I saw Josh w/serge at my drive at 2:12 today- told Josh his spot wasn't sending so i imagine he messed w/it

Eszter rolled thru about 10 min later- she seems to be in great spirits, said the snow was really deep soft and long, said they just kept talking about chinese food.

hopefully he did not ford the big creek twice- not sure he went quite that far

Mr Lobeck at 12:22pm - 6 miles from the fish

"when's it gonna warm up?"

looks like breakfast at Loula's for the boys, well deserved
Eric looks like he will be coming by here soon

Don't you locals think of June as a second January anyway?

Yep its called Junuary for a reason- I was told yesterday that that snowfall earlier this week was our top 24hr total for the year at 22 inches

July august and sept are typically perfect however and we rarely get the monsoon moisture

pics

at 9:00 am Ollie and Craig passed my driveway, they seemed in Ok spirits, looking for "food and a fire"
said the snow sucked- i imagine that it did not firm up overnight so it would have been softer than normal.

temp about 39 F with light rain

will post a couple of snaps

Thom, my apologies- i already mentioned that stuff to you in another thread. So you decided to start out right away?
If it looks like there might be too much snow then I or some other locals could probably come up with some fun alternative routings for the deep sections- Red Meadow etc.- There are a lot of great forest roads here and not all have as much snow.
i will actually be in poland then but if go get to whitefish after the 5th I'll buy you a beer.

june first?
wow, pray for warm and dry starting now
I have had years that i have hit constant snow 3 miles downhill from upper whitefish lake at that time-also june in our part of the world is called junuary- chilly and wet.
Enjoy yourself though- maybe i'll see you as you pass my house.

If i can help out closer to the time, let me know. Lots of ways to have fun around here
You are welcome to pm me with any more questions or if you would like me to give you a call

We definitely have not had a hard winter ,never got below zero and we are at maybe 90% of normal snow pack. that said a lot of what gets clear depends on the weather from here on out. Too, I have never been able to ride to upper whitefish lake on memorial Day, Part of the issue is that the forestry roads around here used for the GDMR are groomed and used for snow machining so they really get pack and that retards melting.

Regarding Ice tires, I would say no as typically most of the blocked areas would be packed snow, freezing at night softening and rotting during the days. The ice tires would not help much on the soft stuff and would be less fun on the dry. A fat bike would probably be the ticket. Hopefully a racer or two will chime in as i never really go very far on the snow covered roads that time of year by bike.

If you just want to ride in the area and check out the racers as they come through there will be things to ride including the Going to the sun road in glacier which is essentially a bike path as they clear it - highly recommended. Highwood pass in K- country is similar.

The weather is typically rather cool and June is often the wettest month of the year here so come equipped.

Try this link for the snotel at Stahl peak- indicative of snow coverage at nearby Galton Pass and Red Meadow pass-http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/nwcc/sntl-data0000.jsp?site=787&days=7&state=mt

Congrats,
As a whitefish resident though there are a couple of things you should  know. June itself around here is referred to as Junuary , it is often quite chilly and wet, That trend is often present north and south of here along the divide. Too, the difference is snowpack and trail/rd coverage is quite significant between early and late june. For example i averaged out the depth change during the month of june over the past few years at Stahl peak in the whitefish range and the delta was around 60 inches. So if you plan on an early divide ride you could encounter really really long snow  patches. I don't want to rain on your parade, but thought you should know.

if i can assist in some way let me,its well worth doing. if i'm around, i'll buy you a beer


Bill

just got back from checking snow levels. Gave up on going to galton as the border had long lines both ways

Heading from whitefish to upper whitefish lake I was only able to get to .6 miles north of where the olney rd comes in (to approx mile 81.5)
so about 4 miles short of the lake and about 9 short of the pass if snow on the east goes as low it could currently be 18 miles of snow

On the grave creek rd continuous snow started about 1.2 miles after the pavement ended (about 31.2) about 5 short of the pass road slopes more gently the east so could be as much as 15 miles here

On the stryker rd i got stopped at about 1 mile past the turn towards mt marston turnoff - i think thats about 7.5 in from the rd. There would then be snow till near the olney turnoff.

