We have a new contestant in the most not-worth-it thing I've ever done competition. Driving to Glacier National Park. The drive is long, ugly, boring, and into the middle of nowhere. Global warming has severely damaged the park. So have pine beetles. And fires. West Glacier you will hear is a beautiful heavily forested area of rolling hills with views into the rocky peaks to the west. That is probably a good quote, but read the year its attached to. Probably someone like John Muir from about 1917. Lot of old quotes of old dead famous people are posted in parts of Glacier. You know, back when there were glaciers and only a few lodges. Well I drove through West Glacier and saw a lot of scorched trees, then I hiked it, and went through many miles of pine beetle feasting grounds. The same sort I posted pics of for my Elegy for the Uintas. Don't ask me for any more pics of dead pine trees. You see 5 million, you've seen them all. West Glacier is lousy and ugly and will be for at least the next decade. Probably the next millenia. However, if you want to stay during peak season within 100 miles of any part of Glacier you'd like to be, the West Glacier Lodge is a good choice. Its cute, cheap (by National Park lodge standards), quiet, and access to the public shuttle system along "Going to the Sun Road" is divided somewhat nonsensically into East and West, with a transfer at the top at "Logan Pass". So if you want to try that shuttle, start from the West or you will have long waits, long lines, and little time to do anything or see anything all day other than the backs of other bored and frustrated people and the dark clouds swooping in to soak you or blast you with wind.
So there are probably 3 good days of weather per year. Logan Pass is especially unpredictable and you could never pay me to drive that road again. My friend who directs the bus line got in a fever when I back-hand complimented the construction along the road, saying, "I was amazed not only by the road but that construction can be done while thousands of cars pass inches away without even looking because the road curves, they are scared or distracted (nice views) and probably texting and taking pics, and are incompetent at driving anyway to begin with in normal situations." This is apparently a sore spot as road construction recently took a PR hit when a worker fell 200 some feet and nearly died, and because this is year 7 in a $800,000,000 project that was originally supposed to take 3 years and cost $200,000,000 but was violently opposed by the local businesses who said having only sections of the road open would destroy tourism and ruin their lives. That is probably true, though my friend did not agree. Trust me I thought, no one is driving all the hell of the way through Montana to visit this place if only 66% of the park is open. No way. Tourists want to see it all. While sipping a soda, at 100 miles per hour. So I understand why they are doing it the way they are. I do. But I fully expect it is being done wrong enough that the construction will never end. And more cars will blow up near Logan Pass idling on hills, like the blonde girls I saw on my first day at the park, when I thought, "this day is going bad, but at least my car did not explode at the top of Logan Pass". They by the way had a parade of men helping them. When mine blew? Cars pulled up next to me and took pictures of animals through me. Clearly, no one cared. They did not care, squared. So luckily for me, I was prepared enough. I mean I didn't have a spare radiator in the trunk, which the rangers seemed to think I ought to have had, but I managed alone. Screw all of you who were in Glacier the same week as me. I hate you all, by the way. How about asking if I'm fine, or offering to follow me down? Or suggesting to me where I need to go for car repairs, you locals? Global warming makes the sky hazy, really hazy on good days now, at least in summer with all the car fumes, and its hot, and the mountains are dry and ugly with tiny little snow patches comically still called glaciers. But it is damn pretty if you aren't being struck by lightning, none the less.
