On August 14 we celebrated the third month of our grand ‘A Year On The Road’ RV adventure, with a chance to tot up our mileage and chart the latest course of the scenic route we are forging across the US.
Having ended Month Two at Fishing Bridge RV Park in the heart of Yellowstone National Park, we have basically undergone a bit of an about-face on our original planned route and gone “freelance” for a few weeks. Our third month covered a total of 1,318 miles, giving us a whopping 5,061 for the trip to date.
Month Three – 1,318 miles, starting in Yellowstone and reaching El Rancho Village RV & Cabins in Wheatland, Wyoming, via Glacier National Park in Northwest Montana
As you’ll see from the map, we continued north from Yellowstone to Glacier National Park, but then broke away from the proposed westward trek to Washington and Oregon via a bit of Idaho in favor of seeing more of Montana and Wyoming, two states which we have found utterly enchanting.
We have tried not to cover any of the previous route, apart from a few miles along I-90 in Montana, and have dived much deeper into Wyoming in particular, including side trips to Cheyenne and Laramie – very much the heart of the Old West – in Nippy to avoid putting too many miles on Fati. From here, we’re looking to turn West again, with each of Colorado, Idaho and Utah on our radar – and more of the magnificent Rocky Mountains.
There isn’t really any way you can follow-up the magnificence of Yellowstone, but we were hopeful Glacier National Park would be the next best thing as we headed north back into Montana again.
We were already aware the only entry to the park between 6am and 3pm was by the National Parks Service’s reservation system, which had defeated us for months, but we had a back-up plan – Simon would try for a Red Bus tour on the fabled Going-to-the-Sun Road and Susan wouldn’t. After her nerve-shredding experience in the passenger seat in Nippy going over the 8,878ft Dunraven Pass in Yellowstone, she was more than happy to sit out anything that offered the prospect of mountain-edge driving.
We had snagged a four-night reservation at the Lake Five RV Resort well in advance, knowing how popular Glacier NP is these days, so we were right on the doorstep of the park’s west entrance (and there are only really two ways to see Glacier, from the east or west roads).
The view from the back of our spot at Lake Five RV Resort, with Glacier NP in the distance
The park was beautifully situated and we were able to get set up and then visit Glacier NP’s visitor center, taking the (short) scenic drive along Camas Road, and spending time in the delightful Apgar Visitor Center and Village, which is the heart of the park’s western side.
Just a week out from our arrival, we were able to snag a seat for Simon on the Xanterra Red Bus Tour from Apgar Visitor Center to the Logan Pass – the passage from west to east across the stunning Lewis range of the Rocky Mountains – but we were going to have to wing it for the rest of our four-day stay.
What we hadn’t counted on was the fact that there really isn’t a lot to do and see outside the West entrance to the park. There are no other major scenic drives beyond the park’s boundaries – other than the hilly, winding drive in from the town of Browning, which showcases the southern edge of the Lewis range and which we had already seen in reaching West Glacier.
One of the, ahem, highlights of the West Glacier area
There was also major reconstruction under way of the 10-mile stretch of road along Lake McDonald from the Visitor Center to the lower end of Going-to-the-Sun Road. Not only had the usual paved road been ripped up for replacement, leaving a crude, pitted dirt track in its place, the construction crew also seemed to have abandoned any attempt to keep down the clouds of dust in the afternoon, making it 10 miles of driving torture, especially with a low-slung car like Nippy.
To put it mildly, this was a shocking state of affairs for any park, let alone one of the NPS showcase parks, and to say it was inhibiting was a major understatement. We abandoned the road at the Lake McDonald Lodge, and limped back to the Visitor Center.
The rutted dust bowl of the “road” alongside Lake McDonald with its ongoing reconstruction
This left Simon’s trip on Going-to-the-Sun Road as our lone highlight of the visit. It turned out to be a pretty memorable highlight.
Now, GTTS Road is aptly named, albeit it isn’t quite what you think. It is actually named for the 9,647ft Going-to-the-Sun Mountain, the sacred peak of the Blackfeet Indians, and the rather tortuous translation of their word for it is actually “The-Face-of-Sour-Spirit-Who-Went-Back-to-The-Sun-After-His-Work-Was-Done Mountain.” More aptly, for first-time visitors to the road, it merely feels like you are going to the sun, such is the precarious nature of the precipitous passage up to the 6,646ft mountain pass.
