A (Sort Of) Overland Honeymoon - Part 1
Not all those who wander are lost -
J.R.R. Tolkien
Marriage. It can be said that this is one of life's ultimate adventures. Sure, I've done a lot of exploring and adventuring in my life, from scuba diving the reefs and wrecks of Florida to traipsing across Europe to overlanding my way through much of Montana and Wyoming. But I have never embarked on a lifelong journey such as this. My wife Beret, now my constant companion for the past several years, has added so much to my travels. And now, for better or worse, she's my co-driver for life. I'm very happy about that.
Being adventurous and outdoorsy types, we opted for an outdoor wedding. Where my brother and many people I know got married in a church, we opted to wed off the beaten track in the beautiful mountains of Montana's Swan Valley, along the Blackfoot River. Plus, our location was only 20 minutes outside the town of Seeley Lake, where my parents live and where I have spent a lot of time exploring. We drove up a few days early to enjoy the scenery and visit a few out of the way places. I took some friends out to explore some of the backroads, and opened them to some of my favorite places.
Then came the day of the wedding. It was a moderately sized affair, and we lucked out with perfect weather, an amazing photographer, a great location, good attendance, and good food. It was a spectacular day.
I even got to use my winch on my wedding day! It's a long drive from the highway to the wedding venue, and the road passes several turnoffs that might make it kind of confusing. So, to minimize the confusion, we made a few painted signs to point people in the right direction. On one particular crossroads, we wanted to put up a sign but didn't have anything to anchor it to in between the two roads. On the far side, down a hill, was a large chunk of a dead tree. Thinking that was what we needed, I hooked my winch to the trunk and dragged it across the road before rolling it into place and securing the sign to it. How hardcore an overlander am I? :sombrero:
Our first day as a married couple, we spent the morning with friends and family, opening gifts we received and talking among family that had flown in from all over. It was really nice getting to see everyone for a little while, but alas, the road was calling us. We packed up our necessary stuff and drove all the way to... the other side of town. Before leaving, we had to eat at Lindey's Bayburgers before venturing off. It's one of our favorite local places to eat, and a great way to start off this adventure.
Our destination for the day was Glacier National Park, and ultimately our accommodations in the town of Coram. The drive north into the park is a pretty one. Passing by Bigfork, we turned north to Kalispell and on towards West Glacier. We arrived at mid-afternoon, paying our entrance fee and making our way over Going-to-the-Sun Road. This is a route we've done a few times already, and I was eager to check some scenery out on the other side of the park this time. We crested Logan Pass and decided to stop at the overlook at St. Mary lake, which I have never done before. After seeing it, I will now stop
every time.
We were driving past St. Mary Lake when we saw our first bear of the trip. It was a moderately sized grizzly, munching on berries in a low valley along the side of the road. What a cool thing to see on day one! With this good omen on our minds, we continued driving towards the eastern end of the park. Not five minutes later we were slowed by another traffic jam where
yet another grizzly bear was eating just off the road. This one, though, was enormous. Probably a solid 700 pounds and nine feet tall on his hind legs, he was massive. It was an awe-inspiring thing watching him amble through the bushes. Stunned by our great luck, we continued on towards Two Medicine.
At St. Mary, we turned south into the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. Now, I'm not saying this reservation is poorly run or badly maintained. But the roads we took while we passed through were
shocking. Never smooth and never level, they were ridiculously twisty and generally unpleasant. Few times have I felt that I should have dropped the tire pressure on an asphalt road. This was one of them. Highway 89 was bad enough, but when we turned back west towards Two Medicine, they became ridiculous. There was even a sign saying "Intermittent Asphalt." Seriously. Luckily though, these roads were short and led to some cool places.
We arrived at Two Medicine in the late afternoon. Too late to hike, and with the sun setting on the opposite end of the lake, the lighting wasn't exactly great for photography. We took notes of the best hiking trails in the area and bought a huckleberry beer at the gift shop before deciding to go back north to Many Glacier for the sunset.
We braved the road over the pass back to Highway 89 once again, but this time, at the intersection of Road 49 and Highway 89, there was a red Chevy Silverado parked in the gravel. On the truck hung a sign advertising Indian Frybread Tacos. Uhhh... yes please! We immediately stopped and turned around to partake in the goodness. Made with ground bison meat, these tacos are a local favorite, and now they're one of our favorites too. The woman running this particular "taco truck" was a native Blackfeet Indian and had lived on the reservation her whole life. She was a pleasure to chat with, and shared a few great stories about her time in the area. This is one of my favorite parts of overlanding - meeting these kinds of people.
I cannot describe to you how wonderful these tasted. Food is always better when you're adventuring, isn't it?
Carrying on, we pulled into Many Glacier as the sun was on it's way down. I stopped to overlook the creek flowing from the lake, which I hadn't seen before. I was happy I did.
Many Glacier holds a special place in my heart. It is one of the most beautiful locations in all of Montana, there is great hiking nearby, and every sunset I've seen from there has been nothing short of magical. Last year, I took one of my favorite ever photos there, overlooking the lake and the canoe dock. Beret and I make it a personal mission to see sunset at Many Glacier every time we venture into the park. And for good reason. As we walked out onto the beach, we watched the sun rays explode through the mountains for the final few minutes before dropping out of sight.
