This night, the ski underwear wasn’t enough. We need get some additional blankets if we are going to survive Glacier National Park. We gave up our sleeping attempts around 7:30.
Ski underwear for the win. No freezing this night. Got up well-rested around 7:30.
We started the day with a vegan™ porridge for breakfast.
What a cold night. We expected some cold, just not so soon. Salt Lake City greeted us with 29 °C yesterday, so we didn’t go all-in with our various sleeping bag and ski underwear options. It was not freezing cold, but cold enough to not enjoy the sleep. Around 8:00 in the morning, one hour before the alarm was set, we eventually gave up and decided to call it a night.
This is going to be a very long day after a rather short night. It begins at 02:45 in the morning with my “Eye of the tiger”-alarm that I use on special occasion like this, i.e. when stakes and cost of failure are high.
This trip is, as so often constructed around a business trip. Marius, a colleague of mine, and I got our works accepted at a conference near Portland, happening end of September. It didn’t take us long to recognise the potential for an epic adventure, road-tripping through some National Parks before duty calls. It’s the perfect time of the year between summer and autumn. Moderate temperatures, snow still unlikely, and colorful trees.
The plan is to fly there September 11, to Salt Lake City, head north through Grand Teton, Yellowstone, and Glacier National Parks. We then plan to head west, possibly paying Olympic National Park or Seattle a visit before driving south to Portland, where we have arrive at September 24.
Using experiences from a Canada trip in 2017, we are going to rent a van, whose interior can be converted into a flat surface, and turn it into an improvised camper van where we can sleep in. The plan looks solid. Biggest fail potential is not getting the right kind of car, as there’s no model guarantee, but only a class you rent. Well, let’s hope for the best and see how things turn out.
Last day, had to get up early again. Flight departed 07:35. The Taxi driver I ordered last night didn’t really get the big box with a bike thing, but the car was large enough for everything to fit inside. At the airport, I put a bunch of post cards into the mailbox, which I wrote last night.
I then checked in my luggage including the bike. At the airport, I borrowed a marker from the counter to highlight the directions and handling grips of the box.
Time to hand over my bike into the airline’s custody. Let’s hope for the best.
Now that my primary mission is accomplished, I need to get back home somehow.
When I started the trip, I only had some rough ideas ranging from air plane to riding some more stages or taking a bus to the next railway station. From there I would then take a train back to e. g. Helsinki or Stockholm and then a ferry back to Germany. Then bike or train again through Germany.
Due to the unpredictability of this trip, and my lack of planning anything beyond equipment, booking anything in advance was no option.
Mission accomplished. Today was the day, and what a day. Definitely one of the best in my life. But let’s start from the beginning.
Tough day weather-wise.
Despite the bad forecast with rain and cold, I woke up in a sun heated tent. Outside, there were over 20 degree Celsius, but very dark clouds all around, only a small window allowing the sun to shine on the camp site. I dressed lightly, but the temperatures dropped quickly. The camp site was a few kilometres outside Alta. When I passed through the town temperatures were already below 16 degree Celsius, and the north wind made it feel much colder again.
Today it was dark, windy and a little rainy. I didn’t sleep very well. It got late last night when I caught up with the blog entries and when I tried stuff to recover the lost Garmin track. Moreover, some animal was rustling on, around, and under the tent for the whole night. Every time I looked, there was nothing to see, but the noises never stopped. In the morning when I put down the tent, a little lemming was running from under it to the next bush. This little suicidal bastard also shat on one of my bags.
The last night and today, I used the tent’s guy lines for the first time, in order to make it more wind stable. The days before, I didn’t even put in all tent pegs.
