A Week In Review

En route to Avalanche Lake, June 6, 2014

Katie- there’s a horseback riding company that leads trips that skirt along the river by camp everyday and when they come through I always think of you, miss you and hope you’re getting the chance to ride a lot this summer!

Today wraps up my first full week here in Glacier National Park, and it’s been a busy one. Monday consisted of a broad overview of the Institute and its programs and a tour of Field Camp facilities. It was a day of many firsts, a few of which include the first (of what will surely be many) trips into West Glacier for ice cream at Frieda’s and my first game of Settlers of Catan. The boys beat me handily but Catan is going to be a summer staple so there’s hope for me yet.

Tuesday we drove the GI bus into Kalispell to see the sights, starting with a stop at the main offices to meet the executive director Joyce and office administrator Helena. After additional stops at Rocky Mountain Outfitters and Colter Coffee Roasters, the local gear and coffee shop respectively, we headed over to Whitefish for their weekly farmer’s market- we had a booth and the opportunity to chat with people about our upcoming courses. A storm rolled in around seven that abruptly ended the market and we sought shelter at the Buffalo Cafe for dinner.

Wednesday we biked around West Glacier, National Park Service Headquarters, and Apgar Village so Justin could show us the best places to take/refer visitors during their time in Glacier. In the afternoon we headed up to Big Creek, the GI kids camp located up the North Fork of the Flathead River and just outside the park on forest service land. They are completely off the grid, and last year received a grant to install a solar panel to complement the generators that fuel their power needs. The Big Creek staff is seven strong, and we spent the afternoon touring their facilities (which were previously a forest service hotshot crew site) and playing volleyball, the apparent Glacier community sport of choice.

Thursday and Friday we attended Park Service orientation, which consisted of a series of presentations over two days on the current research being conducted in the park. The presentations ranged from mountain goats to night sky preservation to glacial recession and were all incredibly interesting and helpful, as my knowledge of park research was rudimentary at best prior to these days of orientation. On Friday I also got my first hike in since I arrived in the park- a short and sweet romp up to pristine Avalanche Lake (check out the link to my Instagram for pictures).

Saturday we hung up our master naturalist hats and completed the first annual “Master Fastralist” triathlon, with teams made up of GI staff and friends. It culminated in a polar plunge in Lake McDonald, followed by homemade pizzas and a night at the Moonshiner’s Ball at the Stonefly Lounge in our finest montucky moonshinin’ apparel. Today was a much needed day of rest spent in Bigfork, MT, eating soft serve from Burgertown and soaking up sunshine along the big and beautiful Flathead Lake. Avery was so welcoming and getting to spend time with her cousins and grandparents made me reminisce on summer days in Alaska spent so similarly- it was nice to get a little taste of home.

Sorry for the novel, hope everyone hung in there until the end. I was initially thinking about posting once a week but I might have to make it more frequent so posts are a more reader-friendly length.

-s