7.25.26 East Glacier, St. Mary and Glacier National Park Red Bus Tour

 7.25.26 St. Mary/East Glacier KOA

We came to the East Side of Glacier so we could take a Red Bus Tour from this side. This way we didn't have to leave Marley too long. This park was way out in the country. It was very quiet....still pricey because of the location to Glacier National Park.

The bridge below, built in 1935, was in a movie scene. Can you guess what movie?

 Forrest Gump (1994)

Cross-Country Run across the bridge: Parts of Forrest's iconic cross-country run used backdrop views of the mountains inside the Saint Mary Entrance and the St. Mary Lake area. The bridge crosses the river as you enter the park from the east.

Interesting tidbit: Because the shoot required a long cross-country run and Tom Hanks was not always available, his real-life brother, Jim Hanks, acted as the stand-in double for Forrest during the running scenes in Montana.

The Forrest Gump Bridge facing the opposite direction.

Marley is ready to go!

Glacial water is so beautiful!

The view from  our campsite. The sun was super red one night at sunset. Maybe from all the wildfire smoke?

7.26.26 Happy Birthday Vicki!

 

Eastern Alpine Red Bus Tour. We were so lucky! Al got to sit in the front seat with the driver so he could take photos out the front and hear what she was saying. I was in the second row and we started with two people in the row with me but at the first photo stop the man decided he was going to walk back to his motel and get hos own vehicle. We couldn't figure out why. when we got to the top of Logan Pass, the guy showed up and the woman got off the tour too! So I had the whole second seat to myself. I did offer to share with the row behind me but they declined. Not sure why no one wanted to sit by me. I took a shower and didn't put on any kind of perfume. Oh well...lucky me!

Great guide, Christie. She made several stops for photo ops.

We learned how the Going to the Sun Road was designed to fit into the landscape and be a scenic drive.

St Mary Lake & Goose Island

Who knows the significance of this view? 

It was the opening scene of The Shining!

The Shining (1980)

We stopped at a famous movie site in St. Mary’s Lake. In the middle of the lake is tiny Wild Goose Island providing an iconic view that was featured in the opening credits of the movie “The Shining”. Our guide also pointed out where the famous aerial shots of the opening sequence of the film, following Jack's red Volkswagen to the resort driving along a winding mountain road on Glacier's Going-to-the-Sun Road with additional footage later used in Blade Runner.

The exterior shots of the Overlook Hotel in the movie were filmed at the Timberline Lodge in Oregon where we drove up the mountain while there.

Click below to watch the scene!

The Shining Intro Scene

The Real Story of Goose Island

When the tribal warriors arrived on the island, all they found were two geese, tenderly rubbing necks. They flew away and never returned. From then on, the small island in the center of St. Mary's Lake in Glacier National Park was known as Wild Goose Island.

St. Mary Lake

Can you imagine what this would look like with no wildfire smoke??? I think we have to go back one day...

The berries above are Mountain Ash. They will turn bright red! The color of the Red Buses was actually copied from these berries!

Below are ripe Mountain Ash (photo from https://hammarlundnursery.com/products/showy-mountain-ash)

Below is a Thimbleberry Bush. Our tour guide said the leaves are very soft and they refer to them as "natures toilet paper." The berries are gone from this bush.

Below are ripe thimbleberries (Photo from (https://www.prairienursery.com/)

East Tunnel- 408 foot tunnel through Piegan Mountain.

Below: The white flowering plants are Bear Grass

Ram snow at Logan Pass

Lunch Creek flows down a natural rock staircase from the backdrop of Pollock Mountain.

Below: The Triple Arches in Glacier National Park is a historic, 65-foot-long reinforced concrete and masonry bridge built in 1927 along the Going-to-the-Sun Road. It was designed to span deep, vertical mountain rifts along the Garden Wall on Pollock Mountain as a creative, cost-effective alternative to massive retaining walls.

