Glacier - Day 3 - It's All Downhill From Here

Now for something completely different. I noticed that the shuttle buses that run through the park had bike racks on the front. I'd never seen any bikes being carried on them, but why not? We figured that it would be an easy way up to Logan Pass and we could go then ride our bikes downhill back to Rising Sun Campground.

After breakfast we packed up the bikes and rode up to the nearby shuttle stop. The buses seem to be on a reduced schedule, compared to what appears in the park guide; just every hour until 10:40, then every 40 minutes, rather than just every half hour. Needless to say, we arrived right in the middle so had a bit of a wait.

It was long enough to finally try out the espresso stand in the lodge. They make a pretty good cafe latte. Even with that side trip, the bus was about 20 minutes late. That's not all—when it arrived, it already had two bikes on it, the maximum number. Did I mention that in last last two days of watching buses drive by, not one had a bike on it?

Fortunately, the bus was completely full and no one was getting off, so the driver called back to the visitor center and another one came along in about 10 minutes—with empty bike racks. We loaded our bikes on and it was off to Logan Pass.

The roads became more and more crowded as we got nearer the pass, partially due to the road construction, which had several single lane sections and when we arrived the visitor center parking lot was completely full. There was still snow all around and we even saw some young men with skis heading uphill towards a snowfield above the visitor center.

We only stayed around long enough to peruse the visitor center, get the passport stamp, gawk at the scenery, look at a moving white dot on the hillside above (either mountain goat or longhorn sheep, we couldn't tell and I had forgotten my binoculars) and ogle a few motorcycles. Then off we went—downhill.

The construction was near the top between Logan Pass and Siyeh Bend and we had to stop for single lane traffic twice. This turned out to be a very good thing. When the flagger would let the traffic go, we would have to wait for all of the cars to pass before going on. This left an entirely empty road for us as there would be no overtaking traffic behind us. Even when we stopped to look at the scenery, which was spectacular, we'd just wait for the next knot of traffic to pass and continue on, coasting all the way.

The view of the mountains on the way down was amazing. We even had a view of one of the few surviving glaciers, Jackson Glacier. It wasn't until we approached St. Mary Lake, that we had to pedal. A couple of small grades along the lake, then final downhill and we were back at the campground for a late lunch. It was a fine scenic tour. We saw peaks and valleys, snowfields and glaciers, waterfalls and lakes, but still no bears.

Photos