The road dates back to 1932, when it was opened after an 11-year construction process that cost the lives of three workers (how it wasn’t any more is one of the minor miracles of the project). It wasn’t fully paved until 1956, and is one of the hardest routes in America to reopen after each winter, such is the nature of its extreme inaccessibility. Put simply, this road is scratched into the side of a near-vertical mountain wall with all the seeming permanence of an Etch-a-Sketch. How the engineers conceived it, let alone built it, absolutely boggles the mind.
A viable road or an unfeasible creation of an over-worked engineering mind? You decide…
But there it is – the only way to cross Glacier NP, on a winding, sketchy, winter-worn stretch of “road” that wouldn’t earn that designation in any other place on Earth.
Oh, and the iconic Red Bus vehicles – nicknamed the Rubies of the Rockies – that take you there (and back), are almost 90 years old. Really. OK, so they have been modified with modern engines, transmissions, and braking systems, but the basic vehicle was introduced in 1935 and each has chalked up around 200,000 miles since then.
The maximum length for all private vehicles is 21ft. The Red Buses are 25ft long. Yup. Go figure.
So, the basic equation is:
Rickety Road + Outrageous Drop + 90-Year-Old Over-Long Vehicle – New Engine = A Hair-Raising Experience for All Concerned (especially Susan waiting back at the Visitor Center, praying for my safe return).
(It should be added, however, that each vehicle has a 100 percent safety record throughout all those years and miles, and each driver is a specialist)
One of the original Red Bus fleet, which made its debut in 1935. Glacier National Park had 35 of the original 500 that were made for the NPS, and 33 are still in service
The journey from the Visitor Center to Logan Pass, and back, takes almost 3.5 hours. It reaches a top speed of a daring 45mph, and just 20mph on the seriously scary bits. Two red buses can pass each other on that cliff-edge monstrosity. With about six inches to spare. So, absolutely no worries for the passengers, especially Simon in the front seat next to the driver, with the grandstand view 3,300ft straight down the mountainside.
The first part of the journey is pretty gentle, through impressive cedar forest, alongside Avalanche Creek (nothing inhibiting in that name, either) and past several suitably scenic picnic areas. Then it reaches The Loop.
The full magnificence of Going To The Sun Road
This is the most critical feature of the entire Road, the only serious hairpin bend on the whole, implausible 50-mile route. It is the engineering pivot that allows the roadway to cling to its precipitous perch and provide access all the way to Logan Pass, which adds a resounding wide alpine plateau for a sizeable visitor center of its own, plus a variety of hiking trails which vary from gentle to “You’ve Got To Be Joking” (the latter for the Highline Trail, which is barely 4ft wide in parts and equally precarious, especially when you hear that the wildlife has right of way, and can include both bighorn sheep and black bears. Any takers…?).
That’s the Highline Trail, in that frail line30 yards above the road
But – and this is a seriously substantial adverb – none of that even begins to describe the utter, stonking majesty of this drive. The solidity of the buses, the assurance of the drivers, and the ability Simon has to be blissfully ignorant about the likely terminal nature of any vehicular mishaps make this a journey of total superlatives.
On each side, the mountain ranges seemingly reach up to levels normally reserved for stratospheric aircraft, including the heart-stopping Garden Wall that towers to 9,553ft and is the main conduit for GTTS Road, as well as the demarcation line for the Continental Divide. That’s right, this is where the North American continent is basically split into East and West, albeit that is primarily a geological term and not a regional designation, seeing as Montana is about as Wild West as it gets.
The stunning extent of the Garden Wall – and the Going-to-the-Sun Road crawling along it
The mountains are studded with breathtaking waterfalls at regular intervals, along with various overlooks to allow drivers to get out and confirm that, yes, that really IS a bugger of a long way down, and “Don’t look now Ethel, but the car brakes are over-heating.”
Seriously, driving these buses up there is something approaching an art form, and sometimes you’re not sure whether to gape at the mountain scenery or the driver’s nonchalant style as they narrate the full story of the Road and everything connected with it.
And that’s it. We comfortably made it there and back, our open-top vehicle providing the best possible viewpoint of the entire Glacier NP, along with regular stops when, on the command “Prairie Dogs Up!,” our 18 passengers all stood up through the open lattice-work of the bus to take photos and marvel at the increasingly insane drop on one side.
