It was a different park, with fresh glances at Heaven’s Peak, snow-capped mountains and waterfalls plummeting several hundred feet.
At one pull-off, I talked with a Chicago couple photographing the falls; they had driven from Yaak to Glacier on unpaved roads. When I mentioned plans to try the Beartooth Highway on Saturday, they strongly advised it, but warned Going-to-the-Sun would in no way prepare me for the Beartooth’s path across mountaintop ridges. But this fearful man had accomplished one task at dizzying heights and would wait till tomorrow for the next.
Leaving them, I finished a moist ascent as the morning sun blinded me while the springs and creeks along the rock wall drizzled away. Although clogged with cyclists grinding toward Logan’s Pass, the lack of crowd was refreshing. I took a little hike at Sunrift Gorge, where a clear stony creek cut an impossibly narrow channel through the rock. Aside from a brutal car accident near St. Mary, it was smooth sailing, even for those on the lake which had been so choppy just 12 hours earlier.
The road north to Many Glacier followed Lower St. Mary Lake and Lake Sherburne to Babb, a crossroads that led 13 miles back into the park. Many Glacier hits a dead-end at the trailheads leading to some spectacular geology. Walking to the shores of Swiftcurrent Lake, I saw what attracted George Bird Grinnell a century ago and spurred his push for the park’s creation and construction of a Swiss-style lodge on its southern shore.
The lake offers perfect views of Grinnell Peak, a tiny portion of the Grinnell Glacier, Mt. Wilbur plus the Garden and Ptarmigan walls, the park’s best-known arêtes (mountain ground into thin, steep ridges). The Ptarmigan Wall includes the Ptarmigan Tunnel, which cuts through the ridge at 7,200 feet. That trail was closed to hikers due to bear activity.
Aside from some trails around Swiftcurrent, I didn’t stray far from the hotel.I traveled a mile in and got tired of the lack of company and regularly posted bear country warnings. At least the hike got a better biew of the Grinnell ice sheet hidden behind the mountain. I couldn’t get interested in hiking alone; a bad step could have left me injured and without a way for help, not the mention the behemoth bears found at higher elevations.
So I grabbed lunch in the Swiss Lounge and watched the cliffs for any white movements, a sign of mountain goats grazing among the moraine. The hotel reminded me of the Bavarian guesthouse where the Schaneys and I stayed at in Zwiesel in 2007. Its halls lined with photos of Glacier’s distant and recent past, the wooden doors and rustic architecture came from a different era, one visitors willingly embraced. Trips must be reserved nearly a year in advance.
By the time, I departed Glacier, the Tourons had staggered to Glacier. Naturally, Tourons are tourist morons who should not be allowed to drive their own vehicles through national parks. The east entrance was clogged, Logan’s Pass parking lot, which was a quarter full when I passed in the morning, overflowed into secondary lots and had dozens of cars circling through. Labor Day weekend entered full swing, and the crowds were thick with them.
At least Tourons are easy to spot. No matter how many cars wait behind them, Tourons stops in lanes of travel to take in the views despite excessive signage directing them to the turnoffs. Tourons slow to idling speed when the pavement ends, crawling up the mountainside. The road wasn’t that bad - driving 25 will not damage anything. Tourons inch down from Logan’s Pass in a vehicle clearly violating the 21-foot restriction. Unlike the early-morning cyclists, Tourons on bicycles obliviously wind in the lane of travel, endangered themselves, wildlife and the drivers stuck behind them. Tourons put their toddler on the back of a bull bison for a picture. I did not witness the latter, but it’s become a legendary Touron tale around Bozeman.
As much as I love Glacier (purchasing a “Glacier is my happy place” bumper sticker confirms this), I couldn’t have been happier to exit that afternoon. I knew what a 1 p.m. crossing meant, and clung tightly to my memories of the previous twilight; few Tourons would ever travel the road this way. Near Hungry Horse Reservoir, I pulled to a roadside stand for two pounds of Glacier County cherries and a cone of huckleberry ice cream. Those local delicacies (the cherries came back to Belgrade) more than soothed my frazzled nerves.
A mix-up soured my plans the vicinity of Bigfork – I couldn’t find its brewery among the vacation houses and tiny commercial strips. That led me to Route 83, which ran between the Mission and Swan mountain ranges and touched the edges of the Bob Marshall Wilderness. The route spanned 90 miles of forest, stunning lakes, the Swan River and three towns comprising a few blocks. Leaving the forest, I crossed farm and cattle lands all the way to Avon, where the elevation rose to meet the Continental Divide at the McDonald Pass (6,320 feet), which overlooked Helena, the capital.
U.S. 12 quickly barreled into the nation’s fourth-smallest capital, a hip little city. Lest I imagine myself too far from the wilderness, a pack of six deer sprung through a parking lot and halted traffic on a major street. In a thriving commercial strip of restaurants, I found the Blackfoot River Brewing Company, the second taproom on my brewpub journey.
I wasn’t leaving Helena without catching the sight I missed last time – the state capital. Compared to other capitals, this one practically hid in a neighborhood. It was only a few blocks from the taproom. My love for state capitals demanded I not skip another opportunity. All sorts of two-lane roads wound towards it plot, where mature trees obscured it. But it was massive, with Lady Liberty topping its grand copper dome, which contrasted well with the sandstone and granite below.
A highway patrolman rolled up, staring me down as I realized I had pulled over in a No Parking zone. “I’m only taking a picture. I’m not staying,” I said before he even asked. He nodded and drove on. After circling the building for a better angle, I too drove on, chasing a much different twilight than the night before.
I stopped for gas in Townsend, where U.S. 287 broke from U. S. 12, and soaked in a few minutes of small-town life. The stocky, fit man running the station (part of a farm supply store) talked with his son about football practice. Leaving town, I crossed the Missouri again, but a much different Missouri than the impotent one bordering Great Falls. The river rippled with wild textures, not that different from its source downstream and what Lewis & Clark saw 200 years ago.
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