After a good night’s rest, i got up and headed out fairly early. I wanted to get breakfast and be in the park early so that I could take my time on the ewast-to-west traversal. I again took MT-49 north towards the junction with MT-89, and found some horses wandering around to west side of the road, maybe they were displaced by the fires, I don’t know. They allowed a couple of pictures and then decided they’d had enough of my intrustion and headed for parts unknown. From almost the same spot, I saw a small pond and the angle of the sun and the terrain behind it was prefect for one of those reflection pictures.
Where Mt-49 joins MT-89, there was a sign that said 38 miles to Canada. I didn’t realize I was that far north. I headed towards Canada and around one of the bends on MT-89 I stopped literally in my tracks. Fire! Smoke! You see pictures, you see video, you read news stories, but none of that prepares you for smoke covering the road in front of you. Maybe people that live with this are more accepting of it, but I had not personally experienced anything like this before. I tentatively rode closer and just like fog it appeared less like a wall. I stopped, looked around, and took several pictures of the woods with the mountains of Glacier National Park in the background. Continuing on I got to St. Mary and had breakfast.
As I was leaving to enter the park, the visibility was still low. As I entered the park, East Flattop Mountain was barely visible through the smoke and the wisps of smoke over Lake Saint Mary were a reminder of what was happening just a few miles to the east. The Going To The Sun Road, as it clings to the mountainsides along the shore of Lake Saint Mary reminded me of European alpine images I have seen. The road climbs slowly and surely towards Logan Pass and there were a couple of opportunities for pictures of waterfalls and of the road itself. There is some construction work on the road and signs indicated the delays could be as much as 30 minutes but I was spared any lengthy waits. After seeing where the power shovel was sitting, I don’t think I would like that job.