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I woke up this morning to discover that it had snowed a bit overnight and that my tent and my motorcycle were covered in frost. So much for my early departure. I had to stick around long enough for the sun to warm things up a bit.
On the plus side, I now know that my camping equipment is good enough even if the temperature goes a little below freezing. I was comfortable even without layering on much extra clothing inside the sleeping bag.
I spent the day doing the Going-to-the-Sun road westwards, stopping for a bunch of short hikes (walks, really) along the way. I started with Sun Point, which seems fitting. The most impressive was the walk up to the Hidden Lake overlook from Logan Pass. It's clearly one of the most popular hikes in the park, and rightly so. It's a walk up through beautiful meadows filled with wildflowers (and a whitetail deer, hoary marmots, and squirrels), past snowfields and runoff streams, to an overlook with a beautiful view of a mountain lake. Sadly, the trail down to the lake is currently closed for maintenance. They're also doing a lot of work on the Going-to-the-Sun road, so next summer should be a great time to visit the park.
In the parking lot at Logan Pass, another motorcyclist asked me for directions... to Canada! I was actually able to tell him exactly which route was the shortest to get him back to Calgary.
I stopped for a slice of huckleberry pie, and then headed south along Montana Route 83, a beautiful two-lane highway through forest country with almost no cars. My motorcycle's odometer clicked past 40,000 miles around Condon.
Back in Missoula, I met up with Mike and some of his Aikido friends at a local brewpub. Missoula has a lot of those per capita...
My next few days are scheduled to be in Yellowstone National Park, which probably means that I won't have much Internet access.
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