Native Americans referred to the jagged mountain kingdom in Glacier National Park, particularly the stunning east side, as “The Backbone of the World.” If you've ever traversed this million-acre superlative of towering rugged mountains, dwindling blue glaciers, long and abiding bodies of green water, and lush cedar-hemlock forests on that 50-mile, white-knuckle drive across the twisting turns of the Going-to-the-Sun Road, you're certain to agree, emphatically, as your head bobs up and down in amazement.
You're in good company. Two million other flabbergasted visitors a year from across the globe drawn to this alpine mecca of free-roaming grizzly bears, this “Switzerland of America” that borders fair Canada, chime in with that singular universal expression that sums it up nicely: Wow!
Completed in 1932, the Sun Road is an engineering marvel notched out of sheer cliffs that plunge a thousand scenic feet to certain death below. Driving the Sun Road is not for cowards, or those debilitated by the swirls and twirls of vertigo; or the impatient for that matter, because the next five years will see delays through perennial construction zones cluttered with noise and dust, and pushy enforcers of traffic law and order dressed in orange. It's been a long time coming, repairing this ribbon of asphalt, and those crumbling stone buttresses and sagging stone guard rails in need of a major facelift and shoring up in all the weak places.
Undaunted and dripping in sweat, we joined the motored throngs this July on that obligatory trek over Logan Pass. Escaping 105 degrees of Fahrenheit in the shade at West Glacier, we naively sought respite in the high country where it only broiled in the 90s. Leaving the bluest waters of the largest lake in the park, nine-mile-long Lake McDonald, my initial observation was one of shock, then dismay, as I saw across the lake, along the width and length of Howe Ridge, the toothpick remnants of a massive forest fire that swept through not so many years ago in a blazing fury. But more on the fires later.
Past the big sharp loop we rolled, always climbing, eyes on the road and clammy hands on the wheel, pulled along ever-so-slowly by the creeping caravan of imports and the domestics; our wheels inches from another 800-foot drop into the gorgeous void of alpine mountain scenery. And I'm wondering where my courage fled after all those years of ignorant bravado.
Like a chicken I snapped my head back and forth from the curving yellow stripe to the grandest views unfolding, gazing out over the narrow glacier-carved valley through which McDonald Creek flows – or is it a river? Roaring and foaming an aqua blue over broken boulders, or moving quiet and unhurried and dark green through Old Growth cedars, right on by Avalanche Creek and Heavens Peak and the Glacier Wall. And above us, the rugged spine of the Garden Wall; walls everywhere, and buttes and tarns and cirques, and white waterfalls plunging in stair-step fashion from great heights through a green world of alpine vegetation; ubiquitous bear-grass and a colorful array of yellow and red and blue flowers, and maybe some pink. And up ahead at one o'clock, the sheer unmistakable north face of Mt. Oberlin where I stood with my friend Jerry twenty years ago.
Jerry was a tall man, of power and influence, with five beautiful daughters, and a heart condition. Had I known better, I would have protested the climb, but I didn't and he went along cheerily, up the back side of Oberlin (a cakewalk). And there we sat on the rocky peak munching expensive salami and cheap cheese, watching ants on wheels roll up and down the Going-to-the-Sun Road. To our left, thick brown smoke roiling in the west, and to our right, blue sunny skies pushing back the depressing haze from the east. And it was Jerry who turned me on to the splendors of the eastern half of the park on that afternoon drive, showing off with considerable pride the marvelous Swifcurrent country and Chief Mountain, and Many Glacier, and St. Mary Lake, and the land of the Two Medicine Lakes. And it was Jerry who dropped dead of a heart attack one year later. And it's Jerry we still miss after all these many years; Jerry, and his black Mercedes.
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Glacier Park is a tale of two ecosystems, two halves with their own stories to tell, joined at the hip by the Continental Divide that runs up the crooked middle from Mexico into Canada. Rainfall and snow melt drain into three watersheds where creeks and rivers flow to the Hudson Bay and the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Pacific. The western half if greener and more lush than the east which sees drier air, less rain and fierce winds that roar out of Alberta across wide open prairie. Or it barrels up rather consistently from the southwest, sculpting stunted jack-pine and shaping resilient personalities and driving the weak insane. More cold and sun in the east, less of it in the west.
Endless waves of Northwest storms pushing across from the Pacific keep things moist on the western forested side during winter, dropping wet heavy snow and piling a hovering mass of dark-gray clouds against Glacier's great barrier mountains. Winter weather paints the Flathead Valley a very depressing gray all season long. Whitefish is not Sun Valley, Idaho.