Glacier is now on the whole pretty much an amusement park. Lines, waits, lines to wait to park, (seriously after 10 am do not expect to park without the help of a surly cocky ranger in sunglasses and on a walkie talkie with another surly cocky ranger who will then waive cones at you to direct you to your parking space). This will go on until 5 pm or so when every restaurant of mediocre Montana cooking will fill up for 500 miles if you are hungry, which I hope you are not. Probably you won't be because you'll have spent most of the day even if starting at 6 am, looking for parking, rather than hiking, or waiting for a shuttle. Because if you start a trail at 6, finish around 11, and want to start another, guess what- you can't. The rest of the day is useless. So you should probably have good lodging. Camping is useless, difficult, and expensive, at $20 per day if you want water, or $10 in primitive grounds, where you fend for yourself and need a purifier. Reservations are not generally taken for the campgrounds (2 take them up to a year in advance) and if you want a site you may have to visit several, driving in circles looking for an open one. I spent 2 hours my first day there doing this, got the last spot in the last circle I checked, put 100 miles on the car driving between all these awful grounds, and got flooded because it started to pour immediately. The people next to me came back from a hike to find their tent in 6 inches of water as a pond had formed. Sucks for them, but luckily they were already wet as the wife blamed the husband for all of it. He must have been one of those rain gods Doug Adams wrote about in his books. I covered West Glacier, so here is your guide to the east: There is East Glacier, an adorable town consisting of 3 diners, 2 lodges, all charming, and 5 billboards that range in their subject from "huckleberry pie" to "Huck!" with a painting of some huckleberries and a pie slicer. I kid you not. Also if you stay there you will have a 50 mile drive to get to the popular regions of the park where hiking semi-exists, and this will take you near an hour.
Two Medicine is a cool sort of sub park that gets low notes for "being just park" as the rangers say. They don't have any amenities or touristy stuff at all! Can you believe it? Gasp with horror. All they have is a 1 hour boat tour of the lake (expensive as hell even by expensive as hell boat tour standards), and its a small lake by the way. And a campground with flush toilets, electricity, running water, noise galore, fishing, and 400 signs warning you bears will ruin your life if you set down your piece of huckleberry pie for even a second- and $50 citations which apparently pay the salaries of aggressive campground managers. Also a little restaurant and a huge general store, and a boat dock, and a parking lot guarded by armed rangers on walkie talkies. But that's it! The rangers practically told half the people coming to leave with a chuckle. "Oh you won't like Two Medicine," they assured cars of the curious. "There's virtually nothing here but forest. You don't look rugged enough to last here." You can't make this stuff up. Why would I even try? There is excellent hiking here however, with lots of lakes, cool peaks, windy passes, wildlife, flowers, less crowds, and awesome hazy views. That will be a separate post where I go over the trails I tried. Running Eagle, or Trick Falls, is handicapped accessible in Two Medicine and along a very short trail. It is sometimes a double falls and sometimes a single. Pictured above.
On an annoyingly winding road through savage burn areas is the Cut Bank region of the park, down a 5 mile dirt road (passable from what I saw to 2 wheel drive vehicles, with primitive camping that usually will not fill up. Water is available nearby at a creek and hiking has several options with Amphitheatre Mountain (hard to reach but amazing views from what I've seen of an amazing peak called Split Mountain), Mount James (easy as far as Glacier goes according to my climber's book, but still with rotten rock and scree and danger and annoyance) and the fabulous Triple Divide Peak I looked forward to for years and am bitter to not climb on this trip, as it is a special mountain. If you pour water out on top, it will flow in three directions because the summit is on the Continental Divide and actually feeds into 3 different continental watersheds. No other peak I have heard of can claim this. The climb is said to be tedious, dangerous, and on awful rock, though mostly just a steep walk. There are a few lakes but not much else I noticed on the map. Only the rugged need go. One backcountry campsite is located strategically to attack those 3 peaks, but otherwise you are looking at a 20+ mile roundtrip day to Cut Bank campground, and few would be up to it, honestly. The back-country site fills up regularly as it is central on a long several day hike route that is popular. Also those kind of backpackers take priority to one-night-stand campers, so I was basically laughed at when I inquired about getting a pass there. The message I took home from this is what most serious mountain people I know have already decided for themselves: if going to Glacier, go rogue, because dealing with the infrastructure and the rangers is not worth it. And Glacier does not want you there anyway. Right near Cut Bank road I came on a crowd of photographers setting up tripods to snap pics of wild horses in front of Mt James and Triple Divide Peak. It was amusing as 50 cars came out of nowhere with that photographer's sense of doing what the competition is. They all parked in a rush, staked a spot, and fought for those hazy pics of horses in a field of scorched flowers. Hey I did too. The best pic is below and the central peak is Triple Divide. Mt James looms large just near the edge on the right. The two share a pass, where they are climbed from.
