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btggraphix
Golden, CO
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Joined: 03/08/2005
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Okay - getting ready to post the rest of the story...but first I did want to mention a couple of things about the Going to the Sun Road. There are a few stops that I highly highly recommend stopping at - if we weren't in a pinch for time we wouldn't have passed on by. BUT, no description of the GTTSR would be comeplete without a couple of suggested stops that I don't have pictures of - I mean I have pictures of them but it would be cheating to use them since they were taken in other years.
#1, Trail of the Ceders. It's near Lake McD Lodge, and is an easy, flat walk, much of which is boardwalk, winding between these elder trees, with ferns and moss, and a beautiful creek, turqouis colored with glacial flour (powdered rock.) This was my mom favorite hike, since she didn't do much in the way of vertical hiking like dad was well-known for. If you have time, the hike the rest of the way up Avalanche Creek to Hidden lake is great too.
#2, at least one or more of the stops along McDonald Creek, where there are wonderful rapids and falls. The reds, whites, and greens of the rocks along with the turquoise water, make for amazingly colorful scenery.
#3, at Logan Pass, walking along the garden wall trail towards the north, and the Hidden Lake Trail (looks down over Hidden Lake, which is the one that Avalanche Creek Trail goes to) is a must.
#4, Sunrift Gorge, an very shoprt walk (100' or so) to an incredible little gorge where a creek runs along a fault creating a gogre that is like 4 or 5 feet wide, and 40-50' tall. It's really cool.
#5, The view point for Wild Goose Island.
ACtually, I am so disgusted with the World Series right now, I think I'm going to go to bed....I'll post of the last leg tomorrow.
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sleepy
Oak Ridge,Tennessee
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Please post the previous years pictures... they complete the story of "what's" available.
We are all enjoying your trip.
2003 Lance 1161,/slideout/AGM batteries/255W Solar/propane generator/Sat dish/2 Fantastic Fans model 6150/AC/winter package
AirFoil, Trimetric, LED lights
2003GMC K3500 LT/Crewcab/duramax diesel/allison/dually/4x4/OnStar/front reciever mounted spare
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DandE
WI, but looking for a better place
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I love the story & pics because it reminds me of the trip that we took to Glacier (the year that it was on fire, 6? or so years ago) and our trip to my wife's cousin in Corvallas, between the Bitterroot & Saphire mountain ranges. Her cousin and a frind of his took my wife & I on a days raft trip and it was a great memorable day too.
Your dads ashes story also is similar to mine because I had my kids cast some of my dads ashes in Idaho on a mountain that he loved, when he was in the service in his younger days.
Dale & Ellen
2005 Dodge Quad Cab 3500 5.9 CTD 4X4 Long Bed w/Tonneau cover
2002 Shadow Crusier 862 Short Bed Truck Camper, A/C
2008 Polaris X2 500 ATV
2004 Bayliner 185 BR
2002 Honda VTX1300
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btggraphix
Golden, CO
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OK....here was what I 'thought' was going to be the last set of pictures, but afterwards, I will go ahead and fill in some other photos from other years to help fill in the blanks from this trip.
Let's see, picking up from where I left off, we got back from the GTTSR ride, packed up the bikes and campers, and hit the road. There are two roads that will take you to Polebridge roughly following the North Fork of the Flathead River...one is called the "Inside Park" road and one called the "Outside Park" road, referring to the park boundary. The inside road is a whole lot slower, and seems to often have washouts from some of the creeks fairly often. The outside road (once you exit the park) is faster, but still very bumpy and dusty. There is a lot of private property and also a lot of logging going on - but either way, the scenery is beautiful, and typically people spend a whole day driving up the valley, stopping at Polebridge for homemade bread, sandwiches, cold drinks etc. and scenery viewing. There is a little bar at Polebridge too. Anyway, I think people typically just drive up for the day.
