A solo hiking & photography trip lasting five days in Montana's Glacier National Park. After the trip, I wrote an adventure story to document what happened and dive into the rich history of the area. Alongside the story, I added some of my better photographs. These can viewed on their own at the bottom of the page. To view a full digital copy of the book, simply press "Click to View". I recommend reading the "Meriweather Lewis Accounts", "The Great Flood", and "Glacier on Fire" sections near the end if nothing else. These sections focus less on my trip and more on historical events. It has everything from wildfire-fighting strategies to a bear encounter that nearly changed the course of the Lewis & Clark expedition. These sections are reproduced below in case you'd like to skip the book.​

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Locations: Many Glacier, Polebridge, Logan Pass, Going-To-The-Sun Road, Middle Fork of Flathead River

Trails: Grinnell Glacier Trail, Bowman Lake Trail, Hidden Lake Trail

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MERIWEATHER LEWIS ACCOUNTS

 

In 1803, Thomas Jefferson commissioned the Corps of Discovery, a unit of the United States Army whose objectives included studying the plants, animals, and geography of the Louisiana Purchase and Pacific Northwest. The Corps also sought to establish a U.S. claim to the land by documenting an American presence there before other European nations. President Jefferson named Meriweather Lewis as his personal secretary and U.S. Army Captain. Lewis selected William Clark as his partner.

Lewis was exploring solo ahead of the main party by Sun River (just east of Flathead River) when he narrowly escaped being attacked by a large grizzly bear. Having forgotten to reload his riffle after killing a buffalo for fresh meat, the encounter is now a well-known tale in the Lewis and Clark Journals. The bear had approached unnoticed just 20 paces ahead before moving full speed at Lewis. Realizing his error, Lewis took off running into the adjoining Missouri River. He retreated waist-deep into the water and pointed his trusty espontoon, a kind of short spear, at the bear as it hesitated on the river bank. What must have been to Lewis’ immense surprise and great relief, the bear wheeled around and ran.

In his journal entry for June 14th 1805, Lewis described the Sun River (which he called Medicine River): “I passed through the plain nearly in the direction the bear had run to Medicine River, found it a handsome stream, about 200 yards wide with a gentle current, apparently deep, its waters clear, and banks which were formed principally of dark brown and blue clay were about the height of those of the Missouri or from 3 to 5 feet.” Then he said, “Yet they had not the appearance of ever having been overflow, circumstances which I did not expect so immediately in the neighborhood of the mountains, from whence I should have supposed, that sudden and immense torrents would issue at certain seasons of the year; but the reverse is absolutely the case. I am therefore compelled to believe that the snowy mountains yield their waters slowly, being partially affected every day by the influence of the sun only, and never suddenly melted down by hasty showers of rain.” Failing to see the evidence of recent flooding such as piles of debris and obvious erosion of the riverbank, he concluded that this type of flooding did not actually occur on the Sun River.  

THE GREAT FLOOD

 

It is quite remarkable that in 1805, Meriwether Lewis predicted the exact causes of a catastrophic flood that would occur more than 150 years later; The Great Flood of 1964, Montana’s worst natural disaster.
That spring, record amounts of snowpack accumulated in the mountains from a series of late storms. Up until June, cooler than average temperatures kept the snowpack in place. An intense multi-day rainstorm was the tipping point; humid air carried from the Gulf of Mexico clashed with frigid air from the north, leading to an inch of rainfall per hour on the unusually heavy snowpack. On June 7th and 8th, 10 to 14 inches of rain fell over the Continental Divide. The storm’s ferocity made the flood that year the most devastating and spectacular on record.

The June 8th Monday afternoon printing of the Great Falls newspaper The Leader warned that major flooding was forecasted by the U.S. Weather Bureau for the Sun River. Two dams failed on the Blackfeet Reservation that day. Swift Dam collapsed, sending a wall of water 20 to 40 feet high down Birch Creek at an estimated speed of 25 miles an hour. Two Medicine Dam had also failed.
On that morning, the water became so fierce that the waves charged over the 200-foot-tall Gibson Dam near Augusta Montana. All the towns and crops within 80 miles of the dam flooded. Approximately 128,700 tons of water rushed into the local communities at a rate of 50,000 cubic feet per second.