A lot of the distance will melt but the fact is the snow cover will be far greater than 2008- i found my emails from then to Matthew On 6/3 that year i could ride logging rds to 5600 near werner peak ( i am guessing 4600 now) and on 6/9/08 i got stopped by snow at mile 76. since the 08 TD started on the 13th I would assume that we are looking at 3-4 miles addl on each side of the pass relative to 08

I think the ideal weapon might be http://www.altaiskis.com/blog/products/the-hok/  they are pretty light and ski well

Kurt
I live along whitefish lake and will head up that way to check things out. Have been in Afghanistan for a couple of weeks so I am not totally up to speed. On the 18th I did ride toward upper whitefish lake from my house and was stopped by constant snow at about the rd up to werner peak (about 10 miles shy of U.W. lake). The alternate route is pretty and has a nice climb , but much easier and shorter than the part cut out. I may see if I can head up to Galton pass as well to see what i find. i did the original scouting on that section and have some notes and photos from 2008 to compare.

I don't know for sure but i would also expect a long slog on Richmond peak as the snowtels down that way are still super high.

some numbers:
galton pass
trail creek pass
pass on 2011 alternate from stryker
red meadow pass

comparing to 2008 -snowiest divide race in these parts
Stahl pk (6030 ft in between  Galton and Trail creek passes) currently 57 inches of water (depth 131)   2008-34 inches  normal-27 inches
grave creek (4300 ft on way up to trail creek pass) currently 7 (17 depth)  inches of water  2008- 0    ave 0
Both moss peak and North fork jocko are at 220+ percent of normal so richmond will have more snow than normal but should not be too horrible as the low elevation snowtels down that way are at 0

Regarding snowpack,
In the NW Montana region i would say the snowtels give a good picture. Valley bottom snow is mostly gone though at 4000-4500 ft there is an abrupt transition to way above normal. The moisture content of what fell this year was above normal and i suspect that the pack would melt slower due to packing into ice on any of the route that sees heavy snowmachine travel- basically from hwy 93 to the upper end of whitefish lake.
Right now at the base of our ski hill facing south the base is about 6 ft


Comparing it to 2008 - the recent previous wet year

stahl peak-(6030) similar in elevation and close to galton pass though probably a bit wetter
in march 2008 SWE went from 33.8 to 39.2 in april 2008 it rose from 39.2 to 43.3 in may 2008 it dropped 43.3 to 35.2
3/2011 37.3 rose to 47.1     4/2011 47.1 rose to 58.8 (snowing now)

Grave creek same area at 4300 ft  in  3/2008   rose from 16.5 to 18.8     4/2008 dropped from 18.8 to 18.0   5/2008 dropped from 18.0 to 0 (5/27)

so obviously right now we sit with way more on the ground than 2008 and given the genera climate forecasts (which have been correct this winter for our area) of may being colder than normal and wetter than normal that probably coverage will exceed that year. A lot of the melting occurs in those last 4 weeks though

I live outside of whitefish and my driveway is on the GDR. I would debate some of what has been said regarding bears in this region. If find that they are quite common and that the encounters are probably 50/50 black and griz. It can actually be hard to tell them apart if not seen well.  I would say that if you do the route and pay attention at all you should have at least one sighting in BC or northern montana. last summer we rode from Banff home and saw 3. I also had my first and only badger sighting on he same trip. I am at 10 encounters this year since mid april- also having spent more than a month away traveling for work.

Having said all that, Bear encounters are cool. They usually run very quickly away once they know of your presence. The nature of the Gdr is such that sight lines are usually fairly long as you are on forest roads a lot. The possibility of seeing bear,lions,wolves, wolverines(pretty unlikely) etc is one of the things that make this area great. The upper flathead valley one of the highest concentration of carnivorous mammals in the world. I tend not to take bear spray for the days but so I can sleep in a tent without thinking of being food. Peeing is always good to let animals know you are there. A .44 would not be looked upon well in BC.

On another note, having seen almost all of the future bc route and ridden the existing route I would encourage people to consider the the new route- it is much more of a remote, mountainous, setting and more in what i believe to be the spirit of the route than the existing one- routefinding is not hard, though the connector trail has a short hill that would be a real bugger pushing a heavily laden bike and probably would require a couple of trips with a BOB. It is so short though that I think it would be worth it.