Glacier 2025 – What I learned. So much. So little.

Original Date 9-8-25

Here are some of the things that really stuck with me from the 2025 season. Just understand we have to make our own entertainment on the East side of the Park, given it’s a couple of hours from … pretty much a whole lot of nothing. So in the spirit of staying curious about the world, let’s dig into it!

I learned that the best person you will meet all summer doesn’t talk, walks away when he’s bored, and enjoys chasing away bears. Best of all, he’s hypoallergenic (100% hair) and smells like an old hippie fresh from a Woodstock mosh pit from the Summer of Love.

I learned there IS a job in Glacier scarier and a lot harder than driving a vintage million-dollar bus up and down a narrow mountain road while trying to give commentary to 16 tourists. It’s drawing the short straw in the maintenance crew, and having to rappel down to inspect the underside of some 100-year-old stone arches.

I learned that fall comes to Glacier on August 23 (Beargrass runs a little warmer because of the lake). On the 24th, colors started changing along the Going to the Sun Road. Given that things in the Park don’t start to open until late June, the season is very short indeed.

I learned that when a family of eight from Texas buys all of the seats on your tour bus, and they ask you if you can ‘manufacture a bear for the kids to see,’ …. Well, you manufacture them a *@#$$%&! bear and hope they don’t ask for Bigfoot! And you should quit the next day because you will never have another tour like that again in your entire life.

I learned that you can only be considered a true seasonal employee at Glacier if you are there in mid-May to see the tour boats being put in St Mary Lake for the summer.

And, you are still there in mid-September to see the trailers pull the boats out for their winter’s sleep.

I learned that there is more to Glacier than just hiking and climbing (and now kayaking). It’s also about birds, taking a photo that might win the picture contest for next year’s employee badge, and how much fluid a teaspoon really holds.

I learned that if you are walking into the Beargrass kitchen at dusk and feel something flutter around your ear, ignore it. It’s just a moth. If you take a swipe, it will get injured and climb into your ear, and you will spend the next three hours feeling it kick your eardrum while you are being driven 80 miles an hour in a Mazda to the nearest emergency room at midnight, directly through the worst lightning storm you have ever seen. And people will start calling you moth man.

I learned that playing pick-up sticks with an old, uncovered Blackfeet teepee lodge under stormy skies on the reservation just feels…. A little off. Somewhere between maybe not buying a tribal recreation use permit and a potential hate crime. Either way, just bad Jui Jui.

I learned where the last remains of the Going to the Sun Chalets from Great Northern are. They were torn down after WWII and have never been seen again until now. A piece of Glacier’s vibrant history.

Even more so, when you realize just how extensive a chalet colony this was. It could house 200 people a night. World-renowned and a wonderful time to be rich.

I learned that you should always have bungee cords and a few tools in your Red Bus kit. Never know when you might need to swap some mirrors around.

I learned that famed Wild Goose Island in the middle of Upper St Mary’s Lake can only truly be experienced from on the water. Even better when you can slowly circle it in a big blue inflatable kayak for a couple of hours, and everyone at the viewpoint goes home with you in their pictures.

I learned that when the lead driver asks you to park your red bus really close, you park it really, really close. Just be careful with door dings. Although it seems kind of silly. When they could just …. expand the parking?? Hmmmmm.

I learned the only thing whiter than the whitecaps on St Mary Lake when the wind rises are the dresses of all of the brides-to-be having wedding photos taken. I’ve been coming to Glacier for forty years and saw more wedding photographers this summer than in all the other years combined.

I’m guessing because NPS staffing was down 40%, and they took advantage of the lack of permit enforcement. At least one was worth remembering.

I learned the Mitsubishi Delica L400 Spec2 2.8 intercooled turbo diesel with SuperSelect 4WD is the most amazing vehicle it the world, and definitely the GOAT of Glacier National Park.

Not only is Deli a lean mean Mini Van Machine, if you correctly engineer the roof rack, this beast can hold about 350 pounds of pure Grade A, Number 1, dumb-ass.

I learned that if you do major infrastructure upgrades that closes the Many Glacier Valley for everyone except those using the concessions, it reverts to as it was at the start of the 20th century – a remote, quiet, magical place.

You could only get into the MGV with a reservation at the hotel, boat tour, or horse ride. Which left the lobby of that massive lodge virtually empty. I went up there a few times to just write and journal in this wonderful building. Just had to. Because it will never be like this again in my lifetime.

I re-learned to appreciate people, who they are, and where they are from. Enjoy the friendships and acquaintances in the here and now. To stop being cynical and remember how important community can be, and the diversity that makes us so resilient and strong, both in groups and individually.

I think that technology has steadily chipped away at what is the very foundation of being human. Where we are constantly trying to automate those elements we choose to think create the drudgery of life, when, in reality, they are the undercurrents of joy. Exercising those fundamentals of being while also becoming part of something greater with others, even for a few months a year, allows me to realign the personal compass and maintain my true north.

GoatBoy Out!!

And Patrick sucks. For the last time. At least for the belated 2025 season posts. Wait, doesn’t the 2026 season start …. Yes! Let’s get this party started!