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Trippin' Connies 5: Glacial Express

Joined
Sep 11, 2006
Messages
2,531
Reaction score
93
Location
Houston, TX
First Name
Kory
Last Name
Burleson
It’s that time of year again. The Connies have been fitted with new tires and filled with fresh oil. Routes and reservations have been made. It’s time to see some new sights, check several more states off the list, and get some fresh air. I love taking these trips, but I always leave with a heavy heart, especially this year being away from my daughter and pregnant wife. I can’t thank my wife enough for her understanding.


Day 1 - 7/27/2013 - Houston, TX to Salina, KS - 681 Miles


Houston, TX to Salina, KS - 681 miles – MAP LINK





When my alarm clock went off at 3:45 am I stumbled around the house as I woke up. As I began loading up the bike I heard what I thought was rain on the carport. It couldn’t be! I certainly don’t recall hearing anything about rain early this morning. But it was, and it soon turned into a downpour. What an awesome way to start a trip. I called dad to see if he was prepared to take off in the rain. I drug my feet taking off and did so when the rain slacked up.

Trip B is cleared for good measure and my bike has a bit over 36k miles to start with.
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I gassed up on the way to dad’s house, trying to get a feel for everything again. I literally had to knock the cobwebs off my bike in preparation for this trip. Since TC4 I had racked up a whopping 300 miles on my bike. A new tire combined with rain wasn’t my ideal way of getting back into the swing of things. I made it to dad’s house at 5:15. We had planned on 5, so considering the downpour we weren’t too far behind.

We took off and as soon as we entered I-45 we ran into another problem. I could no longer hear dad through my speakers. He had bought a brand new set of Sena headsets and this was their first test. I thought it was weird how I could no longer hear him when they were working fine up until entering the freeway. I started thinking about it and the only difference was I had put my helmet down and locked the chin bar in at that exact time. I unlocked the chin bar and immediately we could converse again. I had no idea what was going on, but the moment I would lock my helmet down I could no longer hear dad, but he could still hear me. So up until the first gas stop, I rode with the chin bar down, but not locked in. I joked that I’d just have to remember to snap it into position if I was going to crash. It was an uneasy feeling as I prefer to ride with my face fully protected.

The first gas stop was in Corsicana, TX. Luckily dad brought a tiny allen wrench so I started messing with the Sena on my helmet. My helmet was also brand new; I had picked up a HJC CL-Max II. It is a Bluetooth ready model and I had originally mounted the Sena right over the Bluetooth box. I decided to move it forward and inch or two and then we tested them out with my helmet locked down. It worked! I have absolutely NO idea why my speakers shut off in the original location, but the problem had been remedied so I wasn’t going to worry about it too much.

We made our way though Dallas without any problems and on into Oklahoma. Next gas stop was in Ardmore, OK. Gas station pictures suck, but I guess they’re better than nothing.
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Before leaving this stop, I put my Oakley sunglasses on, the same ones I wore all last year. 5 Miles down the road they were already killing me. They didn’t fit well with this helmet and created a nice pressure point right behind my ears. Halfway to the next gas stop I ended up pulling them off because I couldn’t take it anymore. I just went from one extreme to another. It was so bright outside and I had a clear face shield, so I was practically squinting the rest of the way.

As we were getting close to Oklahoma City we got into a construction zone and the barriers made the freeway really tight. I passed a truck on the left and when dad went to pass the truck started moving over into dad’s lane. He didn’t even have time to find his horn, just hollered “HEY!” as loud as he could and luckily the guy had his window rolled down. It startled the guy and he overcompensated, almost smashing his truck into the barrier on the other side. A close call though.

Next gas stop was in Tonkawa, OK. Not much to see around these parts.
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I figured I had two options with my vision. Either find a motorcycle shop and hope they had a tinted shield, or buy some new sunglasses. I went for the later at this stop. It turned out being the best $18 I’ve ever spent on a trip. I found some with soft/bendable sides, so they fit in my helmet perfectly. They were also polarized, which provided for some trippy effects at times.

