To switch things up a bit, we decided on a 100 mile bikepacking loop that started and ended in Whitefish, MT and dipped into Glacier. It was my first bikepack trip and it was awesome! I love backpacking and biking, so it made sense to combine the two, plus it’s one of Tom’s absolute favorite things to do. And now, I get it. The route stuck to gravel roads which made the uphills much easier with the heavier bike and those downhills were amazing!! Unlike when you’re backpacking, you still have to put the effort in to walking downhill with your heavy pack, with the bike, you just get to cruise on down!
time for baked goods! 
trying to be friends with the bears and get over my fears
When we backpack, we aren’t on the ultra light spectrum of gear and weight, but we do like to keep things pretty light weight. On the bike, you’re even more limited because everything fits into small backs on your bike (we tried to keep things off our backs) so it kept us pretty light. But since we were planning on wearing the same thing every day and the weather was looking good, it wasn’t too hard to do. But I did prove to myself of how little I can get away with.
a tough uphill with amazing views of Glacier 
a little single track in Glacier
The route took us through some really great back roads and paths north of Whitefish where we camped the first night 25 miles in at Whitefish Lake. Day 2 brought us through the small town of Polebridge with the awesome mercantile store that gives you a free baked good if you bike or hike through. Yum! It’s at the far west entrance of Glacier where the route took us through a “no cars allowed” road, where we had the whole place to ourselves! It was awesome and a little eerie passing through parts of Glacier that no one goes through. After 50 miles and 8 hours (my longest day on the bike!) we ended at Fish Creek Campground in Glacier National Park and it was packed! Although, thankfully (per the Ranger’s words) “we love our hikers and bikers so we save a spot for them every night”. Thankfully we had a camping spot right on McDonald Lake with amazing views for dinner. Tom even rode a few extra miles to the little market and grabbed some well deserved beers.
dinner with a view
Day 3 brought us 30 miles from West Glacier back to Whitefish, with a few more uphills, passing through huckleberry pickings and enjoying a very smooth, very sweet downhill back to town. It was a pretty easy day considering a good portion of the ride was on pavement so little effort was required. It was bittersweet finishing and unlike backpacking, my body didn’t feel too terrible. Surprisingly I felt totally fine. But we sure enjoyed our pizza and beer afterwards!
A few weeks later we ended up back in Glacier but this time we drove the main road through the pass and hiked the very popular trails. A bit of a different experience than bikepacking, but I can see why they’re so popular! East Glacier is closed because of COVID, so backpacking was very limited and everyone was pretty much contained to Going-to-the-Sun Road up to Logan Pass. The first day was an 11 mile hike to Swiftcurrent Pass (the trail was closed going further over the pass) but we saw some great wildflowers and some beautiful views of Many Glacier in East Glacier.
hey guys, let’s be friends but keep our social distance 
this little sign is just past the rope you have to cross
The next day we took the long road to Logan Pass and struck out on parking at the visitor’s center to hike up Oberlin Peak. So we parked 1.5 miles down the road and tacked on a few extra miles and elevation gain, which was alright because the actual route is only 3.5 miles round trip. The route isn’t an official trail in the park, but it is very much a trail with a fun little scramble to the top. We met a 74 year old man, Pete, on the scramble. He’d been up there for 4 hours already and is “the man” of off-trail hiking in Glacier. He had so much insight and is basically Tom’s inspiration for getting old. He had a great recommendation for our hike the next day too.
We were going to do the popular Highline Hike that starts from Logan Pass, but per Pete’s recommendation, we ended up doing Piegan Pass and took the off-trail route to the peak. The lower part of the trail was filled with more wildflowers and the pass ended with more views to East Glacier (because the trail was closed). From there we made our way up to the peak with a little scree field and had 360 degree views of the rest of Glacier and more. It was incredible how far we could see. This hike wasn’t part of our original plan, but it sure made our experience even more fun with 3 very different hikes of the national park. Thanks for (literally) topping our last day in Glacier Pete!