Hundreds of head of cattle and elk were washed down the river. Thirty-one people drowned, including tourists, Kalispell residents, and people who lived on the Blackfoot Reservation. One hundred people were reported missing after the disaster, and 1,200 became homeless after hundreds of homes were wiped out. The vast majority of those displaced were Native American. From Essex to Flathead Lake, five bridges, six miles of railroad track, and 20 miles of what is now U.S. Highway 2 were all destroyed. When it was over, a total area of about 12,000 miles was affected. Damage totaled $62 million according to the U.S. Geological Survey and state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, which adjusted for inflation, would total $474 million in 2014.
As we continued down the river, Jakob pointed out a train car that had washed miles downstream during the flood, still strewn high up on a hill. Nearby, a railroad tunnel roughly 40 feet above us in elevation marked just how high the torrent rose, reportedly filling to the brim with water and mud at the time. Rumor has it more train cars are nestled at the bottom of Flathead River, serving as yet another haunting memorial for anyone willing to lean over the edge of their rafts and gaze into the depths below.

GLACIER ON FIRE

 

Rows of bare tree trunks stuck up from the northern hillside like legions of speared soldiers marching to battle. It was a reminder of yet another troubling year for the gold and silver state; 2003. The fires began in the middle of July, with moisture levels in vegetation at record lows. Lightning strikes sparked several fires that would eventually grow to huge proportions. But before detailing what made them so threatening, a bit of context is helpful in understanding why fire is sometimes necessary.
Low intensity fires benefit wildlands and are vital to the survival of several species. Fire removes low-growing underbrush, cleans the forest floor of debris, opens it up to sunlight, and nourishes the soil. Reducing the competition for nutrients allows established trees to grow stronger and healthier. Brush removal can help prevent larger, more damaging wildfires from spreading out of control and completely destroying forests. Under optimum conditions, when wildfires do start, they remain on the ground and low in intensity, burning grasses and vegetation, but causing less damage to trees.

Fire clears wildlands of heavy brush, leaving room for new grasses, herbs and regenerated shrubs that provide food and habitat for many wildlife species. When fire removes a thick stand of shrubs, the water supply is increased. With fewer plants absorbing water, streams are fuller, benefiting other types of plants and animals.

Fire also kills diseases and insects that prey on trees, and provides valuable nutrients that enrich the soil. Change is important to a healthy forest. Some species of trees and plants are actually fire-dependent. They need fire every 3-25 years in order for life to continue. Some trees have fire-resistant bark and cones that require heat to open and release seeds for regeneration. Chaparral plants, including manzanita, chamise and scrub oak, also require intense heat for seed germination. These plants actually encourage fire by having leaves covered with flammable resins. Without fire, these trees and plants would eventually succumb to old age with no new generations to carry on their legacy. When the heat increases too much, it’s a different outcome…
By most measures, the fire season of 2003 was historic for Northwest Montana. Six major-fires burned more than 135,000 acres of forest in Glacier National Park that summer – roughly 13% of Glacier’s total area including bare rock, water, ice, and snow. The destruction could have been much worse. Lives might have been lost when the fires made sudden runs toward populated areas and Going-to-the-Sun Road. Fires came very close to burning Apgar, West Glacier, Park Headquarters, and irreplaceable historic lodges. Such disasters were averted by the hard work of interagency firefighting crews who conducted backfires and other tactical maneuvers with great skill. Many hundreds of firefighters labored for weeks on end in withering heat.