With my new shades, I was feeling great for the final stretch of the day. It may have had something to do with Red Bull and Aleve as well. Neither one of us has ridden in Kansas before, so we colored in another one on the map.
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We pulled into Salina, KS late in the afternoon and decided not to do anything special for dinner. We walked over to Wendy’s and then had to make a quick trip to Walmart. Dad forgot a hat for the trip so he wanted to pick one up. He went with a local flavor.
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There were a ton of classic cars in town for a meet. Before going back to the room I walked around and grabbed a few shots.
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The rest of the night consisted of watching the UFC fights and dad hydrating.
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A couple notes for Day 1:
-Comfort Suites has some seriously comfortable beds.
-So far the new Sena headsets are not Trippin’ Connies approved. The batteries depleted with about 200 miles left in the day, so we had to plug them in while riding.
-Today was the most comfortable trip ever getting out of Texas. There was good cloud cover and it only got up into the mid 90s. Coming into Salina, KS it was actually a cool 73 degrees or so.
 
Day 2 - 7/28/2013 – Salina, KS to Douglas, WY - 652 Miles

Day 2 Map Link




I was up at 6 and could hear the rain hitting against the window. At least the guys at the front desk let us park the bikes under the cover for the night. We drug our feet again and ate the continental breakfast at 7. We had a nice window seat watching and contemplating the rain. The lady at the front desk in the morning pulled up the weather radar as we put on our rain suites. She said we’d probably have rain for 30-50 miles and then we’d be good. The crazy thing is I was dumb enough to believe her.

For the first 180 miles we went in and out of rain and heavy fog. Many times I had to slow way down because I couldn’t see 50 foot in front of the bike. The first need for gas on the day came at Oakley, KS. It was still foggy.
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Dad called me over to look at something. I call this one “the truth behind the hot dog machine.”
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We continued west on I-70 entering the Mountain Time Zone and then into Colorado. Rain on and off. The good news was that the temperature remained in the 50s for most of the day. The next gas stop was in Limon, CO.
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The next challenge was traversing Denver. Our route had us looping the outskirts on 470. I’m still not sure if 470 was a toll road or not. There were signs saying license plate tolls, but I have no idea how they worked because there were no toll plazas. Once we turned north on I-25 the traffic got thick. There were a ton of cars on the road, and it was slow going. We were going twice as fast as the southbound traffic, so at least we had that going for us. There were countless numbers of RVs and ski boats headed to Denver. Then we came upon another new state for us, Wyoming.
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We ended up stretching the next gas stop out to Cheyenne, WY. It looked as if we had just missed a big rodeo in town. I finally got a chance to peel off my rain gear and put my new shades back on.
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While at this gas stop, we took notice of a guy that pulled off the freeway with what appeared to be his child on the back. They were riding on a KLR650. It looked like they were trying to get something situated on the seat. A little way down the road we passed the KLR as they were pulled over beneath an overpass of the interstate. Another maybe 30 miles down the road we started to approach a storm. There was a perfectly placed “parking area” on the side of the interstate so we whipped in there to put the rain gear back on. No sooner did we get off the bikes did the KLR pull up behind us. We were shocked because we were doing 80-85mph so he had to have been pushing that KLR to be that close behind. He pulled over so his daughter (we assume) could put her rain gear on.
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The impending storm…
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And off they went, he said they were riding from Colorado Springs to Casper.
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We took off and it turned out to be just a short downpour. The rest of the trip to Douglas was uneventful. We pulled into the First Interstate Inn and let me just say it was no Comfort Suites. Dad checked us in while I took a hike across the road and up a driveway to try to get a picture of a huge rainbow. By the time I got to where I wanted the rainbow was basically gone. Those things move fast.
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Back at the hotel dad described the lady working in the office as “crusty.” Oh boy. The room was subpar, somewhat clean, and already inhabited by a few annoying flies. We went back into the office to find out where to eat and Crusty (which dad so accurately described so it was now her nickname) recommended a Mexican restaurant in town. As we rode to the restaurant we passed a couple brand new hotels. Doh! At least our place was cheap, which now started to make sense. We ended up taking Crusty’s recommendation and eating at La Costa. The food was decent, but the margaritas sucked.
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After dinner we stopped at a river because it looked like an interesting area. On the walk down to the water we realized it was the Platte River, cool because Platte is a family name on my mom’s side. There wasn’t much to look at down at the water’s edge because reeds were blocking most of the view.
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We walked back up to the bridge and looked around from there.
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On the walk back to the bikes we observed a little girl (in a non-creepy sort of way) with her two horses. It was crazy the way she so naturally took control of them. She hopped on one and took it for a couple of laps. A true little cowgirl, doing a little showing off.
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Back at the hotel a huge thunderstorm rolled in with the night darkness. There was a ton of lightning activity and the thunder boomed like nothing I’d ever heard before. I wanted to try to capture some of the strikes so I set up my tripod. This picture sums up the First Interstate Inn to me.
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I stood out in the parking lot until I literally got scared I was going to get struck by lightning. The strikes were blinding. It was creepy and beautiful all at the same time.
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Note: The Sena headset batteries did not run out on Day 2, maybe we were breaking them in.
 
