Alone at Glacier National Park's Granite Park: Combination bike, hike, has its rewards

JP EDGE

Hungry Horse News

While the summer weather takes a hiatus, leaving colorful trees in its wake, and with the Going-to-the-Sun Road closing for the season, I decided it would be a good time to take my bike out for a final journey through Glacier. The road is closed on the west side at Avalanche to cars, making for an excellent bike ride to the Loop, where I then hiked to Granite Park Chalet with an enjoyable late afternoon ride back to the car.

Arriving at the Avalanche trailhead to a full parking lot meant I had to park a mile further back. However, as soon as I passed the closed gate, I had the entire ride almost to myself, except for a few other riders and a group of backpackers finishing their hike.

Once riding the nine miles and 400 feet in elevation to the Loop, I locked up the bike and took out the trekking pole I brought with me. From there, it was another 4 miles and 2,200 feet in elevation gain to reach the Granite Park chalet.

From here, the views were truly breathtaking as I had just hiked straight up for over 2,000 feet, but the colors and snow covering the mountain tops were chilling with a westerly breeze. To think I was completely alone in one of Glacier’s most popular campsites and to have the views all to myself felt pretty amazing.

In all, the trip took me 5 hours and 45 minutes for a total of 2,639 feet of elevation gain over 26 miles, 18 on the bike and eight on trail.

With only a few patches of snow along the trail, the entire trip had little hazards, other than falling rocks on Sun Road. The ride itself was not too steep for the first half, but after the last turn the elevation gained until the tunnel became more substantial. As weather becomes more winterlike, doing this trip later in the season will become more difficult.