Days 13 & 14: Whitefish, MT to East Glacier Park, MT

"It's all part of the experience," Alea kept telling herself.  But I'll get to that in a minute.

For Day 13 we had planned an easy day of 25 or 30 miles into Glacier National Park, where we would camp early in order to set up my ride along Going to the Sun Road up to Logan Pass early on Friday.  That didn't happen, because vehicles over 21 feet total length are not allowed on that road.  There is no good reason that a 17 foot van towing a 12 foot trailer couldn't negotiate the one sharp hairpin turn on the route, but it was pointless to discuss it with a federal employee.  After all, rules don't have to make sense, they just need to be adhered to.

So we U-turned out of the park and discussed our only option, which was to head east on US 2.  About 20 miles down the road there were two campgrounds, so we opted for the nearer of the two (Lake Stanton Lodge & Campground).  It was OK, but overpriced at $42/night - the second option would have been a lot nicer and probably no more expensive.  But at least we had shore power to recharge our trailer battery, and to feed the air conditioner at night.

The ride down US 2 left a bit to be desired, as at times there was no shoulder and there was a fair amount of traffic for a two lane highway.  Alea didn't care for it, but soldiered on, knowing that it was likely to have better shoulders up ahead, which it did, at least at times.  But then the smoke started filling the valley, at which point Alea kept telling herself, "It's all part of the experience."

The smoke was starting to get pretty thick, and at one point I had stopped adjacent to a highway maintenance shop where a couple of guys were working.  So I went over to see what they could tell me about the fire, in case any part of the road ahead was closed as a result.  They said the smoke was coming from a new 10-square mile fire to the north, but there were currently no road closures and it shouldn't affect US 2.  So we ventured forth, Alea slogging along in thick smoke for several miles.

The smoke along US 2.

Alea slogs through the thick smoke.

The campground was no better (smoke-wise), but after a few hours the wind shifted and the smoke cleared, at which point we only had the 95 degree heat to contend with.

By the time we had gotten to Whitefish we were running a day ahead of schedule.  Bypassing Going to the Sun Road put us another couple of days ahead of schedule, as that would have taken us briefly through Canada along a longer alternative route (to the one that we have taken).  So we are now 3 days ahead of schedule, though we have 900 miles or so to cover before we reach Grand Forks, ND and take some time off to visit with Alea's brother Joe.  

We could take some days off before then, but we've spent plenty of time in most of the areas near where our route will take us (at least in Eastern Montana).  So we are hoping instead to get back on schedule mainly by reducing our mileage, with perhaps a couple of days off as we cross North Dakota (which on our planned route is still about 500 miles east of us).  We were scheduled to cover the 900 miles to Grand Forks in 18 days or so, so we'd need to reduce our pace to a bit more than 40 miles per day to spread that over the 21 days that we now have to get there.  Our goal will be to keep our daily mileage below 50 miles per day, hoping to find some areas from time to time where we can cut back to 30 or 35 miles per day.

Day 14 was initially planned to be a 25 or so mile ride to Marias Pass on the Continental Divide, where we had planned to camp.  The smoke made us change those plans, and once we got to East Glacier Park (around 40 miles from our start point) we were faced with a thunderstorm heading our way.  So we elected to camp here, and within half an hour of setting up camp we've got some pretty heavy rain coming down.  It appears that we've made a good decision to stop.  We have a campsite with shade, power and water for $25 per night, and with luck the rain will clear out the smoke enough to get some great pictures of the east slope the Rockies, which are very close by.

A friendly rock helped me take this selfie.
There should be a hazy view of the Rockies in the background...

Lana says (not to the rock, but to Alea), "Take my picture, too." 

Planning the next several days will be a challenge since we'll be riding through tiny rural towns with limited services.  This stretch is best suited for long days in the saddle to leapfrog from campground to campground, but that would put us WAY ahead of schedule.