Day 3 - 7/29/2013 – Douglas, WY to Red Lodge, MT - 380 Miles


Day 3 – MAP LINK





We were up at 6 am, local time. If there was a continental breakfast at the First Interstate Inn, we didn’t want any part of it. I do feel much better about the upcoming ride after checking my bike in the morning though. Haha.
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We were on the road by 7:15, looping back around to get on I-25. As soon as we took off I looked out into the field next to our hotel and there were at least 10 pronghorns grazing. One was literally right next to the fence where we were and I didn’t even look over there. I was pissed that I miss out on some photo opportunities.

After doing 2 days straight over 650 miles I planned today to be short mileage and more scenic. We headed west on I-25 to Casper and exited onto US 20. Before leaving Casper we filled up on gas, since we hadn’t the night before.

40 Miles west of town we passed a brown recreation sign. I couldn’t read it quick enough but dad said it read “****’s Half Acre.” The name alone had me intrigued so we u-turned and headed back to check it out. What we found was a pretty neat little piece of Wyoming. The only problem was everything was fenced off. I couldn’t get any decent pictures. But as we were walking around I found a spot big enough to sneak under, which I assume many others have also done.
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There wasn’t much to see from here until we reached Boysen Reservoir. We stopped at the north side of the lake, near the dam, to take little break. It was a beautiful little spot.
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I looked down the hill and could see black spots in the water. They appeared to be good-sized fish, but I wasn’t convinced. There was only one way to find out, and it involved a rock… or several of them.
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They were indeed fish, and big ones. Not sure of the species though.

We continued on US 20, now heading north, along the Bighorn River and passing through 3 tunnels along the way.
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The river led us to the town of Thermopolis where we filled up our tanks. Not only is it a really nice looking town, it’s fun to say. I wouldn’t mind coming back to that area some day.