The silver lining brought by these heavy clouds and moisture are the vast stands of ancient Old Growth in the southwest quadrant that have been spared the saw and ax through preservation; hemlock and cedar, towering groves of them, dark and mysterious where ferns and green carpets of low ground-cover make for a garden paradise. Don't tell anyone, but it's where the hobbits live.
The northeast corner of the park gets less rainfall because it sits in the rain-shadow of the Whitefish Range. There you'll find ramrod-straight lodge-pole and Douglas fir, or what's left of them, in the spectacular valley of the North Fork of the Flathead River. Fires have given one of my most cherished corners of Montana a real pounding over the years, making me sad all over as I witnessed firsthand for the first time since we moved on the ravages of numerous infernos that turned evergreens into ever-brown telephone poles as far as the eye can see; over ten percent of the park burned in 2003. Of course the views opened up, and fires are very good for the ecosystem, keeping the bigger picture in mind.
Now you can look into a section of the park few visitors bother to visit. What an incredible panoramic entree as you drive up the bumpy North Fork; beautiful elongated valleys sweeping away to the far Continental Divide; long finger lakes – Kintla, Bowman, Quartz and Logging – separated by long-running ridges, and in the distance the backstop of such notables as Chapman Peak and the Guardhouse, Vulture Peak and Mt. Gedhun. And there's glaciers of sorts, or as an Alaskan would call them, “a patch of ice, here and there.” But still, there's glaciers in Glacier, though you better hurry and run up there before they've ablated to oblivion. Some estimate the last glacier will have melted for good by 2020, they're vanishing that fast.
Of the 700 lakes in the park, a dozen are large and 131 are named. I've read that a permit is not require to fish the bountiful lakes and streams, and limits are liberal, but double check. A word to the wise: Know your fish, because Bull trout are endangered and if you catch one you better release him or her gently into the wilds. Don't fish? Then spend some time on one of the larger lakes – Lake McDonald, Lower Two Medicine, and I believe, Swiftcurrent – where tour boats ply the waters, some carrying as many as 80 passengers. Some of those old wooden boats date back to the 1920s and have been in continuous operation since then – not a comforting thought, come to think of it.
As one would expect, Glacier is a true day-hikers' and backpackers' paradise with over 730 miles of trails to choose from. Just don't think about disenfranchised grizzly bears roaming around in the dark stalking perfumed city-slickers zipped up in their overpriced sleeping bags, wide-eyed and worried all night long, clutching a can of bear spray and listening for that thump, thump, growl, of 600 pounds of cantankerous horriblis overturning boulders and fallen logs as it prowls and digs, sniffing, always sniffing, that enormous head swaying from side to side like some great pendulum.
Though difficult to track these magnificent beasts on the move, they estimate 300 grizzlies call Glacier home. The odds that you'll get mauled are slim, but it happens. At least ten fatalities have been recorded since the park opened in 1910. The most difficult to forget happened on the “night of eerie coincidence” back in the 1960s when two fatal maulings occurred simultaneously in different parts of the park. One young girl was dragged out of her tent screaming for help as she was torn limb from limb and eaten alive, or so the story goes, as fellow campers listened from tree tops as her voice fell silent, helpless to help, but do doubt counting their blessings to this day in their old age. And that's why I don't camp in the back country in Glacier National Park.
Bison and woodland caribou have disappeared from the ecological scene, but wolverines still haunt the back country, as do bighorn sheep and mountain goats; look for them near Logan Pass, but don't get too close to the friendly goats. They do gore and they do kill as one unfortunate fellow found out a couple of years ago in Olympic National Park in Washington. Mule deer, elk and moose can also be spotted, plus mountain lions on very rare occasions, and wolves and ospreys, Peregrine falcons and both types of eagles. For those without transportation or unwilling or unable to make the drive on their own, you can catch a ride on a Red Jammer, and let a Jammer do the driving while he talks and you snap photos. Do not fear, these 1930s White Motor Company coaches were re-built in 2001, reassembling the original bodies onto Ford E-Series van chassis which now run on propane and are very popular.
In due time the long and winding caravan of gawkers on the venerable Going-to-the-Sun Road ground to a halt for a 20-minute construction delay that felt more like thirty, just past the big sign that ordered everyone to remain in their vehicles for the duration of the wait. Right. Car doors opened and slammed shut, people stretched and yawned and wandered about seeking shade. Two hundred people strewn about the road from every state in the union, it seemed, struck up conversations with strangers they'd never see again; Florida chatting it up with Michigan, California yacking away at Iowa. A quiet skinny man held his obnoxious fat wife by the belt as she stood on the old, crumbling, stone guard rail and leaned out over 1,000 feet of nothing for that perfect digital picture. And I know he wants to let go, but there are too many witnesses.
