Bob on BAC Canadian Rockies 2007

Farm Lands Outside of Kalispell

I left Kalispell along with Dave Struthers a little before 9:00. The weather was clear, sunny and warm enough for shirt sleeves. We went through the outskirts of town on secondary roads over the Flathead River into lush, green farm land growing wheat, potatoes, hay, etc. The terrain was easy rollers. I eventually intersected US 2 and followed it for about 1/2 mile into Columbia Falls at about 10:30. I stopped at the Montana Coffee Co and had coffee and one of the largest muffins I have ever had. Dave and Jean Struthers, Chris Witt, Pat greeneand Felix Braendel showed up while I was there and we all sat together for our morning snack.

After coffee, I took the optional route which took me away from US 2 and its traffic. Out of town, the road became wooded and remote with some moderate rollers. I passed a loaded cycle tourist pulling a trailer. He had started his trek in Colorado and was going along part of our route into Canada, then west to Vancouver, south into Washington, Oregon and California, and then back to Colorado. I learned later that others in our group had chatted with him as they passed him. We ran into him the next day, too. He was one of many loaded tourists that we saw later in the ride.

After several miles, the road had a couple of gravel stretches with wash boards. These were the only gravel stretches that were on our route. The washboards were very serious at times. I lost my route sheet at the beginning of the first gravel because of them. I used my GPS the rest of the way. Fortunately, it turned off only once on these stretches and I noticed it soon enough to power it back on before I lost too much of the day's track. Other cyclists with Garmin 60 CSx's report that they have the same problem with it turning off at various times, usually when it is bumpy. I am going to contact Garmin when I get back from our Europe trip in September to see if they can do something about it.

Entrance to West Glacier

The optional route eventually got back to US 2 and then to the West Glacier park entrance. I showed my Golden Age Pass and rode on to Apgar Village. It was lunch time so I had a good turkey sandwich at Eddies and killed time with the rest of the group until we could ride again on the "Going to the Sun Highway". The road is closed to bicyclists between 11:00 and 4:00. Just before I left to ride to our hotel, I ran into Jim and Carla Thompson who were travel mates on our Elder Treks trip to Thailand in 2006. After chatting with them for awhile, I got on my bicycle again and rode to the Lake McDonald Lodge arriving before 5:00. The route was along Lake McDonald - very wooded with slight rollers. I checked into our small, stuffy room in one of the lodge's annexes, showered and waited for Dick. The bathroom was very small and reminded me of a typical bathroom in a European hotel. We had Happy Hour outside because of the heat inside of the building. Afterwards, some of us ate at a casual restaurant. I had linguine Bolognese. We toured the lodge and the grounds after dinner and got to bed before 10:00. We had to sleep with the door open to get a cross draft from our tiny window. The door was on the inside hallway. We occupied the entire floor, so we were not worried about anyone crashing into our room while we were asleep.

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