This is where you first cross the river, to get to the outside park road. Look how clear the water is....amazing:
A couple of shots looking through the burned trees, east towards the park:
The Polebridge Mercantile. I think it may still be for sale, but...ummmm...you better be prepared for the winters. The north fork road (even the outside one) can get completely snowed in during the winter. In any case, this place serves as the social center of the valley:
Does Rich's F350/AF990 really make my rig look fat? 
After you leave Polebridge, the road crosses the North Fork again and soon you pass an entrance station for the park again, and soon after that you come to the intersection where (basically) the inside park road, the road to Bowman Lake, and the road to Kintla Lake all come together. The road to Bowman is like 5 miles following Bowman Creek and isn't so bad.....trailers are OK. I convinced MrPhelps awhile back to go for it with his big TC and truck, and he said it was about his favorite spot they went. The campground up there is nice, and has many sites...and room for longer rigs like trailers. Not sure if you can make reservations or not.
The Kintla Lake road, is 16 miles....mostly following the valley floor, but occasionally going well up onto stream terraces and winding around and crossing smaller creeks coming in. Some of it is very low, and can flood....especially late in the season you have to be careful as you can get stranded until waters recede or snow melts. The ranger up there has had to haul all his stuff out before the end of the season and come back in a GNP vehicle to make sure he would be able to leave when the time came. The road is also much worse, more windy, narrow with low hanging branches. There are also only 14 campsites or so - so during peaks seasons you may get up there only to find no sites and have to drive the 16 miles back to Polebridge. So of course, where do we love to camp? Kintla Lake, but we only try late in the season.
We left the trailer locked and parked near Polebridge, and proceeded up the road. I think the 16 miles took us an hour and a half each way.
This is the view (northward) as you first cross the river back into the park:
As slow as the drive is, there are constantly places you just look out and say OMG this is incredible.
This is looking east into the Lewis Range of GNP. Our rig still seems to look fat:
Looking northwest:
Southwest from the same spot:
The road is looking pretty good here. There have been a anumber of fires in this valley over the last 20 years or so....and it actually leaves the views more open.
The last few miles of the road (when you are only a few more miles from the 49th parallel) turns east up Kintla Creek:
To a slice of heaven. Sorry for a number of shots all at the same spot, but it can't be helped:
Incredibly clear water. At night you can't tell where the water begins and the shore ends:
The campground is tight, and every site is short. Some I wouldn't be able to fit in without hanging over. Most years in mid to late September we would only be sharing the CG with a couple of other campers. This time there were only a couple of empty spots. I should have taken more pictures around the CG, because I think there were 4 other TC's other than ours. I think all of them were popups. A 4WC, an old Hallmark, and I can't remember the others.
Most of these people were locals, and out because of the incredibly warm temps and dry weather. This is why we like the cold/rainy weather so we get places more to ourselves.
We didn't manage to air up the inflatable kayak this time....we only stayed the one night, and headed out late morning the next day. Oh yeah, one other thing to mention here - the ranger who stays up there, is 80 years young. He retired from Rocky Flats near our home near Denver, and then started as a volunteer CG host at Avalanche Creek, then Bowman, and then finally Kintla. At some point he became a ranger. He and his wife had been going up to Kintla starting about 1990 or so and he still does. His wife passed away a couple of years ago so we weren't sure if we would see him, but there he was again, still going strong. He no longer takes the old motorhome, but now stays in his little ClassB. A very neat guy, named Lyle Ruterbories. Dang, no picture of Lyle.  I remember talking with him about all the bumps and potholes in the road, and he said "I don't bother to try to miss them and wander back and forth. I just point it straight ahead, and kept the speed at 10MPH and keep going."
OK, leaving to dang soon, as always.....
This one shows some tall trees burned long ago...makes for a nice view:
So we arrived back at the trailer, and quickly geared up for the ride up to the end of the 'outside' road, to the old border station (closed since the '90's)
There are a lot of USFS roads that head west into the woods, up drainages, and have some CG's up there. I've never had enough time to explore those roads, but someday I'd like to do so. It is some really remote country, with serious wildlife. I saw a nice book and map that elaborated on the ecological importance of the north fork valley in terms of being an area that "supplies" grizzley bears, wolves & wolverines, and other rare animals to the surrounding areas. This area is so sparsely populated by humans (especially in the area north of the border) that these species can continue to thrive.