“Prairie dogs up!”
It was an experience of the utmost refinement and beauty, a combination of Evel Knievel and Bob Ross, with a dash of Errol Flynn thrown in for good measure. It called for extreme belief in the person behind the wheel, and a cavalier disregard for normal road safety. And it was totally, utterly, mind-blowingly brilliant.
Want to see how far we’ve come in a month? This is the 31-day update of route – and distance – so far.
We now have a full month of our scheduled 12 officially in the books, and we have so far traveled a whopping 2,504 miles from home. We have crossed nine states, two time zones, and stayed in 14 different campgrounds and Harvest Host venues.
We have slowed down since our initial 7-day warp-speed approach (1,289 miles in that period; 1,215 in the 3 weeks since), and are paying more attention to savoring the sights as we travel. And we’re seeing some pretty stunning sights.
The route so far – 2,504 miles in 31 days, taking us from tropical Florida to the wide open spaces, and amazing scenery, of the Midwest and Northern Plains.
We are now in uncharted territory – for us – and ready for more adventures in the Dakotas, Montana and Wyoming. This is a hugely exciting part of the journey, with the areas rightly renowned for the wide open spaces of this huge country.
Having just arrived on the edge of The Badlands of North Dakota, the landscape is truly outlandish and full of intrigue. We’re here for the best part of a week, and will have a LOT more to report in due course.
The backdrop to our current spot in Medora, North Dakota, the Red Trail Campground, surrounded by the rugged scenery of The Badlands, and the gateway to Theodore Roosevelt National Park
For those keen on geography and geology, the term “Badlands” is a specific geologic feature of sedimentary rock erosion, and it creates some captivating and bizarre landscapes. We hope to see a lot of it in the next few days, as well as wildlife that should include bison, pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep, deer, feral horses, and – Simon’s favorite – the prairie dog.
After our indecently hasty first-week charge through the center of the USA, our pace has (deliberately) slowed in weeks two and three. Instead of 1,289 miles in 7 days, we covered “just” 691 in 14 days; i.e. half the distance in twice the time. That’s still probably more than most dedicated RVers will travel in that time, but a better realization of what RV travel is all about.
We gave ourselves a day in Gaylord, three days in northern Michigan at Mackinaw City, seven in the Upper Peninsula in Munising for the superb Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, one day in Crystal Falls, and then another seven as we crossed over into Minnesota at Duluth and pitched camp in Saginaw, just to the north-west.
The map of our route from Lansing, Michigan, to Saginaw, Minnesota, 14 days of excellent RV travel
That’s where we are right now, prior to our next major move – west through Minnesota and into the “undiscovered country” of North Dakota, Fargo, Bismarck and all. This will be entirely new territory for both of us, and we can’t wait to discover new adventures…
PS: The map shows it would take 11hr 33min (by car, non-stop) to cover the route that took us 2 weeks!
The first week of our grand “Year On The Road” adventure – and a LOT of miles!
Considering how far we’ve come in the initial phase of our great American road trip by RV, we thought it was worth highlighting our route, and how much ground we covered.
In reality, the first week of our ‘Year On The Road’ was effectively the “shakedown cruise,” the testing ground for our ability to actually drive this remarkable vehicle (that’s Indefatigable, or Fati for short, plus our tow vehicle or ‘toad’, Nippy).
Our initial route, through Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky and Indiana, before arriving in Michigan
In all we covered 1,289 miles through the first seven days, traveling from our home base in Orlando to Lansing, Michigan. That’s a LOT of miles for an RV in such a short time, and we had some challenges along the way but, in general terms, Fati handled it with aplomb.
Our first target was to reach Michigan, to set up the second phase of our route, which will take us into the Northwest of the country, via Minnesota and the Dakotas. Realistically, we achieved our main target and have got the hang of the driving and setting up camp at each location.
Normally, regular RVers wouldn’t travel and set up camp every day, but we wanted to see if we could manage a tough schedule before moving on to Phase 2. We certainly have a few issues to deal with (including the lack of hot water!), and we’ve had to consult various RV authorities, including the excellent MyRVResource.com, but we’re happy that we’ve grasped some of the essential principles of RV travel, and we’re ready for more adventures in the weeks and months ahead!
Veness Travel Media 