We passed through Cody, WY and took WY 120 to the start of Chief Joseph Scenic Highway.
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Dad was inspired to do his best Chief Joseph impression.
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Just a couple miles into CJSH the weather started to threaten us again, so we pulled over to gear up.
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We stopped at a nice overlook area that was crowded with humans and chipmunks.
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The next stop for a break was at a scenic overlook at a bridge over a creek running below. I took a picture for a group of rough looking biker gang/club guys with their women here. Their camera, not mine. They had their fancy vests and braided facial hair. I think dad and I should wear tricked out leather vests. The “Dos Locos” has a nice ring to it.
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Taking our time along the CJSH I stopped again when Beartooth Mountain came into view.
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Did you see it? I doubt it. It was on the other side of the road and off in the distance.
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There are tons of these dudes cruising these parts.
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At the junction of CHSH and Beartooth Pass Highway (US 212) I snagged another picture of Beartooth Mountain. Before the trip I read somewhere that at this junction was about the best view of the mountain from paved roads.
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We headed east on Beartooth Pass Highway and I now know why it is touted as one of the best motorcycle roads in the country. I’m actually a bit shocked the area isn’t a National Park and charging for admission. It’s absolutely beautiful scenery. The first stop we made as we climbed in elevation was at Little Bear Lake.
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Right around the corner we ran into a construction zone.
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A guy in a truck came riding by telling everyone the wait would be about 20-30 minutes. We got off the bikes and waited it out. A truck in front of us offered the group ahead of us beer and they accepted. Funny, dad and I didn’t get offered anything. Then all of a sudden one of the guys fired up his bike and headed up a dirt trail. We stood there watching in confusion, trying to figure out what he was doing. We still don’t really know, but he climbed the hill all the way to the tree line in the picture below. The dirt trail was not smooth. We were just waiting for the guy to dump the bike. I assure you he was bottoming out the suspension on that Harley. A few minutes later he came back down. Maybe the beer ran right through him?
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We got going and the next stop we made was near the top of the pass, it was right at 11,000 ft. here. I liked this spot, as you can see from the amount of pictures.
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We stopped a little further up and it started to rain on us. It had also gotten pretty cold, into the lower 40s. I’m not sure why, but I made the decision not to put my rain gear on. I had hopes the rain wouldn’t be bad and would pass. It was a pretty stupid idea, considering I only had on mesh gear except for winter gloves, but it actually worked out.
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The rain was only light and went away pretty quick. I dodged a bullet. We finally hit the Montana border and were greeted with beautiful rainbow. Now that was a welcome.
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I couldn’t resist stopping just a little further up the road. Maybe it was because the scenery was so boring the two previous days, but I was slowing us to a crawl today.
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One last stop for the day was at a point that you could walk out too. There was a decent crowd there, so it deterred my picture taking. The place was called Rock Creek Vista.
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We cruised down the mountain and into Red Lodge, MT where we had to find the back way to our hotel due to the street being torn up on the front side. We were told the main water pipes in town were almost 100 years old and were made of wood. They were in the process of replacing them.
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The Yodeler Motel was a cool place to stay, they gave away stickers for goodness sake. The lady working the desk had a great attitude and recommended Foster & Logan’s Pub & Grill for dinner. It was a 4 or 5 block walk so we took off down Broadway Ave.
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I introduced dad to Moose Drool and he actually liked it. You can’t beat having a few from the tap in Montana. We both had buffalo burgers and I opted for bacon and ham on mine. My first buffalo burger, and it was delicious.
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The bank sign read 60 degrees on the walk back to the Yodeler and it felt great outside. I really liked what I saw of Red Lodge. It was a neat town, but it was packed with cruisers, not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that, just a statement. Our room at the Yodeler was on the basement level. They had a place to wash off your bike, if you did that type of thing. They also provided towels to dry off bikes in the morning. Our room was equipped with a steam bath from decades ago. I gave it a shot and it was certainly a different experience. I’ve never been in steam so thick I couldn’t see my belly button. Not sure I felt any better after, but I tried it. Our room also didn’t have an A/C unit, just a window with a fan in it.

Today was hundreds of miles shorter than the two previous, but it was just as long due to all the stops, but those stops are what makes the trip more memorable.
 
Day 4 - 7/30/2013 – Red Lodge, MT to Kalispell, MT - 477 Miles


Day 4 – MAP LINK




We woke up at the usual 6 am and got rolling a little after 7. The only downside to the Yodeler was no breakfast, but that can be overlooked. We gassed up before leaving town and kept northeast on US 212 until we reached Laurel. Here we turned west on I-90 where we would spend a good part of the day. There wasn’t much to see this morning. The first stop we made was 180 miles after leaving the motel, in Bozeman, MT. It was good to get off the bikes and stretch the legs. But dad wanted to do more, he was ready to speak to a real estate agent and start looking for properties. The last stretch was the toughest on him thus far. His mind and body weren’t in it. I was worried how the rest of the day was going to go.
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We continued west on I-90 churning out the miles. As we were coming into Butte, a fox ran across the interstate in front of me. It was big and had really long legs, and no, it wasn’t a deer. It wasn’t a close call, but he made me hit my brakes and make sure he wasn’t going to run back across on me. The crazy thing was he was going from the rural side of the road to the urban side.


