Glacier Then and Now

September in Glacier is special. Cold mornings, cool nights and somewhat warmer days let you know change is in the air. We've been coming to Glacier National Park for nearly 30 years and the Park is certainly far more crowded than we remember from the "good old days", whatever that means. There's an ad running for I think some brand of ice cream who's tag line is "The good old days are being made right now" set to a catchy jingle. I cringe when I hear it because I can't imagine anyone looking back on the Covid pandemic as "the good old days" but I give kudos for a clever advertising campaign.

When we first came to Glacier it seemed there were more bears than people. We'd head up to Logan Pass at the top of the Going to the Sun road as evening set in to watch for bears in the open landscape above timberline. More often than not we'd catch sight of a grizzly meandering through the nearly empty parking lot itself before crossing over to the Highline Trail. Now I don't think a bear of any size could squeeze between the cars sardined into the parking lot even as the sun goes down and the stars begin to shine. On our first couple of trips to the park hardly a day would go by without a bear sighting, sometimes multiple in one day. This trip we've seen one lone bruin high up on a rocky slope as we were descending from the Pass. I guess the rule of inverse proportionality is in effect - this trip everyone is carrying bear spray, and it seems no one is seeing a bear, where back in the day bear spray was still new and largely unproven and you really had to keep a sharp eye out for big furry critters coming down the trail.

On our first trip to Glacier we took a shuttle up to Logan Pass at the crack of dawn where they dropped us off with hardly another soul around. Our plan was to hike the Highline Trail to the Granite Park Chalet, spend the night, then continue down to Swift Current where we had left our car. I remember it was cold and dreary as we started out and we couldn't have seen a bear if it bit us through the fog but as the day warmed up the clouds lifted and the trail was bathed in bright sunshine. We were carrying backpacks as the Granite Park Chalet was fairly rustic and you needed to bring your own sleeping bag and food (nowadays I understand they provide food service and linens for a fee for those preferring to hike unencumbered by a pack). It wasn't too long before faster day hikers caught up to us and let us know that they had closed the trail behind us due to bear activity near Logan Pass. We couldn't have returned to the Pass if we had wanted to. As we kept hiking (its a several hour hike to Granite Park Chalet) we noticed a group of folks who had passed us earlier all standing together nervously eying the trail ahead of them. Someone in their party had seen a grizzly off the side of the trail so there we were stuck between bears behind us and now bears in front of us. Back then I don't think any of us were carrying that newfangled stuff called bear spray so the only recourse we had was to continue hiking to the Chalet as a larger group and make as much noise as we could to let the grizzly ahead of us know where we were hoping he or she would stay clear.

Suffice it to say we all made it safely to Granite Park and settled in for a beautiful evening watching the sun set to the west. The Chalet had a nice second floor deck from which tourists used to throw food scraps to bears who had become acclimatized to handouts. That ended pretty quickly when a couple of campers at the adjacent Granite Park campground were attacked by a bear on August 12, 1967. Two young women were killed and a man mauled (if you're curious, Google Night of the Grizzlies or read the book of the same name by Jack Olsen). I came across the book at the Chalet the evening we stayed there and read the harrowing account of what happened which is why to this day I'll never camp at the Granite Park campground even though the events chronicled in the book are more than fifty years in the past. 

One interesting thing did occur during our stay. Darkness had settled over the Chalet when we saw several miles back on the Highline Trail a little pinprick of light bobbing in the gloom. We asked a ranger who was stationed at the Chalet what the light was and he said, in a not-too-pleased voice, that he was going to have to go see for himself. He dutifully set off in the pitch black with a flashlight and a crowd of us watched his light slowly make its way back along the trail toward the other light still bobbing in the distance. Eventually the two lights met a mile or two away from the Chalet and then both lights made their way back towards us. Eventually the ranger arrived with a solitary hiker in tow. The hiker had apparently ignored the bear closure signs at the top of the Pass and thought he could hike to the Chalet then back down to the Going to the Sun road before darkness caught him. When the ranger intercepted him he was using a little penlight to follow the trail and to make noise he was holding his car keys and jangling them ahead of him as he walked! The ranger was livid but had no choice but to put the errant day hiker up for the night (he slept on the cold hard stone floor) before rousing him at the first sign of daylight and sending him down the trail to the road with a stern warning not to repeat his prank again. This year the smart grizzly would likely have distanced themselves as far away from the crowds on the Highline as possible. 

Your Red Bus awaits!

One thing we did this trip that we had not done before was take one of the Red Bus tours that has been shuttling tourists through the Park since the 1930's. Our driver, Rich, was a treasure trove of information and we lucked out by having beautiful weather during our tour. It was in the 30's when we set out but seemed to get warmer as we and the sun got higher and it wasn't too long before Rich stopped and rolled back the fabric roof allowing for an even more stunning perspective of the park. I was just happy to leave the driving to someone else as taking your own vehicle to the top demands you pay close attention to a steep, narrow, and winding road (for those familiar with Colorado, think the west side of Independence Pass).

