Montana Ride 2006, Day 6 - Big Creek to Bad Medicine CG

Distance ridden	328 miles
Departed	8:30 am
Arrived	5:10 pm
Riding time	8 hours 40 minutes
Average moving speed	42.1 mph
Number of fuel stops	1
Average fuel economy	65.74 mpg
Route map

Yet more dirt road, of course

Day 6 dawned very early indeed for me, after the Very Large Visitors, and the alien-invasion nightmare. I was awake and no longer trying to get back to sleep by 6:30. I finally got up and faced the relatively pleasant, cool morning. The motorcycle hadn't been mauled by bears trying to retrieve my food bag. I was still in one piece. I felt like crap after sleeping poorly. Nocturnal visitors, a misbehaving pillow, rough ground and nightmares had taken their toll on me.

I shuffled through the breakfast motions, and struck camp in short order. I was glad to be leaving Big Creek, it held no more appeal for me. The bike was quickly loaded, and I was rolling out by 8:30. Buh-bye Big Creek!

Of course, that meant I was back on the gravel road.

I had planned out, the night before, a rigorous but interesting day. For day 6, the plan was to get myself up Going to the Sun Road in the morning (since I'd paid to get into Glacier as what amounted to a shortcut, and I wanted to get some value out of that $12 investment). I would turn around at Logan pass, and drive down, out of my way to the south, to see Flathead Lake (largest lake this side of the Mississippi, or some such). Flathead Lake behind me, I would retrace my steps on highway 200 until I could make the turn up 56 to the Bad Medicine campground, where I would spend the night. The GPS suggested it would be almost 6 hours to the campground.

Implementing the Plan

A very pleasant day

So, I was glad to be getting an early start. When the GPS gives me a time estimate, I add about 30% to it, between stops and inevitable slow-downs like passing through towns.

I got past the gravel road, and onto Going to the Sun Road. (I'm just going to abreviate that as GTS road.) The park entrance was still boarded up, but I'd already paid my money for my 7 days of access, so I wasn't concerned.

Lake MacDonald, on GTS road

GTS road was nice, a fast, sweeping curved road which followed alongside a river. There was minimal traffic, since it was so early. The nocturnal bears worked in my favor for that, at least.

The road angled upwards, and suddenly I was at a 15 mph hairpin turn. I paused there to use the facilities, and take a few pictures. Then I was off, for Part II of GTS road.

At the hairpin turn

Where before it had been a 50 mph, sweeping curves type of road, now it was a 25 mph, winding mountain road. I was happy to be going the speed limit, as the view was more than worth the sedate pace. I could see down into the valley, far below. There was the winding road I'd just ridden! I felt like a little kid on a grand adventure.

I kept riding, past the Weeping Wall, which was unfortunately not weeping at this time of year. Apparently it just gushes water generated by melting snow in the spring. I rode on and on, until finally I spied Logan Pass around the next few bends.

The Hills are Alive...

Just past some construction, I parked at Logan Pass, and took a picture of myself next to the Continental Divide sign. It's obviously a popular thing to do, since they've specifically paved a path to the sign, with little chains rigged up to keep you out of the meadow surrounding it. Numerous hikers were headed out from here, to hike the alpine meadows in the morning light. It was only 10:10 when I got to Logan Pass. I wish now that I'd taken more pictures of the general area, since it was really quite beautiful. I started singing "The hills are alive with the sound of music" in my helmet on the way back down, but I didn't know most of the words.

Back down GTS road I went, to an entirely new set of views (the nice thing about riding a road both directions). All too quickly, I was on the fast sweeping part again. Within a matter of minutes, it seemed I was back at the entrance to the park, and out to West Glacier.

The Hungry Horse post office

I stopped in Hungry Horse, where I'd bought my postcards the previous day, and mailed the completed ones. I mean, if you're going to get a Montana postmark, it might as well be from Hungry Horse, right?

Then it was on, to retrace my route through Kalispell (which I was kind of dreading, after the consume-o-rama blitzkrieg of the first pass), past Flathead Lake, and on to my campground.

I know I stopped for lunch at Los Caporales in Kalispell. I was seated next to a wall which had its siding installed at about 15° to vertical. I felt like I was falling into the table all through lunch, it was really quite disconcerting. Turns out that Mexican food in Montana isn't all that fabulous. It was fine, but not remarkable in any way. I can't say I'm entirely surprised.

