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Published: July 22nd 2006
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I finished my pot of steaming gruel, smoked a cigarette, and scratched my butt as I squinted at the stars through the pines. By the time I lay down in my tent, the six other riders staying in the bike camp were already snoring. Most people who bike the Going to the Sun Road in GLacier NP get up at the scrotum sack of dawn because the road is off limits to bikers from 11-4 everyday. Not me. I was wakened by the sound of a generator long after the sun had come over the trees. The generator, it turned out, belonged to the campground host. When I rose from my tent, none of the six other campers were still there. No trace of them could be found, but the camp host was standing on the road in front of the bike camp, giving me an evil eye. The white haired ogre-woman shouted at me, asking if I had paid my $5 fee. I shouted, "yes," as I put my shoes on, then walked over. She complained that someone hadn't paid. "Are one of these your's?" she asked as she pointed at a campsite envelope. "Yes," this one. I watched the
wrinkles in her face contort into coils as she furrowed her brow. "Enjoy the rain she said," and cackled as she walked off. I looked up at the sky and noted the thickening dark clouds. With a slight fear, I then looked at the time: 8 AM.
I reasoned that I could do the climb in 2 hours, 10 mph on a 6% grade for sixteen miles. Why not? It was quite a steady ascent and traffic was slow for the first hour. Unfortuantely I had to rush a bit. The sky lightened up, but remained hazy, just enough to keep the temperature cool.
The road was blasted into the mountains and built strictly for tourism. I've never seen a road quite like it. It blends into landscape, tracing the natural curves as it winds upwards at a constant grade.
Anyways, it was an amazing ride. I won't try to describe the mountains or the way my body felt as I reached my goal. I rode to Montana to ride that road and all I'm going to write about is a dead chipmunk. Thats all you get.
About halfway up the mountain I spotted a dead
chipmunk in the road. I see many dead animals on the road and always tend to look directly at them no matter how much I don't want to. This guy was quite fresh, possibly the last car that passed me had squished him flat. He still looked cute, despite being frozen, baring his teeth and claws as if he had hoped to intimidate the tire at that last desperate moment of his life. Just as I passed him another chipmunk ran out into the road and, with his teeth, dragged his dead buddy over to over to the shoulder by the tail. The live one then proceeded to shake the dead one as if he could awake him, but those blood shot eyes could not open any farther. This scene lasted less than a second and I did not slow my pace. I kept on going, watching the clock trying to keep my speed constant. I thought about the dead chipmunk and his buddy as I watched the glacier sculpted mounatins arise and fall away around each bend, all the way to the summit. I arrived at the summit ten mnutes after eleven, just as the parking lot at the
visitor center filled up.
The ascent on the other side was steeper and straighter. I rode out of the park and headed to a town called East Glacier. I found that there were two more summits on the way, equally as scenic, but with less traffic.
I've been enjoying reaing everyone's comments on the previous posts.
thats it for now,
Steve
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Jon B
non-member comment
"scrotum sack of dawn"?