Just outside the northwest boundary of Glacier National Park lies the little town of Polebridge, Montana. We had visited Polebridge more than twenty years ago so were curious to see the changes that the intervening decades had wrought. In the early '90's Polebridge was a forgotten backwater hamlet that few tourists ventured to see. The road back then was dirt (it still is) and rough (now well maintained, as far as dirt roads go) so it took some effort to visit. Polebridge today has, like so many places, been 'discovered' and we were surprised (though we shouldn't have been - after all we are from Colorado!) by the number of new homes all along the road. The town itself still has a funky vibe that almost feels Alaskan with fancy new homes sitting side by side Yurts, old cabins and all sorts of off-the-grid accommodations. 

The Polebridge Mercantile was doing a booming business and we treated ourselves to some of the delights from the bakery (huckleberry bread, huckleberry brownies, etc. - Yum!) and sat on the adjacent picnic tables watching loose horses graze within petting distance. We asked the locals what was generating all the new growth since our last visit and were told that Canadians from Alberta and British Columbia had snatched up  lot of the property pre-Covid at rock-bottom prices before Montanans realized the value of what was in their own back yard. I'd love to see Polebridge in the winter as the view from the town is as good as any you'll get within the Park. And yes, on several mornings the high peaks were featuring a fresh new blanket of snow and freeze warnings at lower elevations were becoming the norm. 

Well, this turned out to be a somewhat long-winded post so I'll sign off for now. Until next time, safe travels!

On the Road Again

 Willie had it right when he penned his famous hit:

On the road again

Goin' places that I've never been

Seein' things that I may never see again

And I can't wait to get on the road again

We arrived in Glacier National Park two days ago escaping the heat and crowds of our home State of Colorado for the cool and somewhat-fewer-crowds of this far north National Park nestled in the northwest corner of Big Sky Country, Montana. We took three days coming up with overnights in Casper, Wyoming (great food at "The Hangar" restaurant) and Great Falls. The west winds they were a'blowin' and the camper they were a'slowin' to the tune of eking out a whopping 8 miles to the gallon on the westerly stretches of pavement. Gas in these parts is around $3.29-3.39/gallon and there are some stretches where the pumps are few and far (very far) between which made it tough to keep a half-a-tank cushion but we made it in good order. When we left Denver temps were setting records in the high 90's; up here its long pants and sweatshirt weather and many of the trees are boasting Fall colors in all their splendor already.

We're "camping" at the West Glacier KOA which has been rated the Number One KOA campground for more years than they can count. It's a full service resort for the RV crowd of which I'm now one, at least for the next three weeks, and features full service restaurant, two beautiful swimming pools (one for the kiddos and one for us adults), hot tubs, gift shop (20-40% off end of season specials!), and two gorgeous dog parks featuring lush green grass (how many dog parks have that?) that we can hardly get our two huskies out of. 

They tell us the Park continues to set visitation records even in September but coming from Colorful (and crowded) Colorado we haven't been cramped at all, at least so far. As in our July jaunt to the Tetons we seek out the roads less traveled specifically to avoid the masses. Yesterday we took a beautiful half-day trip to the Canadian border crossing north of the little town of Polebridge. Its a rough dirt road in spots, but the views along the way looking east into Glacier Park are amazing and the farther north we got the fewer and fewer folks there were. In the last half hour of the drive to the border only one car passed us and that was a Border Patrol truck that we let go by as he clearly had places to go and no one to see. This particular border crossing is somewhat unique in that it hasn't actually been open to crossing since the 90's. In fact, on the Canadian side you can still see the Border Crossing 

building now sadly falling into disrepair. On the U.S. side our tax dollars are still hard at work with a nice Customs and Immigration Building (with new solar panels being installed) and a helicopter that flew in while we were there delivering one passenger and two cylinders of propane. Other than that it was just my wife and I, our two dogs, and a handful of Border Patrol Agents enjoying what has got to be one of the cushiest postings ICE offers. I can only imagine that compared to their brethren working the southern border this post must feel like an extended vacation. When we left for the long jaunt back we waved at the helicopter pilot and one of the Border Patrol Agents as they tossed a football back and forth as the sun set behind them. 

My wife and I have been to Glacier many times over the last 30 plus years of wedded bliss. When we first started coming the Park had not been 'discovered' and featured some of the lowest visitation of any national park. Back then it felt there were more grizzlies than people. Now, on the local radio station, they advertise for people looking to harvest free fruit (apples mainly) from peoples yards to help avoid bear/people conflicts as the ursine set moseys in to take advantage of the smorgasbord all the new transplants (of the human variety) have laid out. 

Ordinarily many of the positions in and around the Park would be staffed by young folk hailing from all over the world coming over to spend the summer working in America's national playgrounds. Thanks to COVID there were no J-1 Visas the last two years and the sad reality is that there were not enough Americans needing work to fill the myriad positions available. For example, we went to a Qdoba restaurant last night for an early dinner. As we were leaving at about 5 o'clock a couple was trying to come in but the doors were locked. The Qdoba was closing because they didn't have the staff to handle the dinner crowd. Closer to the Park many of the restaurants and gift shops are shuttered not because its the end of the season but because they couldn't find enough staff to stay open.

