©Bert Gildart: Snow pack in Montana’s Glacier National Park is more than we’ve seen in years, as an afternoon drive to Lake McDonald several days ago confirmed.

Nevertheless, Apgar Campground, which is always the first to open, is now manned with a campground host.

Though everyone seems startled with the quantity of snow, for us old timers it doesn’t seem so unusual. In the early 60s, several years after graduating from high school, I remember boarding a Greyhound Bus in Washington D.C., and then about two days later seeing the Rockies for the first time.

It was late May, and as the bus ascended a hill out of Great Falls, I could see the Rockies and recall that the snow which mantled the peaks also extended down the slopes to touch the prairie sweep.

I was awed–and I stayed, eventually graduating from Montana State University then working in the park as a ranger.

If you’re approaching Glacier from the east, that’s about the way it is right now. And as I recall, that was the way it was for a number of summers, though weather patterns have recently changed.

POSSIBLE FLOODING

But, now, for the first time in a number of years, snow is again substantial. Weathermen, in fact, say snow pack is 110 percent of normal and they keep mentioning the possibility of flooding. Today, that doesn’t seem likely, as the weather is cool.

But tomorrow all that is supposed to change and temperatures, weather reporters say will be about 20 degrees above normal. That will trigger run off and the streams that are now way down could suddenly rise. If all that is followed by warm rain, as it was in 1964, we could have considerably flooding.

Still, the mountains remain spectacular and though Logan Pass may not be open until late June, there is much to do and see.

Already folks are cycling along the Going-to-the-Sun Road while others are venturing into the Many Glacier area, the latter of which offers real possibilities of seeing grizzlies.

BOOKS TO HELP

To help with plans you may have for visiting the park now–and any time of the year in fact–Janie and I have published several books on the park. Globe Pequot published two of them and they can be purchased either from us or from them.

Much of the material distills from the years I spent working in Glacier as a ranger and then subsequently from photographing the park with Janie and writing about it for magazines and newspapers.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 at 1:51 pm and is filed under Glacier National Park. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.