Day 76: Stanton Creek Lodge

Arrived at Glacier Park and, as expected, the Going to the Sun Road is not open to cyclist along its entire length. However, on June 19th it should be. Therefore, hopefully I'll get to cycle it on my return from Jasper, Canada. So, in the meantime, it is MT HWY 2 for me.

So, given the closure of the Going to the Sun Road, the plan was to cycle to Stanton Creek Lodge where camping was supposed to be available. Unfortunately, and to my suprise, it was closed. However, there were 3 people within the log cabin area having a chat.

Meanwhile, in the direction I was to travel there were dark skies and thunder and lightning. So I consulted my ACA map to see how far it was to the next potential campground (approximately 4 miles).

Anyway, it transpires that the Lodge is in the process of being sold and, as such, the current owner offered me the opportunity to camp for free, which obviously I gladly accepted.

Finally, just as I was congratulating myself on having good fortune and tucking into my trail mix as the rain fell upon my tent there was this almighty noise befalling my tent, which scared the living daylights out of me! Indeed, given all the recent talk about Grizzly Bear attacks, my initial thought was that a bear was after my trail mix! But no, on investigation, as I got out of my tent with bear spray ready to be deployed, I could see that one of the flysheet pegs was no longer stuck in the ground. Well that was lucky I thought, until I noticed a tear in the flysheet! So much for having a lucky day!

Fortunately the tear is over the vestibule area and not directly over the inner tent (nothing is as good or as bad as it first appears!). So, I have set up a pannier so that if water does enter through the tear it will fall onto the pannier and not onto the upper surface of the groundsheet. Hopefully the tear will not increase before I can get a replacement flysheet, assuming you can buy them separately, or a new tent: my preference would be to buy a new flysheet or, a better option, would be to repair it.

Oh well, so it goes! All part of the adventure!

P.S. I was unable to get a base layer in either Big Fork or Columbia Falls.