Favorite Travel Quotes

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts."
-- Mark Twain
Innocents Abroad

"Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and celebrate the journey." -- Fitzhugh Mullan

"A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving." -- Lao Tzu

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Glacier National Park’s Kintla Lake

©Bert Gildart: Four years ago I posted a blog about Lyle Ruterbories, a man who has served since 1994 as a ranger at Glacier National Park’s Kintla Ranger Station. Because there are few amenities, that’s no mean feat even for a young man.

Kintla Ranger Station has no running water, no telephone and no electricity. Located just a few miles from Canada, it is the most northern of any border ranger station in the U.S. — and it is remote! You reach it only after driving a series of dirt and gravel roads to Polebridge, Montana, and then by driving yet another 15 miles along a rutted road to the ranger station. But because of its beauty, many do make the drive.

ANOTHER MILESTONE

For all those reasons, the story of a ranger at Kintla might interest many, but what has made my post of several years ago particularly popular is that Lyle is an octogenarian, though not for long. This coming February Lyle will turn 90, the same year Glacier turns 100. As a result, I wanted to catch Lyle before he signed off for the season, which I did just this past Monday.

BRUTAL WEATHER

Though it was the man’s last day – and despite the fact that temperatures that morning had registered -8°F – still Lyle agreed to give me a little time. I wish he and I could have spent the day, but I was happy for the chance to visit again with the man so many have come to admire.


GNP-52067

Early morning October 12, 2009 at Glacier National Park's remote Kintla Lake, where nearby weather station reported low of -7 degrees F.


I’ll be providing an update about Lyle in a week or so. In the meantime, here’s a look at the way Kintla Lake appeared about 10 a.m. October 12th. The ranger station is just out of the photo to the right and is one at which I also worked, though that was back in the 1960s, when I was in college.

Many chances have occurred since my days there, but not the beauty (see kayaking Kintla) so well protected by Lyle. As we departed, Lyle said he would be back next May, and as I watched him scurry around I had no doubt.

NOTE: For the next five to six days we’ll be in Glacier and presume access to the Internet will be limited.


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THIS TIME TWO YEARS AGO:

*Mississippi Burned and I Saw It


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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 3:39 pm and is filed under Glacier National Park, Photography, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “Glacier National Park’s Kintla Lake”

  1. Terri Stanton Says:
    May 17th, 2010 at 12:33 pm

    Mike and I will be making our 4th trip to Kintla Lake from Houston (yep, we are driving) in just a few weeks. We’ve talked about Lyle (and Glacier) so much that our daughter who has just graduated from college wants to make the trek with us to meet Lyle, and see Glacier. He truly is the reason we are making another trip up that way. The park anniversary and his birthday is a BIG DEAL. Lyle can out work our entire family…. day after day, after day! What an inspiration.