The first fire, the Wedge Canyon Fire, began in Polebridge. A second fire, The Trapper Fire, ignited in the center of the park near The Loop on the Going-to-the-Sun Road. A third fire ignited on the Flathead National Forrest side of Flathead River’s North Fork. It crossed the river and entered the park, becoming the Robert Fire, and eventually worked its way towards the Apgar and West Glacier communities. Each presented a unique set of challenges, but the most intriguing of the three wildfires was the Robert Fire.
To combat the Robert Fire in West Glacier and Apgar, an incident command team of around 500 firefighters was assembled. Most notably, the team was based out of Alaska, the largest state in America. Alaskan firefighters on their home turf have the ability to “play” with fire. They are able to implement strategies that can’t be pulled off in the lower forty-eight, because there are millions of acres with no values at risk from a human development standpoint.

As the fire descended south in late July, the team hatched a plan to burn-off Apgar Mountain. For three days, the forest along Camus Road was soaked by fire crews in preparation for the man-made fire and to prevent it from spreading to populated regions. Retardant bombers were flown through the area to further fireproof the line. Finally, at the end of the third day, a squadron of helicopters equipped with ping-pong balls full of Napalm were dispatched…and lit the mountain on fire.

A Missoula reporter described how their efforts were concentrated in a cleft on the side of Apgar. The Robert Fire came roaring southward towards Apgar Village and West Glacier, with a giant pyroculums cloud billowing overhead. Everyone was evacuated. Meanwhile, the man-made fire ran up the valley like a guided missile…and tipped the big fire over. From a distance, onlookers watched as the pyrocumulus cloud bent over and yielded to the wind channel formed by the back-fire, taking all of the momentum out of the main fire. In the process, 8,000 additional acres of Apgar and northern forest were burned, all done deliberately to move another fire somewhere else. Despite the heavy burden, the burnout operation (which was signed-off by the park’s superintendent beforehand) was considered a fantastic success. By all accounts The Robert Fire would have overrun Apgar and West Glacier like the fires at Fort McMurray in Canada, or the Paradise fire in California – it probably would have burned those communities down to the ground. But there aren’t a lot of places where you’ve got 8,000 acres of land to gamble with as a fire-fighting strategy.  
The Trapper Fire began on the west side of the Continental Divide. It ran so hard through Swift Current Pass that it started fires on the east side of the divide in Many Glacier, a geographically rare thing for a fire to do. In response, the park evacuated Many Glacier hotel, and after the Roberts Fire regained some life, all of the Lake McDonald valley was evacuated.

The best way to summarize the rest of the wildfire season is through the diary entries of the Park Concessionaire. A bellhop at Lake McDonald was sitting on the shore in a lawn chair when a ranger came up behind him from the bushes and urged him to leave. The departure was so chaotic that when he returned to his dorm, he discovered his car keys were gone – someone had driven off with his car believing he’d already evacuated! People weren’t even looking to see who had what, they simply grabbed their stuff and fled. Thankfully for the bellhop, a red jammer bus transported him to safety…and his car was returned.
The West side of Glacier, especially the Lake McDonald area, featured some of the last remnants of the Pacific Northwest rainforest, including great big gorgeous Cedar trees. There are very few remaining, particularly after the Spragg Fire in 2017 knocked most of them out. Doghair Lodgepole trees dominate now, having serotinous cones coated in a heavy natural wax. What needs to happen to return the forest to a more balanced state is, ironically, another fire. However, rain levels are becoming too low for trees to return, encouraging a grassland savannah biome to take its place. As to firefighting, it goes to show how different landscapes adopt to different tactics.

The images of 500-foot flames raging into the night sky and evacuators abandoning half-eaten dinners faded away on September 8 with heavy rains drawing the most destructive fire season in Glacier’s history toward a close.
As climate change increases the frequency and intensity of wildfires around the world, the damaging effects to the environment are being exacerbated. The United Nations recently assessed the global risk of catastrophic wildfires, concluding that as climate change continues to accelerate, more of the world will burn, having devastating effects on both human health and biodiversity. Wildfires and climate change are inextricably linked. As their effects worsen, a vicious cycle is emerging. The risk of wildfires is rising globally due to climate change, but the wildfires themselves are also contributing to worsening climate change because plants release carbon dioxide into the air as they burn, contributing to the greenhouse effect.  

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