Before RVs roll, cyclists own park road

GLACIER NATIONAL PARK – Less than a mile up the road from Avalanche Campground, the roar of a real avalanche overrode the burble of McDonald Creek.

No animals were visible, but the scat of three major predator species spotted the asphalt. Now and again, the rain-washed breeze brought a musky whiff of something furry.

With no car around you, the Going-to-the-Sun Road offers much more than a postcard view of Glacier’s interior. The “secret season” in spring and fall when most of the 32-mile westside highway is closed to motorized traffic turns the park’s most popular passage into a trail.

The road over Logan Pass isn’t likely to be cleared for vehicles until later this month.

“Yesterday, we rode past a bear,” Missoula cyclist James Jendro said during a break from the rain on the lower stretch of the road. “You can hear and see the avalanches when they rumble. They just come ripping down.”

Jendro and companions Calvin Haines and Mark Randolph were the only people on the entire west half of Going-to-the-Sun Road last Wednesday evening. The park snowplowing crew checked out at 3 p.m., as the avalanche danger near Logan Pass got too risky. That left at least 12 miles of roadway snow-free and relatively safe.

Compare that to the height of summer, when bumper-to-bumper traffic turtles up and down the Continental Divide. The two-lane road clings to cliffsides, giving little shoulder for bikers to co-exist with cars.

But only bikers realize how much of a marvel the Going-to-the-Sun Road really is. Without a roof over your head, you can see the rock overhangs that extend across entire lanes of traffic. You can also see the tiny stalactites that grow out of the ceiling of the Heaven’s Peak Tunnel.

You can notice the three-finger-wide grooves left by rock drills where construction workers placed explosives that blasted the road into existence in the 1920s.

This spring, bikers have a new shuttle service that should make parking much easier. Buses with specially designed trailers will run from Lake McDonald Lodge to Avalanche Campground hauling 16 bikes at a time.

“When this parking lot fills, it fills fast,” shuttle driver Sunni Phillips said during a turn-around at Avalanche. The Huckwagon trailer allows visitors to leave their cars and bike racks at the much larger Lake McDonald lots but still start their rides at the preferred beginning above Avalanche Creek. It should also lower competition for parking space with those who want to picnic or hike at the frontcountry site.

Glacier Park spokeswoman Margie Steigerwald said the bike shuttle idea was so popular at the Glacier Conservancy Backpacker’s Ball last year, someone volunteered to fund it on the spot. That dovetails with the growth in bicycle and bike rack rentals at Apgar, West Glacier and other nearby commercial areas.

“We’re starting a study of bike use this spring with the University of Montana,” Steigerwald said. “We’ve got four counters deployed across the road that can tell us the difference between cars and bikes, and how far people like to go on bikes. That all feeds into the whole Sun Road planning effort.”

For now, the bike shuttle runs with one bus on weekdays and two on weekends and holidays. That schedule might increase, or add runs down to Apgar, depending on visitor use and interest.

Biking the Going-to-the-Sun Road means gaining about 3,300 vertical feet over 10 miles, mostly at a 5.7 percent grade. While that ranks it among the top 20 closest climbs on the Tour de France, it’s not as steep as Lincoln Hills Drive in Missoula’s Rattlesnake neighborhood.

The first few miles along McDonald Creek climb gently through a glacial canyon flanked by dozens of waterfalls and several massive avalanche chutes. One off the side of Mount Cannon has mounds of still-freshly shattered trees and tipped-over aspen groves.

Glacier lilies and Indian paintbrush provide yellow and red highlights to the extensive palate of greens in the forest and creekbed. Even the Garden Wall’s rock face gets into the spirit, with bands of blue, green, red and yellow sedimentary stone offsetting veins of bright white marble.

Road signs warning travelers not to pass and reducing the speed limit from 35 mph to 25 seem ridiculously aspirational as you grind up toward the Loop. On the way down, they’re ridiculously inadequate. The only sound louder than the avalanches is the rush of the wind in your ears as you make your own gravity-driven descent.