Ninety-two Days, Twelve Hours, Seventeen Minutes and Counting

Lake McDonald, 1/27/2015

Lake McDonald is clear and cold today. Last year it was frozen over by now. Sprague Creek - our campground - down by the snow covered peaks in the distance in the picture to the right, is undoubted buried in snow. It's winter at Glacier National Park and though it is not technically closed, the only people there will be the year-round staff and those  capable of getting there and going there for winter sports. We take snow cleats with us in the summer. You can imagine what it must be like now. 

We all have those events that are of such importance to our lives that we almost instinctively know how soon it is going to happen. While Pamela and I have a lot of adventures between now and the start our annual tour of duty at Glacier National Park - a great cruise and diving in the Bahamas for starters - we can't help but look forward to 'going home'.

At the front gate

It is funny. Last year I was very excited. I had never been to Glacier and the idea of working for the National Park Service as a volunteer was almost more than I could handle. Pamela just watched amused knowing that I hadn't seen the half of it. By the end of our tour of duty, at the end of July, Glacier was home. I didn't know how Sprague Creek was going to survive the rest of the year without our loving oversight. Maybe I didn't want to think about how it was quite capable of surviving without us. Now the time is drawing near to return. Okay, so 92 days is a quarter of a year, but I'm getting ready to pack. 

Arriving at Sprague Creek with Willy

Looking into Sprague Creek CG in May 2014

From Madisonville, KY to Sprague Creek Camp Ground is 2,008 miles. Last year we made the trip in two and a half days. No I didn't speed. I never go over 65 pulling Willy. We just drove for sixteen or more hours a day.  Pilot and Flying J have an agreement with Good Sam trailer club and we have one of their cards.  We would pull into a Pilot or Flying J between 11 and 12 at night, ask if we could park, climb into Willy and sleep until about 6 in the morning, and start the process over. But we were anxious. The park had actually opened Sprague Creek early.  Pamela couldn't leave until after graduation, but I was waiting for her with the engine running.  Even then one of the rangers had to take care of the campground for us for 5 days. 

Set up and ready for work 

When you arrive in western Montana you are struck by the reality of "Big Sky" country. I don't know why, but everything seems bigger and more real.  The mountains are massive and both intimidating and beckoning at the same time.  The deafening rush of the Flathead River Middle Fork didn't hold a candle to the rush I was experiencing as we cross the bridge and entered Glacier National Park. From the gate to Sprague Creek is about ten miles. We are the only trailer permitted in Sprague Creek. About 95% of all campers who use Sprague Creek camp in tents, some just hammocks and a few truck campers. 

Within a week of our arrival we would be 90% full every night, and before Memorial Day we were at 100% capacity daily - often by noon. Most of the campgrounds at Glacier are first-come-first-serve. Sprague Creek is the only campground that has campsites actually on a lake. Others have sites overlooking a lake, but not where you can walk to the back of your campsite and go fishing. We had a game the campers played each morning starting about 6am. I called it 'Ring-Around-the-Campground'.  By looking at the campsite pole marker you can tell to what date the campers has paid. That doesn't mean that they are leaving that day. They have until noon to pay for the next day. So those who wanted spots, especially spots on the lake, would literally drive around and around the loop watching for signs of campers striking camp. If you want a place at Sprague Creek, or actually to get a good place almost anywhere, you need to plan your arrival for morning. I know that isn't easy. Some people will take a less desirable spot at one of the large campgrounds, pay for one night, and then be at Sprague Creek early the next morning. 

First trip up to Avalanche Lake

Reason to smile - she's HOME! 

Avalanche Creek

Pamela (L) had plenty of reason to be grinning. She was finally home again. We did our first morning rounds, did our work and headed to Avalanche Lake.  I think I've told you before that one of our jobs is to help visitors pick trails that meet their experience and abilities and what they want to see.  The teacher comes out of Pamela when we're working with visitors and she's been known to tell them that they're only allowed to go home after they've done Avalanche Lake Trail.  Avalanche Lake was actually where we encountered our first Grizzly bear. She or he was beautiful and just a bit over 100 yards from us. We were separated by the narrow end of a small lake but there was a log jam which the bear could have easily crossed. 

Crossing a snow field to Hidden Lake

Hidden lake 

Mountain Goats at Hidden Lake Pass

In mid-May you can sit at Avalanche lake and hear three or four avalanches every hour. You don't see them, but you do hear them. Avalanche Lake is ringed by Bearhat Mountain, the Little Matterhorn, and Mount Brown. The Continental Divide runs right along the top of the mountains just 1.73 miles due east.  Well, 1.73 miles east and almost 5,000 feet up!  Also northeast of Avalanche Lake is Hidden Lake. It is about 2,500 feet higher than Avalanche on the other side of Bearhat Mountain.  While it is only 3.17 miles as the crow flies, to get there you must follow the Going-to-the-Sun Road to Logan Pass, where the road crosses the Continental Divide - almost 19 miles - and then hike up the Hidden Lake Trail to Hidden Lake Pass.  The trail to Hidden Lake Pass wasn't open until mid-July because of snow. Even then the snow fields were still about 5 feet thick. To go down to Hidden Lake you need a special pass, good snow climbing gear and a lot of experience.  Since we didn't have any of those, we never made it all the way to Hidden Lake. Even in the picture above right ("Crossing a snow field") there is a 700 foot drop to the left.  Hidden Lake Pass is about 800 feet above the lake. While we were at Hidden Lake Pass we had some up-close-and-personal encounters with Mountain Goats.  There were some very narrow spots on the trail. When we encountered Mountain Goats coming the other way, all we could do was stand up close to the mountain and let them go by. They walked over our feet but never threatened us -- and they're big enough to do so if they wanted.  The picture of the goats is right at the Hidden Lake Pass and right on the Continental Divide. As I mentioned, the pass is 800 feet above the lake. Where the goats are standing it is 800 feet straight down. The kids were butting heads and playing king-of-the-mountain. They are amazing animals. 

