day 32 -- rainy glacier

seriously? a crew had hiked in early that morning and started repairing the hitching post, so no late sleep. they hadn't arrived the night before, since there weren't any bags hanging from the pole at 9pm, but there they were. and better prepared than me, with rain slickers and hiking poles. so plan C: leave the tent and hope it dried out a bit before I packed it up, hike out to the continental divide and hopefully spectacular views, return to the campsite, pack up, and get back to the packer's roost by 8pm at the latest so I could get back on the park road and through a road closure at logan pass by a 9pm nighttime construction cutoff. around 21 miles in all (8 miles out and back, then 5 back to the bike), but more than half with a light pack with food and water only. misty damp to start and more than a bit chilly, but I had enough layers as long as I kept moving. I kept hoping for the sun, but no luck there. over the course of the hike I went from hoping for sun...to hoping against rain...to very glad for bouncing hail rather than soaking rain...to hoping the gusty winds would die down...to hoping the trail at the bottom wasn't two inches deep in water.

for all of that, though, the landscape was even more inspiring than I could have imagined. I won't try to describe it...it's way bigger than words. check out the photos, some of which worked especially well with the swirling clouds on these rainy days. it's the sort of landscape that invites cliche -- I'll go with a scale that would force even lance armstrong to recognize his insignificance. the trail headed just over the next ridge turns out to be two miles away. the view just around the next corner isn't actually reachable. a campground called 'fifty peaks' for the endless series of craggy edges visible from that spot. inspiring hiking, most of it across the well-named flattop mountain and easy, still mostly through burned forest that afforded views all around when the mountains weren't obscured by clouds. the bb sized hail and wind weren't all that bad, though they cut a quiet picnic short when I started shivering, and past the divide a heathy moor that recalled scotland, even down to the invisible and inaudible creek ('burn' to stick with the scottish imagery) the gurgle from which rushes up only as you step within a few yards of its rocky course. so I re-resolved to make glacier the focus of a trip for summer '11, to hike across the park from west-to-east and to loop into the canadian section along the way. peaks, glaciers, forests, glacial ponds. otherworldly.

all went well until a ginger limp down the trail back to the bike -- the achilles quit after about 15 miles. I thought I was making good time, esp when more rain sped me along, but I reached packer's roost at about 8.10pm. since everything was soaked, I decided to repack under the stable overhang, and by the time I'd stuffed and remounted luggage and changed back into rain-soaked and heavy, smelly leather, it was 8.40pm. only twenty minutes to reach the road closure point and make it to the east side of the park and a good 50 miles closer to havre for the next day's ride. a rainy ride in the dark through hairpin turns wasn't all that much fun, but better now than a few weeks ago. minutes clicking by, construction lights appear on the slope too far away, more turns and turns and turns...and the construction zone at 9.02. road closed. ugh. back down the same winding roads, in the rain, and farther. faceshield rain spotted and fogged up, car headlights blinding me. and frigid. the first unpleasant ride of the trip, but no choice this time. back down past lake macdonald, past the park lodge (surely full), past the west side visitor center, past the town of west glacier (no vacancy), resigned to a ride all the way back to columbia falls. but vacancy at a summer resort motel, and desperate enough to overpay for it, if only to dry out my gear so as not to ruin the tent with mildewy saddlebags. naturally this summers-only spot didn't have heaters, so I cranked the air conditioning and hid out in the lounge with a roadtripping couple from the smokies and shared a couple bottles of moose drool. in sum, I would have been better off spending another night in the campground with the chainsaw crew and heading off in the morning. anyway. glacier dampened me...but not enough to scare me off.