The Triple Arches on the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park serves as an organic structural tribute to the three construction workers who lost their lives building the historic highway between 1926 and 1928. Rather than an imposing separate statue, the three-arch bridge itself functions as their lasting monument.

On Logan Pass...Al ran up this boardwalk Trail (above)

Going to the Sun Road gets a little narrow!

Still snowpack on Going to the Sun road on July 26, 2026.

Below...a waterfall with a tunnel in the background

A last look at Goose Island

Wild flowers on Logan Pass were so pretty! There was Indian Paintbrush too!

Click our video below to see our East Glacier Tour!

More...Death in the Park

There are so  many stories! Scroll by if you're not interested....

2013: A 64-year-old hiker suffered fatal trauma after a fall along the narrow ledge section west of Logan Pass.

 On July 25, 2022, rescuers recovered the bodies of mountaineers Brian Kennedy and Jack Beard, who had set off together on July 21 to climb Dusty Star Mountain.

Kennedy and Beard, who were both 67 and lived in Montana, were experienced climbers who had been hiking Glacier’s towering peaks for decades. They visited the 1,583-square-mile park in northwest Montana so often that some staffers even knew them personally, per a statement from the National Park Service.

Family members reported the men missing on July 24, after they did not return home as planned, and park rangers found their vehicle at the trailhead.

 

Also on July 25,2022, a 79-year-old man from Florida fell to his death while climbing a steep, off-trail slope on Rising Wolf Mountain with a group of friends, according to a statement from park officials. The friends called for help and dialed 911, which alerted the park of the emergency.

Though park officials said the two incidents are unrelated and likely just a coincidence, they’re a stark reminder of the risks of climbing in Glacier, which is home to brittle sedimentary rock formations that can easily crumble.

 

2025 A 73-year-old Iowa woman on Wednesday fell to her death after tripping and falling off the Highline Trail in Glacier National Park, according to a news release.

Diane Bunker of Muscatine, Iowa, sustained fatal injuries after falling 450 feet, out of sight from the large group she was hiking with. The fall occurred between Big Bend and Triple Arches.

Park staff at 11 a.m. on Aug. 27 were alerted of the fall and closed the Going-to-the-Sun Road from Logan Pass to Big Bend for about an hour. Two Bear Air was dispatched to the scene and recovered her body below the trail before a transfer to the Flathead County coroner at the Apgar horse corrals, according to officials. nationalparknews

 

2025

Three visitors had a brush with death at Glacier National Park after falling into a gorge while posing for a photo, according to the National Park Service.

They were part of a group of four people from Florida taking a picture on the rocks above Avalanche Gorge at about 7 p.m. on Sunday, July 6, 2025. That’s when one person fell into the water. Two others fell in while trying to help. Two were swept all the way down the gorge, and bystanders performed CPR on them, successfully resuscitating them.

Meanwhile, the other individual was able to grab onto tree branches in the gorge. A park ranger rappelled to him and secured him until a technical rescue team retrieved both the individual and the ranger.

All three were taken to Logan Health hospital in Kalispell, Montana. One was flown in an ambulance helicopter called A.L.E.R.T. The two others were taken by ambulance. They are all reported to be in stable condition.

Next up...Grinnell Glacier!

7.27.26 Al went on a full day-long hike to Grinnell Glacier and brought back some gorgeous photos. I created a separate post for that hike because I just couldn't cut anything out. Stay tuned for that post coming soon!

7.22.26 West Glacier and Glacier National Park Red Bus Tour

7.22.26 Travel Day! West Glacier KOA

Wildfire smoke was coming from all directions, Canada, Washington and Idaho. We made the best of it and plan to come back one day!

In 1889, an explorer for the Great Northern Railway, John F. Stevens, figured out where the lowest mountain pass between Canada and Mexico was. Its low altitude and easy grade made it perfect for trains to cross the Continental Divide.

