First, a few photos of scenes along the way…
Today was a comparatively easy day – we awoke to general overcast and low clouds. We had decided to spend an extra day to wait for better weather that was in store for Monday, so we spent this Sunday morning relaxing and catching up on emails and such.
After lunch we decided to visit nearby Hungry Horse Dam . There are three guided tours every day, and we could make the 1:30PM tour and still have time to undertake the Marcus-Kolb-recommended temporary repair of the inductive cooktop. This involved sealing the cracks and sharp edges with 100% silicon caulk, which Marcus assured us would be good to a sufficient temperature despite no indication of that on the tube we bought from Walmart. We also bought the recommended alcohol to clean up the job after application. We wanted to do this so the off-gassing of the caulk as it hardened would occur while we were gone.
The dam tour was fine, though we just walked along the top and had a nice lady point out the stuff you could see from the top and give us history of the construction in 1949-1952. She pointed out water levels, intakes and outtakes, number of deaths (23) during construction, etc. Before 9/11 you could take a self-guided tour of the generators – no longer…
After stopping by Khan at about 4 PM for resupplies of water and snacks, it was off to Glacier National Park for the Going-to-the-sun road – or at least as much of it as we could do and still return by dinner. Spoiler alert – we did half of it up to Logan Pass and turned around since we knew we would be back again tomorrow. The weather was cooperative, with clouds lifting and breaks of sunshine. We experienced moderate to high congestion of people and vehicles, and couldn’t imagine what it would be like during peak season in mid-summer. But, we took lots of beautiful pictures despite the crowds. The road is very narrow and winding and off limits to vehicles over 8 ft wide or 21 ft long. More importantly, the drop-offs are near vertical so paying attention is paramount. We had planned to continue our trip following this route out, but can’t with the RV. We did find a way around that mountains that takes about the same amount of time as going over them. The midpoint visitors center had closed its restrooms, and there was a lengthy line for the porta-johns, but we moved on to another one that was completely open. We were disappointed that we didn’t see a sign indicating this pass was on the Continental Divide. See photos above.
After we returned to Khan the cooktop repair looked pretty good, but we’re going to wait until tomorrow or later before we try cooking something and seeing what happens when the pan heats the silicon caulk.
We plan to explore the other side of the mountains tomorrow.
