A good breakfast of huckleberry pancakes is a great way to start the day anywhere :D
From Whitefish I rode back into Glacier and set up camp, then reversed back to Kalispell to pick up a friend for a few days of camping and hiking in the park. So far I’ve had good luck camping as a "Hiker/Biker in the full campgrounds. The park hosts have been good about letting me park the bike in some other spot in the campground and just paying the $5 nightly fee.
After getting the tent up and gear stashed, I exited the park and rode back to Kalispell where I had the late afternoon to kill until the evening flight arrived at the International Airport.
The next day, Glacier was on the agenda again. The first ride through the park a few days earlier had been during the heavy smoke and haze from the Washington forest fires, which created a mysterious feel to the park since the mountains were dark silhouettes, but this weekend the air was clearer, cold and sunny.
We camped next to Markus and Brita, a young German couple - both architects - who were taking a year off from work and traveling extensively. They had flown to NYC, then rode a bus to Chicago and taken the train to Glacier National Park. They were disappointed to find the backcountry hiking permits were no longer allowed for foreigners, since the 9/11 incident, but were having a good time anyway.
Hiking the high line trail from Logan Pass was fantastic and about the closest scenery to the Alps of Switzerland I’ve yet seen. The green was incredibly intense, from the additional chlorophyll in the plants due to the short growing season I was told, the temps were perfect and flowers were in bloom.
Our hiking plans were curtailed the last afternoon because an area of the park had been closed due to a bear attack on a hiker. The grizzly bear had not been fazed by the hiker’s bear spray, and had then been shot by the hiker with a handgun. The bear had run away and was assumed wounded, so the rangers had shut down an entire area of hiking trails until the threat could be dealt with.
Glacier National Park’s scenery was stunning and the park is a very special place.