And then the chatter stops and doors slam shut and men in orange wave the centipede of rubber and steel through the dust and noise. And upward, ever-upward we go, right on by the refreshing mist of the Weeping Wall to the beautiful high country at Logan Pass and the ever-crowded visitors center where we came to another abrupt halt in front of another large sign that told us what we didn't want to hear. Parking Lot Full!
Native Americans referred to the jagged mountain kingdom in Glacier National Park, particularly the stunning east side, as “The Backbone of the World.” If you've ever traversed this million-acre superlative of towering rugged mountains, dwindling blue glaciers, long and abiding bodies of green water, and lush cedar-hemlock forests on that 50-mile, white-knuckle drive across the twisting turns of the Going-to-the-Sun Road, you're certain to agree, emphatically, as your head bobs up and down in amazement.
You're in good company. Two million other flabbergasted visitors a year from across the globe drawn to this alpine mecca of free-roaming grizzly bears, this “Switzerland of America” that borders fair Canada, chime in with that singular universal expression that sums it up nicely: Wow!
The silver lining brought by these heavy clouds and moisture are the vast stands of ancient Old Growth in the southwest quadrant that have been spared the saw and ax through preservation; hemlock and cedar, towering groves of them, dark and mysterious where ferns and green carpets of low ground-cover make for a garden paradise. Don't tell anyone, but it's where the hobbits live.
The northeast corner of the park gets less rainfall because it sits in the rain-shadow of the Whitefish Range. There you'll find ramrod-straight lodge-pole and Douglas fir, or what's left of them, in the spectacular valley of the North Fork of the Flathead River. Fires have given one of my most cherished corners of Montana a real pounding over the years, making me sad all over as I witnessed firsthand for the first time since we moved on the ravages of numerous infernos that turned evergreens into ever-brown telephone poles as far as the eye can see; over ten percent of the park burned in 2003. Of course the views opened up, and fires are very good for the ecosystem, keeping the bigger picture in mind.
Of the 700 lakes in the park, a dozen are large and 131 are named. I've read that a permit is not require to fish the bountiful lakes and streams, and limits are liberal, but double check. A word to the wise: Know your fish, because Bull trout are endangered and if you catch one you better release him or her gently into the wilds. Don't fish? Then spend some time on one of the larger lakes – Lake McDonald, Lower Two Medicine, and I believe, Swiftcurrent – where tour boats ply the waters, some carrying as many as 80 passengers. Some of those old wooden boats date back to the 1920s and have been in continuous operation since then – not a comforting thought, come to think of it.
As one would expect, Glacier is a true day-hikers' and backpackers' paradise with over 730 miles of trails to choose from. Just don't think about disenfranchised grizzly bears roaming around in the dark stalking perfumed city-slickers zipped up in their overpriced sleeping bags, wide-eyed and worried all night long, clutching a can of bear spray and listening for that thump, thump, growl, of 600 pounds of cantankerous horriblis overturning boulders and fallen logs as it prowls and digs, sniffing, always sniffing, that enormous head swaying from side to side like some great pendulum.
Bison and woodland caribou have disappeared from the ecological scene, but wolverines still haunt the back country, as do bighorn sheep and mountain goats; look for them near Logan Pass, but don't get too close to the friendly goats. They do gore and they do kill as one unfortunate fellow found out a couple of years ago in Olympic National Park in Washington. Mule deer, elk and moose can also be spotted, plus mountain lions on very rare occasions, and wolves and ospreys, Peregrine falcons and both types of eagles. For those without transportation or unwilling or unable to make the drive on their own, you can catch a ride on a Red Jammer, and let a Jammer do the driving while he talks and you snap photos. Do not fear, these 1930s White Motor Company coaches were re-built in 2001, reassembling the original bodies onto Ford E-Series van chassis which now run on propane and are very popular.
In due time the long and winding caravan of gawkers on the venerable Going-to-the-Sun Road ground to a halt for a 20-minute construction delay that felt more like thirty, just past the big sign that ordered everyone to remain in their vehicles for the duration of the wait. Right. Car doors opened and slammed shut, people stretched and yawned and wandered about seeking shade. Two hundred people strewn about the road from every state in the union, it seemed, struck up conversations with strangers they'd never see again; Florida chatting it up with Michigan, California yacking away at Iowa. A quiet skinny man held his obnoxious fat wife by the belt as she stood on the old, crumbling, stone guard rail and leaned out over 1,000 feet of nothing for that perfect digital picture. And I know he wants to let go, but there are too many witnesses.
And then the chatter stops and doors slam shut and men in orange wave the centipede of rubber and steel through the dust and noise. And upward, ever-upward we go, right on by the refreshing mist of the Weeping Wall to the beautiful high country at Logan Pass and the ever-crowded visitors center where we came to another abrupt halt in front of another large sign that told us what we didn't want to hear. Parking Lot Full!