Up in Smoke

We have been looking forward to cycling in the Rocky Mountains for a long time. Ever since returning home from South America, in fact. The plan was to meet the El’s (Ellen and Elmar) somewhere in the Rockies in the northern US and ride north with them into Canada.

The plan was hatched August, 2014, when we parted ways in Cusco, Perú. Jan and I went north to cycle in the Cordillera Blanca, and flew home from Ecuador in October, 2014, but the El’s kept cycling north through South and Central America and Mexico, eventually picking up the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route in the US, a trail that runs from Antelope Wells, New Mexico, to Banff, Alberta.

It’s been a long, dry summer and forest fires have been raging all over the northwestern US and southern BC. The smoke in Whitefish was thick when we arrived but the good news was that the fire in Glacier National Park had been extinguished and the Going to the Sun Road was open again to cyclists.

Our friends Cathy and Walt put us up at their place in Whitefish and Ellen and Elmar cycled into town the next day. We spent two months cycling together in Bolivia and Perú and became good friends, so it was a great reunion for all of us.

We spent another day hanging out in Whitefish with our generous hosts Cathy and Walt who took us on a smokey, sunset booze cruise on Whitefish Lake, with dinner after at a local restaurant.

With the bikes loaded, we headed north into Glacier National Park. Unfortunately, the smoke covered the landscape like a blanket and views of the mountains were very limited. Regardless, it was great to be out cycling again with friends.

While camped at St. Mary’s on the west side of Glacier, a fierce thunderstorm in the evening cleared the air and by morning we had gorgeous clear skies for a short ride north into Many Glaciers. Sadly, the glaciers in the park have all but disappeared and will likely all be gone in another 10 years. I wonder if they will rename it “Used to be Many Glaciers.”

The clear skies didn’t last as fires to the west raged on pushing a plume of smoke over a large swath of the US and Canada and sadly causing loss of life and property. Nothing we could do but ride on and hope for the fires to burn out or rain to bring them under control.

We crossed the border into Canada at Chief Mountain, a small border post between Glacier and Waterton Lakes National Parks, and cycled into the town of Waterton Lakes, crossing paths with a small black bear on the bike path.

North we cycled along the smokey rolling hills of southwestern Alberta into the Crowsnest Pass, the southern-most crossing of the Rocky Mountains between Alberta and British Columbia. A friend of the El’s generously offered his house for us to stay in while he was away working. Thank you Wim!

Here is a map of our ride so far. Click on it for more information.

Here are some more photos.

Red Rock Falls in Many Glaciers.

Wind mills are never a good sign for cyclists heading west in southern Alberta. It means head wind.

El and El riding into Waterton Lake National Park.

By midday, the smoke began returning from fires burning to the west in Montana, Idaho and Washington.

Jan and Ellen cycling out of Waterton Lake.

Jan gains the 2,025-metre-high Logan Pass, the summit on Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park.

Jan bundled up and ready for the descent from Logan Pass on Going to the Sun Road.

Rain drops hanging off the foliage at our camp site in St. Mary’s after an overnight thunder storm.

Running water over colourful rocks in Wilbur Creek near the Many Glaciers camp site.

The peaks of Glacier National Park at St. Mary’s Lake.

Lunch along the road to Pincher Creek.

A weathered barn along Hwy. 507 in southern Alberta.

Fresh snow from an overnight storm on the mountains in Glacier National Park.

The golden prairie grass along Lower Waterton Lake.

Grass is already coming back following a forest fire in Glacier National Park along Going to the Sun Road. The road had reopened to cyclists just a few days before we arrived.

Hikers looking over Lake Shelburne in Many Glaciers.

Smoke hangs in a valley where a forest fire raged years ago along the Going to the Sun Road.

Road-side plaque.

Pincher Creek, AB, shrouded in smoke.