We had great adventures and experiences from first light of morning until we went to bed. We hiked trails where the snow was 5 feet deep in July. We traversed trails inches from a thousand foot drop, and cycled up a road that wound its way up to the Continental Divide almost a mile and a half above sea-level and kayaked a lake so remote that it took us 55 minutes to travel the last 6 miles in a 4x4 truck. I got to go scuba diving in a lake carved by a glacier and fed by water from a glacier and snow fields.  We had campers from every state except Mississippi and Rhode Island. We had visitors from 27 different countries - young people going around the world, and a couple my age (late 60s) who were riding bicycles from the Atlantic Ocean to Alaska. Some of these people keep in touch with us. A young couple from New York ended up moving to Anchorage and invited us to visit. (1)  I could go on and on but I can't tell our story without telling about some of the most important people we met . . . . the full-time park rangers and or colleagues. 

Unsung heroes

The life of a full-time ranger with the National Park Service is not easy.  Because they are almost always among the first budgets cut, they live on very little and provide the American people with a service beyond value. They love their country and they love the national parks. They literally give their lives and are among America's unsung heroes.  The National Park Service consider volunteers employees.  We are treated with great respect and make some very strong and lasting friendships. About 50% of the staff at Glacier National Park are volunteers and I understand that is common in most national parks. Some times the NPS and the Rangers are so grateful for our help that it is almost embarrassing. But the truth of the matter is all of us are extremely honored to be selected and allowed to serve along side these highly trained park rangers.  

West side CGHs at our Sunday morning meeting.

At the same time I must sing the praises of my fellow volunteers who dedicate themselves to the parks and the people who visit them. Some of the people in this picture have been at Glacier for over 15 seasons. Some of them might actually work at more than one national park in a year. The lady at the front right travels by herself from Panama City, FL and takes care of a large remote campground by herself.  I can not tell you what a privilege it is to work with a group like this.  I can not express how proud I am to be associated with such wonderful people. 

Mt. Oberlin from Going-to-the-Sun Road 

When you are privileged to spend this much time living and working in the wilderness you become so appreciative of the experiences and want to share them.  We can show pictures and tell stories, but you, the reader, will not truly understand until you experience it for yourself.  I don't mean that you have to become volunteers for the NPS - although that might be in some of your futures (2) - but almost all of you can either come and visit us at Glacier (3) or spend some time in one of our many national parks. 

Pamela and I traveled almost 12,000 miles in 2014. We camped in wilderness areas for 124 days.  I love to share stories and pictures of our time at Glacier or any of our great adventures because each time I get to share this with someone I get to relive it. BUT I don't want people just to live the adventures vicariously through us. You can live your own adventures.  All of the pull outs at Glacier and other national parks are handicap accessible, and there is a magnificent trail at Glacier that is handicap accessible from which I took that magnificent picture "Avalanche Creek" above.  I can't tell you how much I enjoy sharing our adventures. It keeps the adrenaline pumping and helps me get through to the next adventure. But most of all I want our adventures to get you, the reader, out into our nation's marvelous wilderness to see and experience for yourself.  Then I know you will show up at the gate of one of our national parks, national forests, or state parks saying "I'm home!"  

===== Footnotes =====

(1) A young couple were camping on one of our lakeside sites. On the evening before they were to leave for a back-country adventure the young man realized that he had not been fishing. He took his fishing rod and went to the lake at the back of his campsite. He cast three times. The third time he thought he was snagged. It turned out to be a 10# lake trout. They knocked at our door late that night. They offered us the trout because they didn't have anyplace to keep it. We put the trout in our freezer (Willy actually has a small freezer) and cooked it for them when they returned from their back-country trip. Pamela and the young lady have kept in contact ever since. They were from New York but  fell in love with the western mountain wilderness. They ended up in Alaska and have invited us to visit them. 

(2) We had the opportunity to meet the brother of a Kentucky friend and his wife. They are from Oregon. They came with our Kentucky friends to visit us.  They are avid recumbent cyclist. We took them up the Going-to-the-Sun Road the day before it opened to automobile traffic. We could only go up about 12-15 miles because of snow cleaning but they had a great time. It wasn't until they started down that they realized how steep the road actually is. At the bottom they said "if we had known it was that steep we'd have never tried it."  They loved the wilderness and expressed wishing that they had time to be volunteers. As it turns out she is a physician between jobs and they're taking the time to be volunteers.  I got a referral call the other day from the head ranger at a Colorado national park. This could be you too! You never know.  

(3) While we love all of our time at Glacier, we must admit that May is cold, June is rain and snow, but July is beautiful.  There's a very true saying . . . . in Glacier there are two seasons - July and winter. The Going-to-the-Sun Road didn't open until July 2nd. (it has been later) because of snow and was closed Sept 9th because of snow. We had a snow storm on June 17th. which left some snow on us at 3,500 ft. and dumped 30" of snow on the Continental Divide just above us.  Sooooo, if you want to come visit us at Glacier, we recommend July.  If you want to actually spend time with us personally, we recommend early July. We'll take you to the 4th of July parade at Polebridge (population 15). It is an experience you'll always remember.