As the sun continued to drop, we opted to get some dinner at the Many Glacier Hotel's restaurant. I ended up eating a delicious elk sandwich that reminded me of a sloppy Joe. Tasty!
We were on our way back to the main road when I saw something moving up on the hillside. Yet
another bear! This one was a smaller black bear with an unseemly coat sniffing his way through the berry patches. I managed to snag a shot of this one.
We watched for a few minutes before driving onward. I stopped to connect my inverter so I could charge my computer for the night, and we started driving over Going-to-the-Sun Road in the dark, on our way back to our accommodations in Coram. I was thanking God for my big Hellas about halfway through the drive when something seemed wrong. Lola didn't seem to be downshifting when I accelerated, and after beginning the descent at Logan Pass, it didn't seem to want to downshift when I went to use engine braking. This startled me. Suddenly I was worried that I had lost the transmission. I came to a stop to check the fluid, but everything was normal. I went to pull away and the truck felt impossibly sluggish. Then an idea struck me. I stopped, shut everything off, and unplugged my inverter. I then started the truck and pulled away. Everything operated as normal. Turns out I was drawing more juice than the truck could pump when I broke one of my cardinal rules. When I installed the inverter, I told myself I could never run the fridge on high power mode, have my big lights on, and the inverter at the same time, as I figured this draw would overpower the alternator. Turns out I was right. I stopped once more and checked the fridge. Sure enough, I had accidentally left it on max power mode.
With this crisis averted, we powered on (see what I did there?
) through West Glacier and on to our night's stay. Our "room" looked like this:
Yep. We glamped. And I'm not even sorry. I'll admit, it was a pretty cool experience. The staff was awesome, and the tent we got was pretty cool too. And it was cheap! I'd recommend staying here to anyone.
We woke with purpose the next morning, as we had something very specific in mind for day 2. We had dreamed about it all winter, and finally it was time. We grabbed our backpacks and prepared to hike Glacier's most famous trail, the Highline Loop.
[url]http://www.hikinginglacier.com/highline-loop.htm
[/URL]
The previous day, we had opted to park down lower and hike back to the truck. We made it to the parking spot early enough and got very lucky to find a spot unoccupied at around 10 AM. As we began packing our backpacks for the day's nearly 12 mile hike, I suddenly found that I had lost my keys. We looked everywhere, in all the pockets and all the storage containers. We even emptied our backpacks. Nothing. On the verge of panic, I stood behind the truck just staring. Then i looked up a bit and a shadow caught my eye. Turns out I had left the keys in the lock on the topper and flipped the door open. Whoops.
Crisis #2 averted.
Shortly afterward, we boarded the shuttle up to Logan Pass. I'll be honest, I've never done a point-to-point hike like this, or of this magnitude, yet in my life. I was pretty excited, but a little apprehensive. The shuttle arrived at the Logan Pass visitor's center a little while later, and we hit the bathroom and filled our Camelbaks before going to the trailhead. We examined the map for a short time and kicked off the hike with cool weather and moderate crowds.
Not more than a dozen yards into the hike, we run into a couple of mountain goats, who were grazing near the trail. They politely posed for one of my favorite shots of the trip.
We carried on, hiking over some small streams falling away to Going-to-the-Sun Road below. It didn't take long for us to find ourselves surrounded by bear grass, an uncommonly-blooming plant that is special to see in large numbers.
The views weren't bad either.
The trail more or less follows the road below for a large portion, before climbing for quite a ways and ducking into an area of the park where no roads exist. It's a mostly flat walk that is punctuated by a few rigorous climbs that seem to weed out the more faint-hearted. The first climb comes a few miles in, and is marked by two steep switchbacks that end at a boulder field that is, as we discovered, a great place to catch your breath and have a snack. As we hiked the crowds got thinner and thinner, and we got the sense of being in a more remote wilderness.
Eventually, we reached the high point of the trail, and we felt pretty great knowing it was all downhill from there.
The scenery remained firmly in the "awesome" zone as we made our way past the halfway mark and into a section of the park known as Granite Park. The crowds were even thinner here, and we struck up a conversation with a couple from Minnesota who were doing the hike at a similar speed. Not long after departing our new friends, we reached the big milestone of the hike at the Granite Park Chalet. This is a loose collection of buildings, cut off from any road, which houses a small snack shop and several rooms to rent for backpackers. We visited a few of these backcountry shops on the trip, and I'm becoming rather fond of them.
The view from here is nothing short of awesome too.
We stopped for a little while here to have a few snacks, fill our water, and catch our breath. What a cool place. This is another I can check off the bucket list, and I'll be really happy to come back here and stay the night before hiking to the overlook next time. We savored the time up here, basking in Montana's beauty and catching glimpses of the mountains extending into Canada.
Rested and feeling good, we began our descent from Grantie Park Chalet down to the Loop along the main road at around 2:30 PM. As it would turn out, this was a very poor decision.
To be continued...