By the 1880’s the Blackfeet were devastated by small pox epidemics and persecution by the US Government. The railroad line crossed the mountains in 1891 and several workcamps sprung up. Two of them eventually became the towns of Belton (West Glacier) and Midvale (East Glacier).

Low bridge! I think they left this here so vehicles that are too big can't come in! Mona would NOT fit under there!

Everyone SMILE!!!

7.23.26 The Historical Red Bus Tour

We left at 7:30 am to get into the park and meet our Red Bus Tour.

We had a wonderful tour and our tour guide took us through Great Cedar and Hemlock Forests, Lake McDonald Valley, Lake McDonald Lodge and Overlook, Going to the Sun Road, a high alpine region, to stand on the Continental Divide, and we saw glaciers, waterfalls, wild flowers and so much more!

The red Buses represent the oldest touring fleet in continuous service, famous for their roll-back canvas tops and drivers who "jammed" the manual gears.

1914 The White Motor Company brought the first authorized motor transport fleet to a national park.

1936 The famous third-generation buses featuring oak frames, individual side doors for every row, and a roll-back canvas top were designed.

The Name "Jammer": Drivers earned the nickname "Gearjammers" because the old manual transmissions required heavy physical effort to grind and jam the gears into place on steep mountain curves.

Ford Overhaul: The buses were saved from retirement in the late 1990s and early 2000s when Ford Motor Company funded a complete rebuild of the 33 buses, adding clean propane/gasoline engines and automatic transmissions while keeping the vintage look. Today the busses are Operated by Glacier National Park Lodges and carry tens of thousands of visitors across the Going-to-the-Sun Road each summer with driver-guides.

For more info: https://www.glaciernationalparklodges.com/red-bus-tours/history/

Heavens Peak

Fire lookouts

https://youtu.be/UKCxBREchac?si=CMnmOPClxP5DveQS

https://www.summitpost.org/heaven-s-peak-lookout/559115

We went through the West Tunnel that took a lot of manpower to bore through 192 feet of mountain using 1926 technology.

We went around the loop, the only switchback on the road that allows a view of “Heavens Peak.”

We saw Bird Woman Falls, a waterfall that cascades 492 feet.

Logan Pass- 6,646 feet above sea level. It sits along the Continental Divide in Glacier National Park, Montana, and is the highest point reachable by car on the Going-to-the-Sun Road.

I had to buy a hat while we were up there to keep my hair out of my face and the sun out of my eyes! You like it? I forgot to take the sticker off the bill before I put it on though!!! 

Rams on the mountain on Logan Pass

1.5-billion-year-old stromatolites- I'll tell you more about these later. The kind of look like Van Gogh's Starry Night!

Heaven's Peak from inside the tunnel

Lake McDonald Lodge

Freda's for lunch! Al had a bison Burger and fries and I had a pulled pork and fries. We both had a huckleberry shake. total bill $69.95 Have you ever paid that much for fast food?!?

Al is in love with ANYTHING huckleberry! We have jam, pancake syrup, ice cream topping, fudge, chapstick, soda, beer... All of this and I could not find a huckleberry magnet or postcard!

Still smiling...

I just thought these were so pretty!

My shirt matches the flowers in the truck!

Some interesting research findings...scroll by if you're not interested...

Death in Glacier National Park

At least 260 people died or were presumed dead in Glacier National Park during its first century of existence. While recent yearly figures are not fully aggregated, the park logs multiple fatalities annually, with the leading causes of death being falls, drownings, and natural causes (such as medical emergencies).

The federal government does not release an exact annual number of missing person cases specifically for Glacier National Park, but most are resolved quickly. Park officials note that multi-day wilderness disappearances are relatively rare. However, according to historical park records, there is a small group of people who remain classified as "lost, never found" after completely vanishing into the park's rugged terrain. The park's steep cliffs, dense vegetation, glacial waters, and active wildlife make searching exceptionally difficult if no immediate clues are left behind.

