Whitefish

Another early start this morning. I wandered down to the lake to see the sun rise over the hills. An army of small clouds was marching across the sky, the lake was calm, creating amazing reflections. Every degree the sun rose higher, the clouds got smaller, until they were all burnt away. As I sat watching the show, an eagle of some sort flapped its way casually across the lake and settled in a tree behind me. I think it was a bald eagle – with a white head.

We put our new camp toaster through its paces; egg muffins with marmite for breakfast. Mmm. Then carried on south to Whitefish to hunt down a coffee shop and a laundry. The laundry was a couple of miles out of town, so while our clothes tumbled around we read the local papers, and discovered that the nearby mountain (innovatively called “Big Mountain”) had chairlifts and mountain bike trails open. That settled the plan for the afternoon! We gobbled down a crepe, popped into a huge mountain sports store to pick up some padded shorts for Rose, and then hit the hill mid-afternoon for a couple of hours riding.

Two hours wasn’t nearly enough. With lots of steep, dusty, technical trails I could easily have spent a couple of days here, but riding them solo wasn’t appealing, and we wanted to get through Glacier National Park before hitting a folk festival in Butte at the weekend … so we found a shower at a local state park campground and then drove on to find a place by the side of the road near Hungry Horse Dam.

The mountain sports stores here are huge – in fact all stores are huge. While there are a lot of people just buying kit for the sake of it, I also get the feeling that there are lots of people really attacking their outdoor pursuits seriously. I seems that every other vehicle driving around has either kayaks or bikes on top. It would be great to spend some time in a place like this (or any of the other outdoor centres we’ve stopped at) and meet a crew of adventurers. Passing through in a self-sufficient van, with fairly tight timings, doesn’t lend itself to getting really into a scene. Of course California is pretty hot for outdoor stuff, and there’s the sea too. We’re constantly wondering where we’re going to end up in the future. No firm plans yet!