In any case, here is the old man Whazoo low arm point photo. I guess as I get older, I can't hold that heavy arm up so well either. But perhaps I am actually pointing to the second bike, wondering where Whazoo is? The bike is waiting! Canada is calling!
The border:
There are actually Border Patrol and Homeland Security people on the US side, and they were actually working jointly that day with a couple of RCMP's.
They didn't attack us for stepping across the line:
I didn't realize that the line on the map is actually real. How conveniant that there is this swath of no trees, and no wonder they chose the 49th parallel to make the border 
(looking east)
(looking west)
Old border house on the Candadian side, with the female RCMP officer:
She was "cute", but didn't look like you would want to mess with her based on the size of the sidearm she carried and her tough-girl look. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are a federal police, similar in a sense to the FBI. They were doing a joint excercise along the border, and had their ATV with. She said they didn't get to do it much....and spent more time dealing with drunks in Ferni, some several hours north of here.
The north fork river looking north into Canada. This is a put-in for boaters and such, literally right at the border.
So, on the way back south, my tire went flat again. Lovely! The wrong sized tube might have been a factor, but I also think the dang-near-square wheel I have after about 8 years of riding this bike may be contributing to it. I plan on having the wheel rebuilt or replaced this winter. My wife also had had about all she could take with her ankle....it was too long a ride even though the road was fairly smooth...and her foot may have regressed a bit. Here we are back at the trailer enjoying a cool beer or two, getting ready to make the run back to Lake McD.
Final dinner at camp...using up the last of the meats and perhaps teasing the bears in the area:
Usually we end up on the east side of the park and would make the run back eastward across the plains via Great Falls, but we were still on the west side and after great deliberation, decided to head back south down the Swan River Valley and kind of skirt around the western and southern boundaries of the Bob Marshall Wilderness (or "The Bob" as they call it there.) This is the largest roadless area in the lower 48, and where they take "problem" bears from Glacier. They do all sorts of backcountry expeditions in there and there are plenty of outfitters than run long trips in.
Anyway, filling up near Hungry Horse:
We saw quite a bit of wildlife that early in the morning...but this one seemed very confused. I'm not sure Mr. Turkey should be visiting Mr. Wolf.....
Along the Swan Valley road:
Near Billings, we were in some insane winds. I can't say my rig wasn't affected, but it did a lot better than Rich's. I tried to get a few shots of how tipped he would get when the gusts blew. There was even a constant wind blowing, so he was always tilted a bit:
We stayed that night in Buffalo Wyoming at a nice RV park (with pool and hot tub) called Deer Creek RV Park. We woke up in the morning to a snow line at the base of the Bighorns, and here near Casper:
It was weird getting home after such warm weather, to snow at the house.
I'll fill in a few missing pictures, and a little wrap-up text later.
Until next post......
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xnorp
Spokane Washington
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Joined: 07/29/2004
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I am loving this great story and pictures to make it come to life.
Thanks again looking forward to you next outing. Thanks again.
xnorp
2000 F-250 SD PS 04 Snowriver 9'6" Rancho 9000X Super Springs Vision 19.5 w/Toyo M608Z
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sleepy
Oak Ridge,Tennessee
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Joined: 04/07/2003
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Much more that we missed when we were in that area... thanks again for sharing.
We need to put some Lance Struts on Rich's camper.
Sleepy
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btggraphix
Golden, CO
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Joined: 03/08/2005
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Sleepy - last time I asked a Lance dealer about struts on a non-Lance camper, they said we will only put them on a Lance - and other campers may not be suitably strong for them. That was Big John back when he was the Lance dealer. He also didn't want to do anything on my truck since I wasn't a Lance guy. But I CAN thank him for sending me to 5-Star RV which is where I have gone since, and might even now that I have a Lance. On the other hand, now that the economy is tighter, a Lance place might be willing to take the work regardless....sort of like them putting more windows in now (at the service department.) But I don't know, with winds like that I'd worry about doing more damage than good.