Here are some notable historical cold cases of people who vanished in Glacier National Park:

The Whitehead Brothers In August 1924, Chicago college students William and Joseph Whitehead set off on a hike from the Granite Park Chalet with plans to reach the Lewis Hotel (now the Lake McDonald Lodge). They never arrived. Because they came from a prominent, politically connected family, an unprecedented search was launched involving rangers, mountaineers, and Native American guides, reportedly urged on by President Calvin Coolidge. Heavy autumn snow blanketed the area before any concrete evidence could be found, and no trace of the brothers or their gear has ever been discovered.

Frederick H. Lumley Data from the wilderness missing-person archive Locations Unknown lists Frederick H. Lumley, who went missing on August 13, 1934. Lumley simply vanished into the backcountry during the peak summer hiking season. Despite search efforts in the areas he was believed to be exploring, his body, clothing, and gear were never located.

David Paul Wilson On July 21, 1963, David Paul Wilson vanished while exploring the park's interior. Similar to other alpine cold cases, the severe drop-offs and complex scree fields characteristic of Glacier's peaks mean that a single misstep can cause a hiker to fall into deep, inaccessible crevices where wilderness elements quickly erase any visible tracks. He remains on the park's permanent unresolved list.

Kenneth Gelston Just a year after Wilson's disappearance, Kenneth Gelston went missing on July 24, 1964. Extensive ground searches turned up no dropped items or signs of a struggle. His disappearance stands as another example from the mid-20th century where hikers walked into the park's wilderness alone and completely dropped off the grid.

Barry Tragen A more recent cold case involves 68-year-old Columbia Falls resident Barry Tragen. His vehicle was found abandoned near Kintla Lake in the remote, northwestern corner of the park in late July 2020. An intensive multi-week search involving K-9 teams, boats, and underwater tracking equipment was deployed. Aside from a pair of sunglasses believed to belong to him, no further clues were found, and search dogs only indicated a brief interest near the lake's outlet before losing the scent.

"Night of the Grizzlies" 

(there is actually a book about this but I didn't want to spend $25 on a book so I looked it up myself)

Glacier National Park’s busiest season came to an abrupt halt in the summer of 1967. In a matter of hours, two grizzly bears had acted as they never had before in the park’s 57-year history. Several miles apart, each bear had mauled a young woman on the same day, in the dark, early hours of August 13. Two 19-year-olds, Julie Helgeson, from Minnesota, and Michele Koons, from California, were both asleep under the big sky of northwest Montana, when grizzly bears found them and carried them off.  On August 12, 1967, Helgelson and Koons—both 19 at the time—embarked on respective overnight backpacking trips. Both were spending a summer working in one of the park’s lodges, Helgeson in East Glacier Lodge, Koons in West Glacier’s Lake McDonald Lodge. Helgeson’s path was surrounded by vistas of glacial valleys and mountain peaks. Her excursion took her from Logan Pass, roughly eight miles up the popular Highline Trail to the Granite Park Chalet. She and a friend, Roy Ducat, arrived at about 7 p.m., ate their sack dinners and watched the sunset before retiring for the night.

Helgeson and Ducat tucked into their sleeping bags outside, near the chalet, packed with guests during the busy summer season.

Shortly after midnight, a grizzly bear meandered toward the campers.

Ducat would later tell investigators Helgelson had seen the bear and woke Ducat telling him to play dead. The grizzly knocked the pair out of their sleeping bags and within minutes, the bear had sunk its teeth into each of them. It focused on Helgeson, dragging her about 100 yards away.

“Someone help us!” she screamed as the bear dragged her off. Ducat, his arm badly mangled, ran to wake other campers nearby.

Help arrived for Ducat in the form of a helicopter with medical supplies, but an overly cautious ranger held up the search party, fearful of putting more visitors at risk. Nearly two hours passed before the group departed on its mission to rescue Helgeson. After Ducat was taken to a hospital, and a ranger armed with a rifle had arrived, the group followed a blood trail downhill from the campsite.