We went kayaking on McDonald Lake at the crack-o-dawn and the lakes up here are a paddlers paradise. The water is so clear you can see fish and colorful stones on the bottom to depths of 20 to 30 feet. Like most western States, there is mandatory boat inspection for invasive species but in the Park the process is quick and easy and before you know it you've got a bright yellow tag flapping off the back of your kayak as you make your own ripples on the still pristine lakes in the area.

Well, that's enough for now. Its almost dinner time for me and the bears so I'll sign off and join my four footed friends in the search for fresh huckleberries. Mmm, Mmmm, Mmmmm...

Of Buttes and...

Had a chance to daytrip over to the eclectic town of Crested Butte. What used to be little Crested Butte is 'little' no more as the amount of new development is staggering. Still, downtown CB is as funky as ever as you'll see in the video below. CB has made most of their downtown a one-way street which is an improvement but why they don't just turn it into pedestrian (and cyclist too!) only is beyond me. So few cars can actually park downtown that it really makes not a lot of sense to try to funnel heavy vehicular traffic into the area and the traffic headed up Kebler Pass could be moved a block over but that's just my humble opinion. Still, CB is too nice a town to not stretch the legs, gawk at all the fun shops, peek in at the Mountain Bike Museum and grab some delicious food.

We had traveled up and over Monarch Pass and of course stopped at the summit to see what was new at the Crest House which is always chock full of fun souvenirs, gifts, and trinkets for those so inclined. You can also take a trip via gondola up to the tip-top of the summit and if you're into mountain biking or hiking you probably already know the joys of the Monarch Crest Trail. There's also a great, relatively short hike over to Old Monarch Pass that starts just to the west side of the highway.

Monarch Pass is beautiful in the summer but can be pure terror in the winter. My better half spent a couple of years teaching at Western State College (now Western Colorado University) and I used to make a weekly commute come the weekend from Denver to Gunnison. I can remember passing semitrailers who were literally sliding backward down the Pass, their wheels spinning uselessly against the dual effects of gravity and a snowy road. As I sped by at 5 m.p.h., thankful to at least still be moving in a forward direction, I could only wish them luck as they disappeared in the whiteout conditions. This trip we had a much nicer day though you still needed a sweatshirt or coat to keep you warm at the top. 

Gunnison is a neat town in its own right even though on this trip we passed right through on our way up-valley. Gunnison used to have a wonderful book store. Don't know for sure if its still there but if it is I promise I'll stop in the next time through. Ride The Rockies, that perennial bicycle tour of Colorado, often stops in Gunnison and some of my best night's sleep have been zonked out in a tent at the middle school after a long day in the saddle pretending to be a cyclist. 

Fall in the Gunnison Valley is perhaps my favorite time of year though sometimes it only seems to last a week or two as the weather in these parts can change faster than my wife's mind. Catch it on a warm Indian summer day with the Aspen changing and you're in for a real treat. Though this day the Aspen were just starting to show some of their glorious gold, give it a couple of weeks and they'll be in their prime. Just don't blink or you'll miss it.

A lot of Texas folk call Crested Butte their second, third, or fourth home and Texas license plates do seem to outnumber the green and white of Colorado the closer you get to CB. There's lots of new construction going on and if its been several years since you've been you might struggle to recognize the CB of old. But its still there if you look hard enough though how long it will last is anyone's guess. CB is still mountain biking Mecca and I could only drool at the two-wheeled steeds zipping through town on their way to some of the best riding in the world. Here too e-bikes are becoming more popular though thus far they are not allowed on the area's single track trails. 

There's some good eatin' in CB, that's for sure. We ate outside under an umbrella as a passing thunderstorm soaked the streets but that's just part of the experience in Crested Butte. And with food that good, who really cares? Not me...

Too soon it was time to hit the trail, or at least Highway 135, as we made our way to the turnoff to Taylor Park Reservoir with plans to head back to Buena Vista over Cottonwood Pass which was fully paved (to some folks delight and other's chagrin) just a couple of years ago. Its probably a prettier drive than going over Monarch Pass and besides it makes a nice (though long) loop for a day's outing. And on a day like we had with nary a cloud in the sky, the views are stupendous. Cottonwood Pass also cuts a considerable amount of miles versus the longer route back to Gunnison and over Monarch if you're headed to Buena Vista where we had a planned rendezvous with some adorable four-legged friends. Stopping in at the Jumping Good Country Store and Goat Dairy we learned all about making delicious goat cheese but it was the critters we had come to see and they did not disappoint.

Not having spent much time among goats I was pleasantly surprised at how friendly they could be. My mother-in-law, who joined us on this trip, wanted desperately to take one of the baby goats home with her but we prevailed upon her to eventually bid them adieu. Tours are available ($8/adults, $5/kids over age 2) and the time spent in with the goats is priceless. 

Anyway, here's some of what we saw in this whirlwind of a day. Oh, and if you're thinking you are not that much of a goat cheese aficionado, that's o.k. - just try the goat milk fudge! As my friends from Texas say -Mmmm, Mmmm, Mmmm.