Team 1 Day 16 (Keelin)

 Today we conquered Logan Pass in Glacier National Park and crossed the Continental Divide!! Honestly, after our day on Washington Pass we weren’t going to let this scare us. The only difference was that bikers are only allowed to be climbing the ascent before 11 am or after 4 pm. So we had time constraints. We woke up at the crack of dawn to try and ensure we could get an early start…. and let me tell you, it was cold!!!! After getting caught in the rain yesterday, my gloves were still soaked. My solution was to put my “emergency socks” over my hands for the beginning of the ride. Seemed to work! Lost function of my thumbs for a bit until my hand was warm enough for me to pull just my thumbs out. We biked the pass west to east and the west side was completely shaded by the mountains in the morning. Not to mention everything was covered by low sitting clouds at 6 am- no views. However, as Liz and I started biking to try and catch Kayla who left 30 mins before us, all of the clouds started to lift as we rode. All of a sudden we could see bits and pieces of mountain and blue sky. By the time we reached Kayla, our toes were NUMB. Our feet were so numb that they hurt. We found a small section of sun and started roasting them. We couldn’t sit for long though because it was 8:30 and we were 12 miles of climbing away from the top. As we wound around the mountains we were surrounded by breathtaking views. The road we were traveling on was fittingly named “Going-to-the-sun-road”, which is exactly what we felt like we were doing. The climb was tiring but I was eating lots of energy snacks and even some with caffeine. I felt jazzed!!!!! At about 10:50 Liz and I peeled off from Kayla to make sure we could get close enough to the top that no rangers would turn us around… not going over the pass was simply not an option. When we were within a 1/2 mile of the visitors center, we stopped at a pullout so that the 3 of us could finish together. We had seen on one of the switchbacks that Kayla was not far behind and when she rounded the last corner we were jumping up and down and celebrating!! We had lunch at the top, tuna salad on a bagel, while sitting on some random rocks. It ended up being the BEST WEATHER WE HAVE HAD THIS TRIP !!! Blue skies and fluffy white perfect clouds. For lunch, we must have picked the right rocks because halfway through our lunch two long horned sheep strolled passed us so casually. This was one of the highlights of my day actually. We then began the descent, bikes can descend after 11 because they can go as fast as the cars since the speed limit is 25 and the road is so winding. We pulled out in every turnaround for cars to pass but it was a very seamless day of biking. We all felt that the cars were incredibly respectful and the people were so kind- telling us that we are crazy for biking this pass. Little did they know what we had done two weeks ago in Washington. We got down to camp and set up in the hiker/biker area that was super crowded with tons of through hikers either starting the Continental Divide Trail or the Pacific Northwest Trail. It ended up being a ton of fun to camp with them, they started a fire and we all hung around chatting about this and that. We sort of had what one of them called a “tent city” set up in the tiny corner of the campground that they designate for hikers and bikers. Some of the hikers were sleeping in little bivy’s that barely took up any space (I am very grateful we don’t have to be that ultralight on the bikes, we can afford to carry some more “luxurious” tents!!) We stayed up probably a little too late, but I knew we were making memories we would remember for a long time. Right as the night was winding down we al stood in a circle around the burning out embers and one of the through hikers said let’s do a “rose, bud, thorn” (if you’re not familiar it’s highlight of the day, something you’re excited for, and low point of the day). It was super wholesome and we all hit the hay afterwards.