Logan Pass Opens for the 2025 season – The Delica Triumphs!

 

I’m trying something new. I’m actually posting an experience on the DAY it happened. Let’s see if I can still maintain that GoatBoy wit and polish.

I never seem to learn. So the plan was to work the morning school bus shift and get to my cabin at Glacier early that Friday afternoon. I would chill a little and be ready to tour the next morning. I’m clearly not in my 20s anymore, or 40s, for that matter.

Instead, there are some delays. And the Delica likes to run at 65 mph. Which means I didn’t make good time or any friends, especially when I crossed into Montana. So I roll in at 6 p.m., knowing I’ve gotten little sleep the last week, and those first tours take a lot out of me.

But fortune follows the brave (or the foolish in my case). I was not assigned any work for Saturday. My name was nowhere to be found. But wait, Going to the Sun Road was opening for the season this weekend! To cyclists only on the West side, but to Logan Pass for autos on the East side!

I’ve always gotten the short end of the stick on the first day the Pass opens. I never get up there until a good week later. So this year is my chance to be one of the coveted first and to show Delica what I have been preparing her for all last year.

Time to scramble. Get all my stuff in the cabin. Meet my new roommate for the next three months. Reunite with everyone else from last season—earplugs in. Lights out. Except the sun doesn’t set until what feels like almost midnight.

After a couple hours twitching and looking at my clock, I got up at 4:45 (like the good old days from 2021!). Sneak out of the cabin under headlamp with stocking feet and the stealth of a ninja. Fire up the Deli (wow, diesels are LOUD), grab a snack from the kitchen, and off to the mountains.

The first and last time I will ever see five cars in the Logan Pass parking lot (two of which passed me). There are always a dozen vehicles here illegally camping every night going forward until the road is closed for the season.

Well, I have a van with all of my hiking gear and clothing. So I figure it’s time to find out how comfortable it is. Yes, that’s right. GoatBoy took his first nap in probably forty years. And once that sun came up a little more and warmed the Deli, I felt like a 7-11 hot dog in a bun that got left in the microwave too long. Juuuuust right.

I just had to walk up to the visitor center and see the hoards trying to reach the Hidden Lake overlook. I have to assume the NPS put some snow wands out there to mark the way. At least they can’t hurt the fragile alpine meadows (yet).

I love being the fly on the wall. People really don’t know how far their voices carry over this terrain when there isn’t any wind. Everyone was complaining about how wet their feet were. All I saw were tennis shoes and Crocs. Not one hiking boot.

My route up Reynolds might clear soon. Maybe I will get in a good snow climb after all this early in the season. I will have to see how the work schedule falls (and what the weather decides to do).

The parking lot is 80% full, but I’m seeing a lot of gaps—for the Red Buses, the NPS, and the Glacier Institute. But wait, there is something different. Hmmm.

About 20 spots for 30-minute parking? That’s a great idea. Let those short-timers get in and out. But the NPS is assuming tourists can keep track of time. And it has to be policed by the rangers. And most people would gladly park for a couple of hours or even a day for the $120 fine. It won’t take long for that “Glacier parking hack” to hit social media.

But my genuine concern was this little guy. As he looked into the parking lot, I wanted to whisper in his ear: Hey buddy. You are going to contract American Obesity this summer and be too fat to get into your den come fall, but that’s ok. Heart failure will kill you before the natural predators. 🙂

Now, this took some courage on my side. I’m not a person who ever wants to be the center of attention. I never know if I can pull it off. But I have had this need, almost craving, to be above the seasonal shit show known as the Logan Pass parking lot.

The view from the Delica Ivory Tower was every bit as I imagined it when I designed the rack platform. I just need to be sure the van is fairly level and be cautious of high wind. And to hear all of the cyclists on the sidewalk behind me complain how ebikes have ruined Going to the Sun Road—well, they were half right.

But if I want true comfort, I go downstairs, pop the slider, and kick back on a wonderfully comfy, horrible blue camouflage-printed Chamonix bench seat. Now that, my friend, is truly living.

So there you go, a timely post from GoatBoy. I wish I could be like Instagram and Facebook aficionados—all pictures and quick videos, no narrative. But I’m fine being the martyr—the last of the storytellers—the tradition that can die with me.

GoatBoy back in Glacier for 2025, and out!