Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
residents. A lot of class resentment, they said, toward college-educated white people on
sleek new bicycles with the leisure to ride them.
Yeah, it's a rugged place, my companion told me, but there are two fine museums
there: the Blackfeet Heritage Center & Art Gallery and the Museum of the Plains Indian.
Worth spending a day, he said.
The next morning, I was on the road in the dimmest gray light. It was technically before
sunrise, a little after six. That hour on a long bike ride is fraught with anxiety anyway,
the beginning moments of something you know is going to be a test that will seem until
it's over like it's never going to end, and as you're reacquainting your legs with pedaling
and working out the stiffness of a night's sleep, it's usually a little damp and shivery, too.
I'd eaten a couple of oat bars and was coughing a bit, though not too badly; I'd learned
that for some reason I didn't cough much while I was on the bike and I knew the impulse
would pass in a mile or so, and it did.
It didn't take long for things to begin looking up, so to speak. From the lodge, Going-
to-the-Sun runs northeast along the lake and then continues beyond the far end with
the accompaniment of McDonald Creek, a waterway of modest volume but unsurpassing
loveliness. I kept thinking I'd start climbing around the next turn, but the gentle undu-
lations of the road remained evenly up and down for quite a while: Nature was counsel-
ing me to be patient.
After I left the lake behind, instead of looking over the water at the mountains, I
could feel them crowding me; I was in them, if not yet
up
in them. The sun began glow-
ing behind the peaks—and then peeking through them. Other than the water rushing
quietly by and an occasional whisper of wind, it was silent. I was entirely alone, and
even though I was riding on a paved road, to this city dweller it felt like utter wilder-
ness, and I marveled at the thought that the sun came up on this spot and revealed its
splendor every day.
I had ridden for not quite an hour at an energy-conserving pace, meaning I'd gone
about ten miles, when the ascent began in earnest. From there the road travels northeast
for three miles or so, then makes a hairpin turn and heads southeast on the outer edge of
a mountain. I propelled myself with enthusiasm, and without a break, to the turn, sur-
prising myself with my leg strength and easy breathing. The view to the creek side of
the road began taking on greater majesty, and I passed some tourists who'd pulled their
car off the road to take pictures. They were on the way down, knew what I was heading
toward. Eyeing my saddlebags, one of them said to me, clearly aghast: “You're going to
the
top
?”