I planned on getting gas and stretching out when we exited I-90. Too bad there wasn’t a gas station there. We took US 12 to MT 141 and the miles kept going on, with no sign of gas. I needed to get off the bike so when I saw a lake I knew I would stop there. It shows to be Nevada Lake on the map.
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Another dose of liquid energy for dad…
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From here we continued on a slow pace. I knocked the speed down in an effort to get better mileage and make it to the next potential gas stop. It’s amazing what kind of mileage these bikes can get only going 65-70 mph. I only trust my GPS to a certain extent when it comes to gas stations. My maps haven't been updated… ever. At a little over 200 miles we reached a gas station at the intersection of MT 200 and MT 83.
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Heading north on MT 83 now, we followed along a chain of beautiful lakes. It was tough to see them because the trees were so thick. We made a stop at one of the smaller lakes in the chain, Summit Lake.
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Next stop was a bit up the road at Swan Lake. It’s the longest lake in Montana without a dam.
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We didn’t stop again until we filled up on gas after reaching our destination town of Kalispell. Coming into town, the temperature had reached the upper 80s. We were not far from the Canadian border and yet it was the hottest it had been since Texas/Oklahoma the first day. We made our way to the Kalispell Grand Hotel. We had made good time today, spending over 250 miles on the interstate. This historic hotel has been around for 101 years and would be our base camp for the next two nights. It was charming and our room was really nice and clean. Fresh baked cookies and popcorn in the afternoons are a nice touch.

The girl that checked us in recommended the Italian restaurant that was literally right next door. It was a nice place, but a little concerning when there was only one other table filled when we arrived. It was early, and the place was crowded when we left. The food was really good, but it was also probably the most I’ve ever spent on a motorcycle trip dinner. We left stuffed.
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Back at the hotel dad started flipping through the channels and stopped on some homemade documentary (that looked like it was filmed in 1988) about building a canoe. It started with chopping a tree down and it was basically like watching paint dry. But as time went on, it was interesting and we didn’t want to turn it off. We watched the whole hour. Jako built a working canoe with no modern day tools other than a hammer, hand drill, and hand saw. It was pretty awesome.

Later on I went outside to get some pictures of the hotel before going to bed.
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Those last two shots, how are you shooting such clear shots? F22? They are amazing.
 
Those last two shots, how are you shooting such clear shots? F22? They are amazing.

Thanks, both are ISO 100, f/18 for 15 seconds.

The light "smear," as I would call it, around the hotel neon signs drives me crazy though. :doh: I could probably fix them with a lot of time.
 
Kory, you are a lucky man. Thanks for taking us along.
 
Kory,

You have take some really excellent pictures so far....professional level if I may say so. What type of camera are you using?

Btw, since you are near the Canadian border, any chance you might cross over and go up to Banff/Lake Louise? British Columbia is simply breathtaking. All you need is your American passport.

RB
 
Red Brown, he was near the border a month ago. Check the date at the beginning of each post.
 
Day 5 - 7/31/2013 – Kalispell, MT to Kalispell, MT - 238 Miles


Day 5 – MAP LINK




We slept in just a tiny bit and then went downstairs to have breakfast in the hotel lobby. I wanted to stay at the same hotel for two nights so that we didn’t have to lug everything through the park. Today was about enjoying the main destination of our trip, Glacier National Park. We grabbed the necessities and made the 30-mile ride to the west entrance of the park.
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There was a line at the entrance, but it moved quickly. We got into traffic right away on the Going-to-the-Sun Road. We were moving about 5-10 mph as we climbed in elevation for a couple of miles. All I could think of was how long it was going to take for us to make the whole 50 miles through the park. The traffic jam was being caused by a large group of bicycle riders. It was difficult for cars to pass safely, but once everyone in front of us made it around we were able to at least go the speed limit. We made sure to clear the bikes and then made a quick stop.
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We stopped quite a bit, mostly my doing because I wanted to get pictures.
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I couldn’t resist a couple “Going-to-the-Sun” pictures.
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Another quick stop…
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And another…
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A little further down the road and another place to enjoy the scenery.
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One final stop before reaching Logan Pass...
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We finally reached Logan Pass, which is little past the halfway point of the Going-to-the-Sun Road. The plan was for us to get off the bikes here and take a little hike out to the Hidden Lake overlook. We pulled into the somewhat crowded parking lot and made use of the close designated motorcycle parking area.

