Glacier Onboarding 2025: Waking up the Reds. Good morning, beautiful.

Every year, there is that week of onboarding. A week every returning Red Bus driver dreads. I did something a little different this season. Instead of coming in on Friday morning, I can came in on Monday morning.

My thought was:Why should I come in on Friday when we don’t start training until Monday? Sure, in the past that meant I could squeeze in a couple of hiking days and pad my total mile count for the season. But let’s do a reality check.

Who looks at that count other than me? I passed the 1,000-mile point a couple of seasons ago. And since we train at Lake McDonald Lodge, there really isn’t anything worth the knee cartilage I have left. Time to hike smarter, not harder.

My new formula would have worked great if everything else had stayed the same as it has for the last four seasons. But it’s Glacier. Nothing stays the same (except for people complaining they can’t see any glaciers).

For reasons I can’t fathom (or am not privy to), this mid-May driver class was about twice the number as usual. Many of them are returning. Hmmmm. This seemed odd since tours were starting a little later in June to accommodate going a little longer in September (which has turned into a very busy touring month).

What this equates to a temporary housing crunch for all of those in training. So some landed at LML, and others (including me) at the famed Coram RV Park I so infamously documented during my summer as a shuttle driver in 2021. I said I would never return!

But more on that later. The other significant shift was that all the training would be on steel folding chairs in the back corner of the Red Bus garage. Of course, I didn’t know all this until I rolled in on Monday, stylishly late, just in time for lunch.

But let’s focus on the positive here. I got to skip a half day of grueling review. And I got to reunite with Merritt (94), my bus from the prior three seasons. I smile as I brush the eight months of dust off her windshield.

Waking up an old friend from a long winter’s nap made taking the training week in the shop kind of nice. Why? Because there were lots and lots of helping hands. I watched her rosy glow turn into a shine that would last through summer.

Helping hands to bathe those incredible (and endless) glossy panels—a privileged duty. Which is how returning drivers fill time when the training turns specific to the first-year crew

Helping hands to dry her clean, to make her fresh and bloom like the true flower she is, warmed by the approaching spring. Merritt deserves every second in the center of attention – and so much more.

Helping hands to adjust and fit that top for those incredible summer drives over the Going to the Sun Road. Not too loose. Not too tight. But juuuuuuust right.

Helping hands to wax, polish, and buff her body completely. From the soft, subtle grin of her coy yet hypnotic grille and shamelessly flamboyant fenders …..

… to her rounded bubble two-tone back end, with the inviting, stunning array of Hollywoodish lights begging for your attention. Secretly whispering, “Come ride with me,” but only to those worthy of such an intimate invitation.

Sure. Merritt is just one of several dozen. Over the many decades she has graced the roads of Glacier Park, she has equally had many drivers behind her wheel. But for now, I hold that wheel. I will give her the respect she needs and, most importantly, deserves.

I will do my best to see that she awakens with only the most caring of hands each spring. The countless gentle fingers that only Red Bus drivers possess. Such dedicated and caring touches from the worthy are what raise my Sleeping Beauty out of her comely hibernation. Then and only then can Red Bus 94 take to the road for another season!

GoatBoy out!

And Patrick sucks.