Tour #3. SWING! CRACK!  Good Night Irene!

So there is another classic Jammer tour.  Called the Western and Eastern Alpine, depending on which side of the park you are starting from.  For us Easties, it starts from the Many Glacier Hotel (if there are people to pick up there), runs up to Logan Pass (when it’s open), and then back.  Set as a four-hour half-day tour, it tends to be the most popular.  To be honest, that’s about the most commitment anyone’s back should consider on a Depression Era vintage bench seat. 

Normally in full season, a Jammer is expected to run TWO of these a day (AM and PM).  Do the math.  Four hours x 2 = 8, plus any gap time, travel to fuel, and the ever-present washing/drying/inside clean.  These are generally pushing a 12-hour day for the driver if he/she can stay on time.  Every time you let people out of the bus it can be a complex scramble to herd them back in.

Much like the COC (my abbreviation for the full-day Crown tour;  still trying to work a K in it somewhere), our pick-up locations can vary.  You may have all sixteen in one place.  More likely, they will be spread over Many Glacier, a stop at Swiftcurrent, a stop at the KOA, a stop at Johnson RV park, and a stop at St Mary Lodge AND/OR the St Mary Visitor Center.

The nightmare is a couple of people at ALL of the stops.  Not only does it mess with your tour narrative having people spread over 20 miles, but the rule is you have to wait 15 minutes for no-shows to ….. well, show.  A couple of those and you can be down the better part of an hour before you even get to the Sun Road.  Ouch.

So this is my first half day.  And this will be the bread-and-butter tour for the season, so better get it dialed in.  With most of my people getting in at MGH, I can get into the meat of things between the hotel and Hwy 89, then pick up the balance at St Mary.  After all, those folks won’t want to hear about all of the stuff they couldn’t see.

Right off the bat, we get a grizzly bear coming out of MGH.  Whew.  Glad to get that out of the way.  I explain that my red bus is the Chariot of Knowledge (or COK for short; finally got a K in there) and I plan to make their heads explode with so much information about Glacier Park they will not be able to contain it all.  The fellow in the front seat back of me said something to the effect “I don’t see that happening.”  Ha, Ha.  Yeah, game on Mr. Front and Center.

I fight thru the dusty two miles stretch, and talk about a beaver pond (and the fact those little bastards NEVER stop growing their entire life).  Work in the Milk River Irrigation Project to explain the man-made dam and reservoir in the boundaries of Glacier Park.  Angle towards St Mary and get a view into the Triple Divide drainage sending water up to Canada.  All is good in the hood.

St Mary people pile in.  Now since we are going into the park, I fold the top down.  Did I say I rolled the top down?  Yeah, I’ve got 16 people sitting there and no one offered to help.  I heard that was a thing tourists loved to do.  Next time I’ll simply ask, “Who wants to learn how to perform an obsolete task that they will never have to do again?”

It took me about 15 minutes of running side to side and hanging like a spider monkey off the running boards.  And I’m pretty sure I knocked the hat off of every lady on the bus when the folds fell inside.  Instead of a nice neatly tied up top looking like a boot camp tightly snapped bed ready for inspection, it had more of the appearance of a Christmas package for a twelve-year-old that had been put under the tree too early and the kid opened it five times and tried to rewrap it.

This is my tour.  Although my route up to Jackson Glacier is set, I control the stops.  I control the narrative.  I control when they sit and stand.  And it is an OUTSTANDING sunny day with little wind.

I tried out a new stop I had been thinking of.  None of the other Jammers stop there.  It’s at the base of a great mountain that gives me a chance to introduce them to the Park’s geology, life zones, animals, and naming convention for geographical features (or lack thereof).

I hit my planned stops on time and kept an eye on the watch.  The only thing worse than going too long is going too short.  Most people have plans after these tours.  So if you think you are doing them a favor by giving them an extra hour because you couldn’t keep your pace tight, guess what?  They just missed their dinner reservations.  Hungry tourists can be angrier that any bear you can imagine.

Bam.  Dropped my St Mary people.  Last farewells, secret handshakes, and stuffing what feels like drug money in my khakis.  College never prepared me for this.  Now on to Many Glacier.   I’ve got to make the turn at Babb and then 13 miles to blow Mr. Front and Center’s mind.  I’ve been waiting for this for hours.

I turn up the heat.  I bring up all of the names and geology we’ve talked about all day.  I tied them together with a bow.  Now weave in the GNRR venture capitalist Louis Hill.  Do a bounce back to Appekunny and Grinnell and tie in the features name for them down this road.  And the last seven minutes got into Stephen Mather, 20 Mule Team Borax, and the National Park Service dual (and conflicting) mandate.  Rolling into Many Glacier I hit obscure facts that would make them wander thru the hotel looking for the features to fact-check me for the next two hours.  Whew. 

I disembark my guests.  I ask Mr. F&C if I blew his mind.  He said no.  I asked if I gave him at least a nosebleed.  He smiles and says “Just a little”.  Secret handshake, a fond farewell.  He slips me two twenties.  Yeah, nosebleed my ass.  He will be looking for the mushroom cloud that used to be his head, now filled with copious Glacier knowledge, for the remainder of his stay in the Park. 

Boom.  Drop the mic.  I am where I should be. I am home.