The Blurred Afternoon

The rest of the afternoon is something of a blur. I was retracing my steps along highway 200, and after seeing Flathead Lake, found myself wishing I hadn't taken the time. Honestly, I've seen big bodies of water before. Flathead Lake wasn't any different. That, combined with re-riding roads I'd already seen before was leaving me feeling somewhat uninspired.

I noticed when I passed through Thompson Falls that the temperature display sign only read 85° F; it had read 100° on the way in to Helena. This time, it didn't even feel as hot as 85°. That was definitely a blessing, as I sweltered along in my heavy, practically unventilated riding suit.

Chain successfully lubricated without bovine interference

I also know I stopped outside Lone Pine (just as massively thriving a burb as you would expect from the name), in front of a crowd of cows, to lubricate my chain. Certainly a chain-driven bike is not an ideal touring mount. The cows didn't seem to care one way or the other.

The Cabinet Mountains, near Troy

Finally, at 5:10 pm, I arrived at Bad Medicine. It's located just outside of Troy, MT, on Bull Lake. I do recall that the last road on that journey, highway 56, was extremely pleasant, and I was glad to be ending the trip on such a nice road.

Campground, Sweet Campground

The Bad Medicine campground was, honestly, beautiful to my tired eyes. It was also pretty full, with the loop close to the lake already filled to capacity. I checked out the other loop, and found that site #16 best suited my fancy, and pulled the bike in. Site 16 suffers from close proximity to the host's RV, but I didn't find that really deterred me.

Bad Medicine CG

Bad Medicine was lush, and green. There was a goodly amount of underbrush. I didn't feel crowded in by anything, and there was an excellent flat spot for the tent. In my quick tour around, I'd noticed that there was a garbage container which had no bear-proof hatches on it, it was just a plain old dumpster. There were no bear warnings on the info board -- bears weren't even mentioned. Heavenly! I was so happy to be in such a pleasant setting after the relatively unhappy experience at Big Creek.

Bull Lake at twilight

I set up the tent and camp. I paid the fee. I walked down to the lake to soak in the calm and quiet. I'd forgotten that highway 56 was right across the lake, so I didn't get quite as much quiet as I'd been expecting, but it was still pretty nice. There was a small boat out on the lake, with a fisherman patiently sitting there, waiting for a nibble. A fish would jump about once every 5 seconds as I sat there in the evening light.

I recorded some deep thoughts on my little voice recorder while I was sitting there, which I may or may not ever post here. That little voice recorder was extremely handy on the trip, and I was very glad I'd decided to bring it along at the last minute.

Soulful contemplation completed, I wandered back up to my campsite to prepare dinner. I'd picked up a Nissin "Cup-o-Noodle", and my clever plan was to pack in the remaining red pepper and tomato when I poured in the hot water, and enhance the flavor with some of the spices I'd brought along. A fine plan, but the foundation was wobbly in the extreme: Nissin Cup-o-Noodle is pretty much terrible food. It tasted fine, but I don't think I'd choose that particular dinner combination again.

Soulful contemplation on Bull Lake

As I was eating dinner, and later writing in my trip journal (said trip journal is just the condensed version of what I'm writing out here), I again noted the chipmunks. They were plentiful at Bad Medicine. Every few minutes, there would be a lot of excited squeaking, followed by a pair of chipmunks tearing through the underbrush.

At one point, I stood still enough to allow one of them to come fairly close, and start tearing into the ground by my tent, searching for buried treasures. I switched my camera over to movie mode, and pressed the button, keeping the little animal centered in the screen. It dug frantically, every few moments stopping and looking back at me to make sure I hadn't suddenly turned into a predator. I took an experimental step forward, and it darted off, squeaking indignantly at my breach of trust. I clicked the button again to stop the movie, and it started recording. What!? Oh, poop. So much for having a cool little movie of a chipmunk. S'what I get for never using that feature.

Finally, with everything cleaned up and all the food hung (chipmunks like food just as well as bears, and it never hurts to err on the side of safety), I got myself in bed. I'd finally sorted out the pillow situation, and the ground was very even, with a thick layer of dead pine needles forming a cushion. Very pleasant. I read a few more pages in my book, then shut off the little green flashlight.

What a great night. Bad Medicine was my favorite night of the trip (as far as camping went, anyway).

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Created by Ian Johnston. Questions? Please mail me at reaper at obairlann dot net.