North Nevada & Utah in summer

[CarmignanoCaponord]

There are many ways to cut miles, but IMHO one you should not cut is Going To the Sun Road in Glacier National Park. Do not take the Marias Pass alternate or you will miss the absolute best part of the whole route!!!

John, you mean that I should follow the road towards Lake McDonald, Saint Mary and up to Alberta right?

[John Nelson]

Yes, follow Going To The Sun Road along Lake McDonald. Then continue on Going To The Sun Road over Logan Pass and down to St Mary. You can camp in any of the Glacier NP campgrounds for only $5. Once you get to St Mary, you can then either go into Alberta (following the ACA route), or go off-route for a shorter trip to Cut Bank if you need to save time.

[CarmignanoCaponord]

Hi Guys;)

I'm now trying to organize and planning places where I'll stop for the night. For camping, I found the recreation.gov site, that allows to make reservations for campingsite. Should I always reserve in advance a place in these facilities? Or is possible ask directly there for a night? I would like to keep some flexibility.. I have no time to organize all 60 nights during the travel and I was thinking, except some places where is highly recommend to book in advance, to find something directly there. Just for info, I will travel with Gps Oregon 450 and with no maps.

Thank you for helping me!

[John Nelson]

I camped all the way across the Northern Tier, never made a reservation or even called, and never found a campground full. The ACA maps show you all the campgrounds along the way. Virtually none of the campgrounds I stayed at are listed on the web site you cited. If you're in a car, you can easily go 30-50 miles off route to a campground. If you're on a bike, not so much.

[CarmignanoCaponord]

I will not use ACA maps john. I'll travel with my Gps and usually is very useful to find every kind of facilities wihin few miles, food, shops or accomodations to sleep. Of course I'm studying territories and pieces of route with no services. I'll upload on Gps the whole route of Northern Tier (re-traced with GoogleMaps) with some modifications/cut and should be enough. Only I was asking me if is needed to reserve even the campground cause in many sites there is indicated that many of them could be full in the summer. Free camping in NP is not my favourite solution for bear danger.

[John Nelson]

I agree that when camping in Grizzly country, the bear boxes available in formal campgrounds are well worth it. Once you're past western Montana, however, that's not an issue any more.

One advantage of the ACA maps is that they list lots of free and legal places to camp that are not actual campgrounds, and thus would not show up in any Google search for campgrounds. E.g., the town park in Hebron, North Dakota or the Bicycle Bunkhouse in Dalbo, Minnesota (neither of which has bear worries). My experience is that the ACA maps pay for themselves many times over just in saving me money on camping. Of course, if you're not on an ACA route, they are of no value.

As I said before, reservations are not usually necessary, and most campgrounds will accept a bicycle tourist even if the are full. One of the problems I have with reservations is that I usually don't know where I'm going to end up at the end of today, let alone a few days from now. Another problem with reservations is that I occasionally find the place I was heading for to be a unacceptable (and I have very low standards) and moved on. But some people like to make reservations anyway for the peace of mind.

[CarmignanoCaponord]

I agree with you John, when possible I avoid to do in advance any reservation, cause I want to have freedom to go or to stop when I want or when I'm tired. I think to buy some section of NT, just for the reasons you said and to check sometimes during the day.

Until Fargo, ND, I'll do exactly the ACA "NT", after that instead, I'll leave the route to go to Lake Michigan towards Milwaukee and then, ferry or down to Chicago along the coast.

Andrea

[CarmignanoCaponord]

Hi Guys! 

I'm preparing a travel plan about Glacier National Park. I was reading on NPS website that for some pieces of the Going to the sun road, bicycles are prohibited in both directions, form 11am to 4pm. From Apgar Campground to Logan pass! Do you know what's the situation?

Thanxs!
Andrea

[Pat Lamb]

You read that correctly.  The normal approach eastbound is to camp at Apgar or Avalanche (riding up after 4:00 to Avalanche), then get up and start riding about dawn, which gives you a reasonable amount of time to get to Logan Pass.  IIRC you can ride up the east side all day, but you have to stop at Avalanche on your way down and let all the cagers leave to find supper before riding the rest of the way down.

They had shuttles when we were there, so you could load the bikes onto racks and carry panniers.  But that'd take the romance out of cycling GTS.

[CarmignanoCaponord]

No shuttle I will stop until 16 and then I'll go to Avalanche for the night as you said. Perfect! Meanwhile, my planning brought me in the east side of Montana. I saw to go to Dickinson from Glendive there are some roads out the interstate 94. But I'll will travel with a road bike with thin tyres and I don't know if will be a good idea to cycling on unsealed roads. Is so dangerous to do a short piece of interstate 94? How is the traffic there?

Thank you for every suggestion!

p.s. I have received the Northern Tier maps, section 1 and 2. Full of informations!
p.p.s. Regarding Amtrak.. I bought a ticket from Portland to Mt. Vernon, I did a reservation for the bicycle. Should I specify that the bicycle is not in a box? Is not so clear on the Amtrak site. I saw there are many options to carry the bike onboard (full size bicycle or folding bicycle) but when I reserved my travel I have only chose 1 bicycle...

[tsteven4]

Andrea,

When we were there their was a hiker biker site on Lake McDonald named Sprague Creek, I recommend it and a swim in the lake.  With a reasonably early start you shouldn't have a problem making it to the top of the pass in time.

Steve

[CarmignanoCaponord]

Grazie Steve!

Sure I'll visit that place

[JHamelman]

Meanwhile, my planning brought me in the east side of Montana. I saw to go to Dickinson from Glendive there are some roads out the interstate 94. But I'll will travel with a road bike with thin tyres and I don't know if will be a good idea to cycling on unsealed roads. Is so dangerous to do a short piece of interstate 94? How is the traffic there?

On Section 3 of the Northern Tier route between Glendive and Dickinson, there are stretches on I-94. Where it's not, the route is on secondary, parallel roads. All roads are paved but can be rough in places. I think you'll be ok. Traffic will increase as you approach Dickinson.

Hope this helps.

.Jennifer.

[CarmignanoCaponord]

Grazie Jennifer! 

[John Nelson]

There are places on I-94 where the shoulder is 10 feet wide, but the rumble strips are 8 feet wide. It's kind of annoying trying to hit that one-foot clear part on the right side of the shoulder every 50 feet. There are fewer than 50 miles of the Northern Tier on I-94, and not all of them have such annoying rumble strips.

There are also places on Old Highway 10 that are an exercise in pothole dodging, but it is very pretty and peaceful back there. Because it is shorter, some people prefer to follow I-94 all the way across ND, but I really liked the back roads.