Diary

Mileage:  90 miles

Elevation Change:  2150 feet

Weather:  cool morning, windy afternoon

Morale:  great!

Incidents:  Raymond had stomach cramps during the last 2 hours so struggled

Daily Summary:

Another great night sleep in our quiet, dark cabin—10 hours.  We were up early, and discovered that the temperature is a lot lower at 8am than it is at noon!  Today was the reverse of Friday in that we were headed back over Logan Pass, down the Going to the Sun highway, and back to Kalispell.  Logan Pass was a lot easier today than it was on Friday.  As you can see on the elevation profile, there is less climbing going west.  Plus, we were over our jetlag and caught up on sleep.  So we really enjoyed the climb. 

 

The descent back to Lake McDonald was a lot of fun as well.  We flew down the mountain and along the river to the lake.  We got to the bike road closure just at 11am, so were condemned to take the shuttle once again.  We had a nice chat with a park ranger at the shuttle stop, who was quite a cyclist herself.  As we were sitting on a rock waiting for the shuttle, 3 cyclists flew by us and on down the road.  We saw them hesitate at the sign for no bikes between 11 and 4, but then the continued on their way.  Not ten seconds later along comes our friend the park ranger headed back down the road, and we had to laugh at the cyclist’s very bad luck.  But when they didn’t come back and join us at the shuttle stop, we started to think that maybe we should have ridden it as well.  The shuttle finally showed up—at the very same time that the three cyclists did.  They had gotten a $125 ticket!!!  And they were all three on our tour.  So we met our first group members and had a good laugh about the incident.

 

We had lunch in Apgar in the park, then started back down the road, 35 miles to Kalispell.  Our plan was to ride down to Hungry Horse for a slice of Huckleberry pie, but long before Hungry Horse Raymond started having bad stomach cramps and slowed way down.  We gave him a few salt pills, limped into town, and had lots of Gatorade with our pie.  That perked him up a little, but he was still feeling weak.  We had a ferocious headwind all the way back to Kalispell (payback for our glory ride with the tailwind on the same stretch on day one).  So, I got in front and tried to keep a steady pace for Raymond.  We finally got back to our hotel and checked in.  A super sized snickers bar and a liter of Gatorade helped him a lot. 

 

We get to unpack here as we will be here for two nights.  Tomorrow is a rest day and then we start the big miles on Tuesday. 

 

Below is the absolutely fabulous scenery as you approach Logan Pass from the east, Lil climbing, and Ray climbing