Near the "Going to the Sun Road" is St Mary, a town whose motto is, according to several locals I spoke with, "if you want it, you'll pay for it." This is a 2 month per year town that shuts down from October through late June, with a gas station, some stores, many lodges and campgrounds, and prices that make gougers proud. Hey it is middle of nowhere, so cut them some slack. Not in St Mary however is: decent food, a single person who knows the area at all, any towing or automotive service whatsoever. Strange, if you ask me. I would avoid St Mary personally. However, if you want to camp outside the park, this is the best option. Johnson's is about on par with the park itself; $20 per night, though they fill up only after the official campgrounds do in general. And you pay taxes so its a bit more. Locally owned. And there is a KOA for $33 plus tax, with a pool, hot tub, and all the entertainment that drunken University of Washington students can bring while having all male chicken fights in a pool during a rainstorm. If you are into that sort of thing. The pool is a very nice feature. I thought the hot tub would help my legs hold up to the rigours of hiking, but instead, I used both to ease my epic boredom while not hiking, due to weather, car, and crowd problems.Many Glacier is the most popular east side option I hear. 2 hotels, one reasonable, and one outlandish, a campground that you couldn't get into if your parents had tried to make reservations before you were born during peak season, popular trails, secret goat trails, famous peaks, eating, bus tours, and all that. I never got there this trip, due to the car. An expensive shuttle does go there a few times a day from St Mary but its expensive even by rip-off national park standards. However, it will at least show up at set times. The nearby town of Babb is a moderny piece of trash thrown up to look old fashioned like if the Old West were made of cardboard and stucco. I'm not sure why its there, actually. Near Babb you can, if desperate, go camping at Duck Lake, a few miles further from the park.
Other nearby towns are on the West: Whitefish or Kalispell. Kalispell is actually a year-round city, with several grocery stores and multiple streets. If you have car trouble, get here if you can. Its 30 miles from the West end of the park, meaning 60 or so from Logan Pass, mostly downhill or flat. But if your tent is over on East Glacier, you're boned as they say, because the two nearest towns are Browning, and Cut Bank. Browning is terrifying. Though one of the highlights of my trip sadly was hearing a creepy old man try to flirt with a whorish woman by asking for a light. He expected her to walk across the gas station to light him up, while she insisted he take the 10 steps to her to get a light. I got the hell out of there quickly, and had to, as there is no car service in Browning either. Unless you want your oil changed in someone's backyard. The town is mostly silver bullet trailers dumped at strange angles and half sunk into mud like ships going under in a huge plain. Cut Bank has a small mall, 75 casinos, a movie theatre which is extremely clean with good seats, a few hotels, most of them owned by one family, a well-stocked, sparkling grocery store with reasonable prices and excellent selection, a McDonald's, a freight train passing through every hour, a fun center that had rollerskate disco taking place my Saturday in town, and one hell of a big creepy penguin statue.
I was sent on local advice to Cut Bank to pick up a radiator that was overnighted at darn good price ($104) from I assume, Great Falls, 100 miles south. Unfortunately, the same stupid locals did not mention I was picking this up at a store, not a store/garage, and that every garage (12!!!!) in town would be closed until Monday. So I wasted a weekend sitting in a motel room with ants on the wall in Cut Bank, Montana, being annoyed with Montanians. More on this in the next post because this is getting very long. To close, here are some pics of flowers up close, which came out good. More pics and stories in the next blog about Glacier. And lots more on Cut Bank Montana.
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