Glacier National Park

Mount Ann is a simple scramble that has skunked us just shy of the top. Every attempt we've lost visibility, ran out of time, or just couldn't pull it off. 

So when Brandon's Dad agreed to watch Annabelle for the weekend we made plans to finally summit Mount Ann. When we made our plan we were thinking of time, speed and duration in baby units. But we actually moved quickly. We schlepped our overnight gear to the summit and  took an adventure route through a boulder field back down. We had enough left over time to nap in a meadow, made it back to the trailhead, and were drinking beer at the van by 5 pm. Apparently, You can move fast without the shenanigans of a 1.5 year old. 

After checking the weather we realized it was going to rain for a week straight. Putting a toddler in a boat while its raining outside is like putting a monster in a box, except this time the box was going to be a really wet and cold. So the decision was made to take the van to Glacier National Park hoping for clear skies, in order to let the monster play outside.

We arrived at the park with no plan other than to hike, bike and van our little hearts out.  The park campground was full so we found  some really cool, free vanning locations off the beaten path. Our favorite locations had us sleeping in our van down by the river with all the other vanners and at dead end roads with front row views to alpine lakes surrounded by mountains.  Our least favorite locations had us sleeping in our van which was Austin Powers parked between a few trees on indian reservation land, basically behind someone's house and parked amongst their other junk (to blend in). 

 

We did a handful of day hikes-made it to some high altitude lookouts, and spent some time in the low valleys gallivanting around. If we were playing wild life bingo we'd take the cake as we ticked off all the wildlife sightings without even getting mauled.  We saw a big ass bear, an antlerless moose, fox,  wild turkeys, a goat, a bunch of hawks, and birds and shit.

 

Our main objective for the trip was to ride our bikes on "going to the sun road" taking you from the valley floor to the top of  Logan Pass. Most of our summer has been spent on the boat and our training has focused on how to keep our ice cubes from melting so we can have good-cold gin and tonics. After checking out our hot mom and dad bods we figured we needed to cram in some last minute training before attempting Logan Pass. We thought a 30 mile ride around the Hungry Horse Dam would be a great warm up. And I do like a good dam bike ride. 

On the way to the dam we made the fateful decision to have second coffees. Upon arrival to the trailhead I realized I had to go to the bathroom so I decided to walk across the dam bridge to use the dam visitor center's dam bathrooms. By the time I was halfway across the dam bridge I was clearly doing the "I'm going to shit my pants shuffle". I must have looked desperate because as I rounded the corner to the dam visitor's center a park ranger stepped out and was frantically directing me to the nearest dam bathroom , "Over there !!!!! Keep Going!!!!". Her small act of kindness probably saved me from soiling my pants. Nevertheless- I made it.

Then we road our bikes. That's pretty much how hungry horse dam went. 

The road to Logan Pass had no shoulder and was very narrow. You could see some vehicle paint scrapped on outcropping rocks on the cliffy side of the road.  Thankfully, everyone on the road was there for a scenic drive, not in a hurry or adhering to any timeline. This resulted in no traffic pressure at all, making it a very enjoyable 4 hour ride up.  When we got to Logan Pass everyone was being pretty boring there, so we started hooting and hollering "Hey You Guys! We Made it" followed by a bunch of "Whoop, Whoop Whoops" and then more cheering basically until we got some sort of response. Most of the cars up there probably passed us and our baby trailer on the way up and our howling only confirmed their suspicions that we were indeed crazy. We stayed up there for awhile then enjoyed an amazing 45 minute descent. 

This is our 7th mountain pass we've ridden this year, and we finally realized that we like riding up mountain passes and like riding down them even better. The mental and physical challenge of ascending appeals to a part of our souls that enjoys suffering. Riding down is just amazing and makes you feel like you are in a video game- swooshing around corners and effortlessly hauling ass. You can drive these passes
but when you bike them you see everything and it leaves you feeling really satisfied.