Today’s Mileage: 328 miles
Total Trip Mileage so far: 2966 miles
We set out early from Great Falls to make our way to Glacier National Park and ride the famous Going-to-the-Sun road. The ride up to Glacier was scenic enough on good roads with a little of the usual construction delays. We made a wrong turn south of where we should have (how can you do that with a GPS anyway?) and ended up almost to Kalispell without going via Going-to-the-Sun. We ended up entering the road from the west instead of from the east as we planned. No problem, it just meant that we would have to ride it twice since we intended to end up in Kalispell – oh what a burden, ride the Going-to-the-Sun road twice, once in each direction. There were tons of motorcyclists to talk with at every stop. I brought my Senior Pass purchased on RideAbout65.2 and found that it worked just fine to get me into Glacier.
Going-to-the-Sun road was all it was billed to be but the photos just do not do it justice – it really has to be experienced – while it was crowded the traffic was not bad at all and it is really a road you want to relish for the scenery, not for the pavement, besides there was precious little margin of error on the roads and hundreds of feet to drop if you made an blunder.
After riding the road twice and talking ourselves hoarse at all the stops we were glad to see Kalispell, a hotel, and a good meal.
Tomorrow Pat and I would split up, he going his way and I going mine, which happened to be west toward Seattle.
- Interesting construction warning sign
- Tom going into tunnel
- Gathering of bikes at Going-to-the-Sun Road entrance
- Just good scenery
- It is a long way down
- Good food – lots of folks with the same idea