day 31 -- troy to glacier NP

libby turned out not nearly as dire as expected...run down for sure but no more than your average mining town, and livelier / more crowded than I'd have thought. after sleeping in at the ranch motel to make sure the rain had passed, I stopped at the 'world famous' libby diner for a late breakfast with a very gregarious hostess who commanded the room. at the next table there was what appeared to be a CSA general complete with absurdly bushy mustache-connected-to-pork chops, unsurprisingly from andersonville, GA (see above for georgians trying too hard at authentic southern street cred). all sorts of deep south connections claimed by the happy hostess and grand reminisces had by all. fox news was shouting in the corner. I won't wade into the irony there in a town where a callous corporation has fatally sickened someone in every family and then declared bankruptcy so as not to pay for the damage. but the foxies were all about holding BP responsible, right?

onward and upward from libby toward kalispell and glacier NP. caught up to the rain again outside of kalispell and bounced through a muddy construction zone in a steady downpour. sheltered in a gas station and attempted to calculate where the rain was headed (rather than oh, checking weather.com or something), securing reassurance from a local outfitter that the rain was headed toward missoula. though there was a big purple cloud parked low over the mountains. I got halfway out of columbia falls on the last stretch to the gateway of west glacier when it started to rain hard. this time I turned around and pulled under another gas station just as it started to hail. not good for chrome, presumably, so a surprisingly good call. another snickers and coke to pay for my stay, then to the grocery store to stock up for a hike this time and wait out for the rain. all this worked well enough, as it was dry and sort of sunny when I started back up the hill. got lost in the crush of end-of-the-season park visitors trying to ask about backcountry permits and decided just to head out into the woods in secret. followed the park road past lake macdonald and turned off as the 'going to the sun' road started its climb toward logan pass. a quick glance at the map suggested that most short-term hikers do 'the loop' from a point a bit further up the road or drive around to the eastern end of the park and hike from many glaciers. the latter looked most attractive, but it was getting late, and I really wanted to get into the woods without following a train of backpacks. and I was set on completing a loop that I had eyeballed at about 40 miles (without looking at the scale, of course) instead of an out-and-back. a gravel road led down to the macdonald creek trail at packer's roost, and I set out from there after covering my bag with its rain slicker...and wisely draped my leathers over it and my clothing bag under the bike, instead of stowing all of it on the porch of a nearby and apparently disused stable. impressive (for me) foresight but half-assed execution.

the trail was predictably spectacular, and because of the rain I had it all to myself. started out through swampy lowlands but soon emerged in a huge tract of burnt-out forest not yet recovered. a sign on the road noted a 1987 lightning fire, but if that was this fire it was surprising to see so little regrowth. not exactly the aesthetic ideal of the conifer forest, but striking just the same, all grey verticals and rain-shiny burnt stumps. the trail crossed the creek and headed up toward two possible passes, and with each switchback I recalibrated my guess on which one the trail was aiming for. at this point I still planned to sprint 12 miles to the second campsite and then march off another 30+ miles the next day to complete a loop that looked to cover a good section of the scenic core of the park. I've never hiked more than about 25 miles in a day, but the aforementioned explorers did routinely on their PCT adventure, so I figured I could, creaky achilles and all. only problem was that though I had food this time, I hadn't filled the camelback, so I only had a liter of water. to compenstate I sipped water off leaves every 50m or so, as if that would make up for poor planning. fortunately for me the ascent was slower than I planned and I only made it to the first campsite before it got dark, after about five miles. so no 40-mile hike the next day...I'd have taken an extra day, but I had another tire change appointment scheduled in havre, MT and of course some 1600 miles between me and dayton. so I set up camp in the near dark and discovered another slight problem...there was a food-hanging pole but no bear box. I had lazily assumed that all national parks had moved to boxes rather than relying on hikers' food-hanging skills, and hadn't brought any rope on the trip. this didn't trouble me too much until I realized that the bears here weren't just friendly and scare-able black bears but grizzlies too. so I stashed the bag under the rain fly of my tent and hoped that if I heard rustling I'd make the right call on scaring the bear away or playing dead.

in the event it started raining early in the morning and there weren't any visitors. I gave up even on the shorter loop and decided to sleep late in the wonderfully quiet woods. until I heard chainsaws at 7.30.