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btggraphix
Golden, CO
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OK, before I put in more pictures that come from another trip up there, I thought I'd put in my schedule for the trip. This way you have an idea of how long we took to do what we did. This trip was a little bit loose in terms of schedule, but I had a good plan to start with and then we modified as we needed to. In any case, here's how it shook out:
Friday: Left work in Denver and picked up friend at DIA, met the wives in Ft Collins, then drove north until late. Stayed at a rest area near Kaycee Wyoming (south of Buffalo.)
Saturday: Got up and drove the rest of the way to west of Bozeman where the geology field camp is - visited with frineds, and did an evening ride up the valley.
Sunday: Spent a lot of time walking around camp, taking pictures etc., and then did an afternoon ride over to Pony to the bar and ate pizza, drank beer, then rode back over the hill to camp. Wife broke ankle.
Monday AM: The boys went on a good ride...maybe 30-40 miles
Monday PM: left the camp, and stopped in Butte at the Prompt care place. Finished driving to Missoula, and camped for the night.
Tuesday AM: late start after mounting the downriggers, drove north into the towns south of Flathead Lake and spent a lot of time at fishing shops, getting licenses etc., and got to the state park in the late afternoon. Put the boat in the water - did a little fishing on the east shore of the lake, then took a tour across the lake, around Wildhorse Island, and back to camp.
Wednesday: Early morning fishing (guys only) and then back to get the girls. Took the boat all along the east shore all the way to Bigfork and had lunch. Crossed over to the west side and fished our way along the western shore, eventually getting back to camp a little before sunset.
Thursday AM: Hard core fisherman Rich goes out along to try to add to the fish we will eat on a later night - comes back empty handed, but smiling.
Thursday PM: Head to Lake McD and set up camp, put boat in Lake McD, go to Lake McD lodge to eat, run out of gas on way back.....PADDLE large boat to shore. Change MC tire at camp late.
Friday AM: Breakfast at Eddie's, ride Going to the Sun Road, return to camp.
Friday PM: Pack up, drive the North Fork Valley, arrive at Kintla late afternoon.
Saturday AM: Pack up and head back to Polebridge, ride the bikes to Canada.
Saturday PM: Return ro Lake McD. CG - last evening camp.
Sunday AM: Leave via Columbia Falls, Swan River Valley, I-90 and stop in Buffalo Wyoming.
Monday AM: Leave and return to Denver.
Total miles was a little less than 2500 as I recall, over an 11 day trip. About the only main thing we missed that I would have liked to taken our friends was the east side of Glacier. I also would have preferred another night up the north fork after driving all the way up there. But one heck of a trip. One I have done variations on 3 times in the last 6 years or so.
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btggraphix
Golden, CO
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OK, I apoliogize for perhaps not letting this trip report end - but I guess you can blame it on Sleepy! In any case, I'm going to go ahead and post up a few pictures from a prior, near duplicate, trip.
First off, I have to post a shot of an area off the interstate 90 west of Butte, and east of Anaconda, that's always intrigued me. There are these trees that look like Junipers, spaced out covering a big amount of land. Every time I drive by it strikes me....I've never notcied another place quite like it.
Another thing you should look for, is the lakeshores from 'Glacial Lake Missoula' which are all over the sides of the valley around Missoula. It's very cool. Imagine this whole valley, stretching all the way up to and including Flathead Lake (I think) and every so often, the ice dam would get breached, and drain out in a few days. These lines on the side of the valley are from that lake:
Eddie's Cafe - great pancakes:
The Jammer tour busses - an alternate way to see the GTTSR. These were made by White I think, and recently rebuilt by Ford to run very very cleanly. When we were there, they ran twice a day for the Apgar to Logan Pass run, or once a day in the morning, to go all the way over to St. Mary's and back.
