Going to the Sun Road
My son and I rode up this pass Friday night on the full moon. Glacier National Park. It was just completely nutty and fantastic. It's a regular thing people do 3 times a summer on the full moons. Sometimes a few people, sometimes a couple hundred. They said last year there was a wedding up on top at midnight.
We rode from Avalanche Creek, so 16 miles up at about 6% for the last 10 miles. Sunset, everything in shadows, just beautiful. Then it gets really dark and there's still traffic up there with cars blinding you now and then on curves. The moon is lighting up all the peaks and the floor of the valley below, but you're in the shadow of the cliffs so still pretty dark. As you get to the saddle and cross the valley at the top..BOOM...moonrise! And it's really bright.
He humored me and rode slow, but it was quite a pace for me. But you slow down and chat with people as you pass. Lots of nutty lights and glow sticks and a couple of little kids.
Maybe 100 people at the top milling around the visitor center and talking, resting. We helped fix a couple of flats for people with group tools and lights, dried out, had some food, bundled up, headed down. Fast and CHILLY! Switchbacks come up out of nowhere so you have to be on your brakes all the time. Got down at 2AM, campgrounds all full, slept in the back of the car.
Next morning took the free shuttle bus back up and did some amazing hikes off the top of the pass. We saw goats, baby goats, a bighorn sheep, lots of little varmints, and a grizzly way across the meadow - everybody was watching with scopes. Rangers weren't worried, he was plenty far away.
It was a great experience - if you haven't been to Glacier Park, it's worth a trip. You use words you never use, like stunning, immense, vast...
The road crosses that shelf below the peak in the center of the pic. Couple of switchbacks and then you're in a saddle at 6646 feet. Seems way higher than that when you're up there.
(Not our photos)
All of this was built in the early 30s as a WPA project. There are big drop-offs, a couple of tunnels, and places where the cliff above you overhangs the road. They don't allow big campers to go over. The shuttle busses just clear.
Maybe one of these was the guy we saw! This is when the road is partially cleared in late spring, but note no guardrails installed yet - the snowslides just rip them off, so they engineered removable rails.
My son and I rode up this pass Friday night on the full moon. Glacier National Park. It was just completely nutty and fantastic. It's a regular thing people do 3 times a summer on the full moons. Sometimes a few people, sometimes a couple hundred. They said last year there was a wedding up on top at midnight.
We rode from Avalanche Creek, so 16 miles up at about 6% for the last 10 miles. Sunset, everything in shadows, just beautiful. Then it gets really dark and there's still traffic up there with cars blinding you now and then on curves. The moon is lighting up all the peaks and the floor of the valley below, but you're in the shadow of the cliffs so still pretty dark. As you get to the saddle and cross the valley at the top..BOOM...moonrise! And it's really bright.
He humored me and rode slow, but it was quite a pace for me. But you slow down and chat with people as you pass. Lots of nutty lights and glow sticks and a couple of little kids.
Maybe 100 people at the top milling around the visitor center and talking, resting. We helped fix a couple of flats for people with group tools and lights, dried out, had some food, bundled up, headed down. Fast and CHILLY! Switchbacks come up out of nowhere so you have to be on your brakes all the time. Got down at 2AM, campgrounds all full, slept in the back of the car.
Next morning took the free shuttle bus back up and did some amazing hikes off the top of the pass. We saw goats, baby goats, a bighorn sheep, lots of little varmints, and a grizzly way across the meadow - everybody was watching with scopes. Rangers weren't worried, he was plenty far away.
It was a great experience - if you haven't been to Glacier Park, it's worth a trip. You use words you never use, like stunning, immense, vast...
The road crosses that shelf below the peak in the center of the pic. Couple of switchbacks and then you're in a saddle at 6646 feet. Seems way higher than that when you're up there.
(Not our photos)
All of this was built in the early 30s as a WPA project. There are big drop-offs, a couple of tunnels, and places where the cliff above you overhangs the road. They don't allow big campers to go over. The shuttle busses just clear.
Maybe one of these was the guy we saw! This is when the road is partially cleared in late spring, but note no guardrails installed yet - the snowslides just rip them off, so they engineered removable rails.
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