I had read that this hike was one of the most popular, but also one of the easiest of the good hikes in the park. It was one and a half miles to the overlook, piece of cake, right? Mistake #1 was getting my info from a hiking website. The guy probably does this stuff in his sleep. Mistake #2 was carrying way too much crap along with me. I took all my camera gear including tripod, full camelback, and snacks. Mistake #3 was being completely out of shape. And so we took off up the hill…
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The stairs kept coming and the weight I was carrying along with me was killing me. Every time we would crest part of the trail another hill would appear. When I stopped to take a picture it was really an attempt to catch my breath.
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When the trail finally flattened out, a crowd in front of us gathered around to watch a mountain goat and her kid. Momma paused for a moment and then rethought her path, going around a group of trees to avoid the crowd. I stayed back, loaded up my 80-200mm and waited for them to emerge.
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Almost there…
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We made it to the overlook and of course it was somewhat crowded. We went ahead and walked just a bit further and found a good place to stop and soak it all in.
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While we were there a couple more goats came to visit. There were also a bunch of Columbian ground squirrels running around begging for food.
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I took a few more shots, we snacked and recharged our batteries.
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The hike back to the bikes was much more enjoyable. It may have had something to do with heading downhill.
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On the way back down we caught up with the momma and kid on their descent. They were walking right down the path and people were moving out of their way.
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At one point the kid was rubbing its head against a post. It knocked over the post, startling the kid, and it took off running for momma. It cracked me up. About two-thirds of the way down they finally broke off from the trail.
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The only other animals we saw were a few marmots. Back at the parking lot it was now jam-packed. We stopped in at the visitor center to collect some stickers and souvenirs and then made our way out. I ended up stopping about every quarter of a mile. The views were magnificent, and I couldn’t resist stopping over and over.
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We finally got moving a bit and made another quick stop at a Goose Island viewpoint.
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Literally right around the corner we ran into a construction zone. Waiting here we talked to the best looking construction worker we’ve ever run across. Here’s dad wishing she was holding an umbrella instead of a stop sign…
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We exited the park and made the decision to head north to the border, just because. We were so close, we might as well make the run up US 89. It was a 40 mile detour, but what the hey.
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We went as far as we could, without having to answer questions or be subject to a cavity search, before turning around. Welcome to the United States of America.
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We ran back south on US 89. Now back south of the Going-to-the-Sun Road, US 89 was a nice and curvy road, just watch out for the cows. Also, this area is recovering from past wild fires. We turned onto MT 49 and this road was really twisty, but the road surface sucked, and to an extent, downright dangerous. We made a stop at an overlook of Lower Two Medicine Lake.
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From here we took US 2, looping around the bottom of the park. We got stuck riding through a long construction zone and were completely covered in dust by the time we got out of it. Towards the end of the day the song “O Canada” somehow turned into “O Kalispell.” The newly invented song would haunt our conversations for the entire trip home.

We gassed up in Columbia Falls and made our way back to the hotel. We were whooped and didn’t want anything fancy for dinner, so we walked down to the A&W, cheap and easy. The rest of the night we rested up for the next day. The weather forecast wasn’t looking good.
 
Kory,

You have take some really excellent pictures so far....professional level if I may say so. What type of camera are you using?

Btw, since you are near the Canadian border, any chance you might cross over and go up to Banff/Lake Louise? British Columbia is simply breathtaking. All you need is your American passport.

RB


Thanks! I used a Nikon D600 and various lenses I took along with me. The majority of the shots were taken with my wide angle Tokina 16-24mm f/2.8.

As you'll see above, we went to the border, but that was it. I have a passport, but dad doesn't, so I knew it wasn't going to happen. I've heard that area is gorgeous. Maybe one day...
 
I look forward to this read every day. Thanks! :coffee:
 
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