Uncle Mike’s Visit

5/1 to 5/4/15′ – Over the past couple years I’ve heard many stories of Grete’s adventurous Uncle Mike from herself and her family. They all seem to lovingly refer to him as “crazy” and describe the trips he takes he takes as “unbelievable.” He has bicycle toured through much of North America, India, China, Southeast Asia, and South America and had countless experiences in the Alaskan wilderness. He also helped get Grete hooked on the outdoors with a bikepacking/backpacking/sea kayaking trip in Alaska when she was in highschool. I had to meet this guy…

When his wife Sharene began planning a trip down to Whitefish to visit us this fall, Grete and I were ecstatic! Unfortunately Sharene couldn’t make it, but Mike still came and we capitalized on his couple of days with us.

We picked him up from the airport in the evening and the next morning he and Grete went for a long hike in Glacier National Park. That night after dinner, we rallied back to the park for a full-moon ride up Going-To-The-Sun Road, leaving the car at ~10:30pm and returning home at 3:30am. Awesome night. The next morning we woke up slow and packed up for a quick overnight bikepacking trip to Kintla Lake in the North Fork area of GNP. Again, we headed back to the park and biked in the ~16 miles from Polebridge with lightly loaded bikes up to an empty campground at the foot of Kintla Lake. A lovely evening of solitude was enjoyed by our group in the presence of giant peaks and gorgeously clear skies. We slept there along the lakeshore, and happily pedalled back out to Polebridge, for huckleberry bear-claws, in the morning. That afternoon, Mike flew back out after 3 days of excellent adventure (and not much sleep). Awesome trip with an exceptionally wanderlust-filled adventurer!