The Reds of Beargrass! The stable was full this summer.

Origin Date: Summer 25

I always like to do a Red Bus recap. Random pictures. Amazing backdrops. Capturing some of the small things that make me come back every season (and some of the things that make me NOT want to come back). 🙂

You know that summer is underway when the Jammer bus barn is empty. All 33 of those Rubies of the Rockies are out earning their keep in Glacier Park until they come home to roost in late September.

For the first time since the Pandemic, the east side got a complete complement of Red Buses for the summer. A full fleet of ten, and fifteen drivers to keep them rolling seven days a week.

Just another busy summer day at Beargrass. Every Red Bus is out on tour (or a shop run). Every shuttle is out bouncing employees from property to property, and onboarding those J-1 internationals for a summer of seasonal work fun (with just a touch of colonial indentured servant).

Even the Delica got to be an honorary Red Bus this summer. Although the top doesn’t roll down, it is very efficient. It holds half a Red at just a quarter the size!

The weather started out pretty good early in the season. I had blue skies and cotton ball clouds on my first tours down to the Two Medicine area just outside of East Glacier Lodge.

My early trips up to Logan Pass were somewhat glorious as well. Of course, a Red always looks good up there against those sharp azure skies.

The wash bay leaves a lot to be desired. A single hose, because the pressure washer has been broken for the last two seasons. Wherever there isn’t gravel for drainage, there’s mud. But hey, we’re professionals!

I love it when those clouds blow into the Park off the northern plains. This is why Montana is truly Big Sky Country.

What I don’t love is when those beautiful, spiritual, white clouds turn gray. And hold a lot of rain. Which they carried for hundreds of miles just to drop on us at Beargrass.

And the driveway turns into mud, dotted with potholes, so people can splash our buses as they speed past. But what’s wrong with a little rain?

Nothing. Until you add some wind, and it goes sideways. Then the watery devil finds every bad seam and gap in that wonderful canvas roof and soaks the inside of the bus.

People LOVE tours on a stormy day. With the top up. And no views. On wet seats and fogged-up windows. Sometimes they even try to claw their way out.

I’d say one of the hardest parts of driving a Red Bus is washing and cleaning at the end of the day. It has to be done regardless of the weather, regardless if you were on the road for three hours or twelve.

Forever jockeying for a spot where the single hose will reach. Sorting for the best cleaning towels. Although all of them are really just decommissioned from the hotels and quite literally torn into smaller pieces. But they still scrub off those sunbaked bugs!

Occasionally a lot of tours will all finish up for the day around the same time. Not many people can say they’ve been in a Red Bus traffic jam. But they do happen.

Experienced drivers find a place in the shade, away from the wash pad, for final drying and sweeping. And if your guests wore a lot of sunscreen, add half an hour. That stuff sticks to vinyl seats and takes forever to scrub off.

Did I mention that Red Buses, especially on the east side, get dirty? I mean, REALLY dirty? Yep, we still have some active road construction going down the Many Glacier Valley.

Only a couple of miles each way. But it tends to stay muddy and potholed the entire summer. And we got a LOT of rain this summer. X10 the norm. So the daily grime was almost continuous.

It doesn’t help that the Reds have all of that black trim. Showing not just dirt, but also water spots if you don’t get them off quickly. The water at Beargrass comes from a well, and to call it hard would be an understatement. Those water spots tell you which drivers are lazy (or haven’t learned to dry in the shade yet).

And a few other little challenges. Like parking a million-dollar irreplaceable vintage tour bus as close as possible to each other so they all fit on the newly graveled parking pad.

This turned into a personal challenge. To park your bus so tight, the drivers on either side can barely climb in (well, at least the more well-nourished ones).  

Of course, it seems like we could just expand the parking lot a few feet. But this was better. It gave me a chance to become a master parker AND a Grade A, No. 1 a**hole at the same time. Talk about a win/win!

Buses would need a little TLC and maintenance from time to time. We’d try to do in the field what we could, especially if you’re up on the hill and need to get down. I’ve starting carry tools, so when someone takes out my mirror I can swap it with the other side and continue on.

There were a couple of window cracks this summer, which seems to always be on a passenger side doors. I theorize there is some hardware fasteners working loose inside the door panels that eventually protrude. So when you slam the door (and they have to be slammed – carefully) with the window down – PING! Mine wasn’t the only one replaced this season.

The supplemental straps that help take a little sag out of the roof tend to rot in the sun. After all, the tops are down for 95% of the time when touring. That high-elevation Montana sun burns more than just pasty Midwesterners.

And then there is an occasional Wall hit. This one was mild, except for the chunk out of the tire. But we got a couple more weeks out of that bad boy. The worst part is when another driver does this in YOUR bus on a day off. Not one guest will ever believe it wasn’t you.

And there is a lot to be said for having a roll of baling wire. Now I’ve had a roll for a good 20 years and never used it. Just another brick in an emergency bag I drag everywhere. Until I started driving a Red Bus, of course. Old-school thinking goes a long way toward keeping your bus on the road!

It’s fun to think about how long these buses have been on the road. Ten more years and they will start to hit a century. Not so much they are considered the longest continuous touring fleet in the world ….

… but it is WHERE they have been touring all that time. Crossing the Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park, often twice a day. 3500 feet up one side, 2500 down the other, and then back again. Every day. Seven days a week. Over a brief but intense 120-day season.

The most lonesome thing is being the last bus in for the night. And cleaning and wiping down an old Red as the sun is setting late on those long summer days. I had that happen a couple of times last season. Mainly when backing-filling tours in other areas of the park with a lot of deadhead miles. Twelve-hour days. Ugh.

But then there are those special moments. Like during those cool early hours in the morning, when the Reds almost seem to wink at you, like an old friend. And if you look hard enough, you can almost see a smile. Or maybe it’s just a bent bumper, where a first-year driver hit something and didn’t say anything.

Driving a Red Bus is not easy. The vehicle, the road, the people, and the constant narrative. It takes a certain type of person. Some are natural at it. Some grow into it. And some…. well … the end of the season cannot come soon enough.

Driving a Red is a real job. One that requires a lot of work across many skill sets. If you aren’t mentally (and physically) prepared, or lack the curiosity to learn, it will be the worst job (and summer) you will ever know.

There have been a lot of Jammers over the ninety years the Reds have been in Glacier. Some think the count is around 3500. Most complete the season. Many are one-and-dones. There are the returners, with gaps ranging from a couple of years to thirty or more.

Finally, there are the people who stumble into this crazy job and will do it until they are no longer physically able. I know drivers who have been all of those camps at different times in their lives.

Once Glacier casts her spell, and you start returning, it gets harder to break away. I am just a reflection in these old buses. An image in time. Not old, not young. Just another driver who gets to hold the wheel for a little while until it is time to step aside.

And that is the ultimate question that all drivers ask themselves. At least, any real driver. The stepping aside. Is this my last season? Will I know it when it comes?

GoatBoy out!

And Patrick sucks. Even though he thinks I’m the person who dented his hubcap last summer (but …. I know who did). 🙂