Date: 2010-09-15
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Miles today: 0.0

On Wednesday or Day 5, we head back to Glacier for our 3rd last and day there. We sleep late and get to the Park about noon. Our bus tour isn¢t until 3.00 PM, so we take some more time to browse in the gift shops and do some people watching. We try to get lunch at the Lodge but find that the restaurant serves lunch only till 1.00 PM. We take a stroll back to our car and Linda fixes what has become a staple on this trip; a combo wrap featuring smoked turkey & ham, it really hits the spot. I still haven¢t had a buffalo burger.We walk over to the ticket counter and get our tickets for the Bus tour. We are told that our driver is named Fred. The ¢Red Jammer¢ buses are really something to behold. From 1935 until 1940, several of the National Parks including both Yellowstone and Glacier Parks purchased buses to drive visitors through the parks. The buses used manual transmissions that were not synchronized like today¢s versions, so many times rookie drivers were known to have to jam the gears in order to shift up and down on the hilly and steep roads. If you know what the term ¢double clutch¢ means, you may get the gist of what I¢m describing. The buses were in service for over 60 years and buses in Glacier Park reached over 600,000 miles. In 1997, the buses in Glacier were deemed unsafe due to fatigue in the metal frames. It became difficult to secure any replacement parts at a reasonable cost. So the buses were taken out of service. Other parks sold off the buses. At Glacier, a movement started to try and restore the buses. Some volunteers sent a bus to Ford Motor Company to see if what it would cost to get a modern version of the bus while keeping the original look. The price came back at over $600,000 each for the 35 buses. Ford offered to foot the bill if they could donate the buses back to a Non-Profit organization. THE DEAL GOT DONE! The park got back the buses! They now run on Propane and have modern brakes, engines and transmissions. The red color is like the original, it matches the red color of the berry on European Ash trees found in Glacier Park. In fact an actual Ash berry was sent to Ford for a color match. Fred shows up on time and does a headcount as we board the bus. We take the ¢Going to the Sun¢ road to Logan Pass. He does an excellent job of pointing out the different trees, bushes and flowers etc as we drive up to Logan Pass. We get excellent views of waterfalls and see some glaciers in the distance. We see some sheep and goats walking on near vertical rocks. We pause at a place where an avalanche occurred last winter. You see the power of mother-nature as the trees and boulders are pushed around and smashed. The road is undergoing a ten year renovation so we run into a few short delays. Construction crews work at night to get most of the work done. Plus the road will close completely in late September so that construction can go on 24/7 until winter snow prevails. We reach Logan Pass and take a 15 minute break then head back down for more spectacular views. Fred tells us he first drove a ¢Red Jammer Bus¢ in 1981 when he graduated from University of Montana. He now works for the State of Nebraska, writing wildlife and forest Management Plans during 9 months of the year, and then he drives the bus at Glacier in the summer. His wife and family live in the Badlands of Western Nebraska. As we wind up the tour, the questions come up about Global Warming. The numbers really seem to indicate a gloomy future for Glacier National Park. In 1850 there were 100 glaciers; by 1950 the number was 50. In 2010, Glacier Park¢s centennial, the number of glaciers is 25. However, in 1998, 2 glaciers in the park grew in size. Fred also points out that the definition of a glacier must meet 3 criteria; it must be at least 25 acres in size, it must be at least 100 feet thick and it must be moving. Glaciers don¢t always disappear, if they don¢t meet all three of the criteria they are then classified as an ice field. We finish the bus tour around 6.00 PM and then drive over Logan Pass in our car. We will see for the first time the east side of the Park. Time did not allow for us to see much of the East side of the Park. We stay on this night in Rising Sun Motor Lodge inside the Park. The room is Spartan with no AC, but the windows work and the temps are cool at night. We wake up the next morning to find it is raining. We now head back east toward home in the light rain. North Dakota is the next stop.