Day 107 — When winter calls, run to the border!

Neither of us slept very well, though the night was not overly cold.  Failing and turning back never tastes good.  But it was absolutely the correct choice for us.  Some mental demons needed a night to be worked out.

When the sun finally lit the horizon I looked up, through fuzzy eyes.  Are those yellow aspens?  Yes, one aspen right above, completely turned.  Another, half pure gold and half starting.

A beautiful sight, and also a portend of things to come.

We eventually motivated to get moving, knowing it would be very late until the sun would actually rise above the 4000′ Swan Crest we had fooled ourselves into thinking ourselves we would travel.

Our hands and feet froze as we descended down to the highway on dirt.  We warmed up at the Swan Lake Trading Post, our indented destination from the day before.

While eating and grabbing trail snacks we got hit with the news: winter storm incoming.  Weather forecast for east of the divide looked terrible starting Tuesday.  We were coming up a day short.

Not quite sure what to do, we pedaled the divide backroads to Columbia Falls, and gradually hatched a plan.

Huge burritos in Columbia Falls - oh yeah!

Our biggest issue is that we need passports to get into Canada.  Those are at the Whitefish post office.  Whitefish is unfortunately off route from the most direct path to Glacier.  We should have shipped to Columbia Falls to save ourselves the time and miles.

Every CDT trip has to get stymied by at least one mailing issue.  Here’s ours.

We have one more day of good weather before things turn to 30 degree highs and snow.  That should be just enough to get us to Waterton Park, a mere 125 mile push, mostly on pavement. 

From there it’s a 4 mile hike to the official end of the CDT.  We can do that in the snow and cold, if need be.  What we can’t really do is ride the Going To The Sun road in the snow and gnarly weather.

So we’re slimming down our kits somewhat, made a motel reservation (still carrying camping gear in case) and will hit it with everything we have tomorrow — as soon as post office opens!

Looking forward to seeing Glacier from the seat of a bicycle!