Bowman Lake:
Campground at Bowman:
Additional shot of a nearly empty Kintla Lake CG:
OK, missed stops on GTTSR. McDonald Creek:
Another shot of Heaven's Peak:
There's one big switchback on the GTTSR (on the west side) called "The Loop". This is after/above The
Loop, where you are working your way up the side below the Garden Wall, heading towards Logan Pass:
Looking up at part of the Garden Wall:
Another shot of the Logan Pass visitor center. The Hidden Lake overlook trail is behind the center, and goes to the left of the Peak:
Looking back down at the Garden Wall on the right, and the scar of the GTTSR. You can faintly see the Highline Trail above the road:
The old man looking pretty happy, and pretty healthy considering he is about 3 days after a chemo treatment:
Looking down at Hidden Lake:
At the overlook:
Looking down the valley towards Upper St. Mary's Lake:
Sunrift Gorge. I guess I overestimated the height and width....it's narrower, and shorter...but it's an unassuming stop that many people cruise right by:
Hiking along the Highline Trail, only a short distance from Logan Pass:
Looking back down at the road below:
Looking north along the trail. One year we took the little spur trail that takes you up to a tiny window through the Garden Wall. I can't remember if it is that notch in the picture or not....I think it was actually a smaller notch. But it is an awesome view from there....you look down at Grinnel Glacier, and all the way out to the plains to the east. I'll have some pictures in valley from the other side. The year my dad and I hiked it, mom dropped us off at the pass, and we hiked all the way to Swiftcurrent Pass, then to the Swiftcurrent firtower on top of Swiftcurrent Peak, and then down past Granite Park Chalet to hit the road at "The Loop" where mom picked us up. What an awesome unforgetable day of hiking. Another note or two here. First off, Glacier really is a park for hiking. There are limited roads, mostly spurs into the park. To really see it, hiking is almost required. That's not to say you can't have a great time without (like we did this time) but if you like to hike at all, plan a number of short day hikes. Also, the two chalets in the park are very very cool. It's nice to hike a tough long hike, and then stop in and eat hot food. You can ride horses to them and stay - and it's a one of a kind adventure. I think Sperry Chalet is also the home of the million dollar toilet of tax-spending fame. Not to get into politics, but they wanted to keep the chalet open, but how do you manage to compost at high alpine conditions in an environmentally friendly way? For 80 years or something they just dumped it on the rocks below I think. Anyway, glad they managed to make ti happen tro preserve these unique treasures.
Zoom on the loop - check out all the aspen turning:
Another must do short walk, very level. The Trail of the Ceders:
Avalanche Creek....if you take this trail up to the end, you come to Hidden Lake - same lake you see from above at Logan Pass.
The lodge at East Glacier - not a great photo - oh well:
Grinnel Point and Many Glacier Lodge. To the left of Grinel Point, on the skyline you see a notch. That's the one we hiked to from the other side many years ago. The Peak to the right of Grinnel Point is Swiftcurrent Peak - the one with a firetower on the top.
The view to the right of Grinbnel Point. There's a spot in the wall that has a hole where the setting sun sends light through. Also up that valley to the far right, is a trail that goes way up high, and
then goes through a tunnel and comes out on a cliff on the other side. This is Swiftcurrent Lake. There is a little boat ride you can take around this lake, get off and hike over a low hill and down to the next lake up (Lake Josephine) and get on another boat and ride the length of that lake. A great treat if you don't like to hike a lot, as it gets you a long way up the valley for more sights.
Check out the kayaker paddling around:
A handsome billy goat hanging out near the trail:
Cool shadow - think there might be a big peak behind us?
Neat sight of the silt/flour entering the Lower grinnel Lake from the upper Grinnel Lake where the glacier is:
OK, I think that's it. Sorry about making this all so long - hope you don't mind. It's been fun going back through the photos. I can't say enough about Glacier. It's my favortie national park, though I can't say I have been to all of them or anything.
Thanks for reading all this......
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whazoo
Arizona
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Joined: 10/12/2007
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No worries Brian, I was there all along. You don't mind if I ride your bike? Told you I wanted to. My helmet hurts my head though, does it look too big? LOVE the pose. Got to get me a thumper to do some mountain riding, you make it look SO GOOD!! Thanks again...
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