Soon, they heard a noise and spotted Helgeson facedown, not far below. A doctor staying at the chalet attended to her.

“It hurts,” she said several times.

The group carried her back to the chalet, where a helicopter would arrive to take her to a hospital. She reached the chalet by 3:45 a.m. but died soon thereafter, minutes before the aircraft landed.

As Helgelson departed on her fateful hike, Koons was joining four fellow park employees on a steep eight-mile journey to Trout Lake. A grizzly crashed their campsite at about 8 p.m. as they cooked hotdogs and fresh fish. The campers ran and waited as the bear gobbled up their dinner and scrambled away with one of their backpacks. The party moved their gear, bringing some cookies and Cheez-Its, to the beach. In a ring around a campfire, they settled into their sleeping bags.

At about 4:30 a.m., the grizzly reappeared at Koons’ camp. It sniffed around, biting into one of the young men’s sleeping bags and clawing his sweatshirt. One by one, the campers jumped and climbed up trees. From their perches, they yelled at Koons to join them. But before she could, the bear tore into her sleeping bag and began dragging her away. 

“He’s got my arm off,” the others heard her say. “Oh God, I’m dead,” she said.

The party stayed in the trees for about an hour-and-a-half before running down the trail to the nearest ranger station.

Seasonal rangers Leonard Landa and Bert Gildart had gone to sleep with knowledge of the Granite Park Chalet mauling. Gildart had heard the calls for help over the radio and helped dispatch emergency responders. Landa stayed awake listening to the radio traffic. When both men learned of the Trout Lake mauling later that morning, they were confused and in disbelief.

The rangers were sent to search for Koons. Landa left first with some of Koons’ fellow hikers. Gildart, filled with adrenaline, hurried up the trail to join them.

“We were all a little spooked by this time,” Gildart says, reflecting on the events of 50 years ago. “Here’s a bear that’s pulled a girl out of a sleeping bag. What kind of a creature is this?”

Minutes after they reached the campsite and fanned out, Gildart recalls Landa whispering, “Bert, here she is.” The young woman’s mutilated body was lifted out of the backcountry by helicopter.

The rangers were stunned by the night’s parallel events but not by the problem bears. Landa knew that a bear had been harassing campers at Trout Lake and another nearby camp. And Gildart and seasonal wildlife biologist David Shea had four days prior hiked to Granite Park Chalet to confirm another rumor they’d heard: Bears were feeding nightly on table scraps from boarders at the chalet.

“We got up there and we were absolutely astounded that people were standing around throwing food out to the bears,” Gildart recalls.

The routine had become a spectacle for visitors.

“It was basically an incident waiting to happen,” says Shea, who spent 36 seasons working in the park.

The garbage problem wasn’t isolated to Granite Park. Campsites all around Glacier were not well-maintained. Visitors, sloppy with their trash, frequently abandoned it. Gildart later collected 17 bags of garbage from the Trout Lake site.

The day after the deadly attacks, Gildart and Landa headed to look for the suspect bear at Trout Lake. Gildart spotted it at 4 a.m. when he stepped outside of the patrol cabin where the men were spending the night. He called for Landa to bring a gun. Within minutes, the bear charged at them and both men fired, killing it.

A forensic investigator came to collect the bear. “They had a big knife,” Gildart recalls. “They slit the stomach of this bear, and a big ball of blonde hair came out.”

 

Shea also was on the hunt for the suspect bear at Granite Park Chalet. In total, the park’s staff shot three bears, including the one believed to have killed Helgeson.

Jack Olsen, a journalist and author of true crime books, investigated the killings for a three-part series published in Sports Illustrated. His reporting was republished as Night of the Grizzlies.

“The tragedy of [that night],” Landa says, “is that two lives were lost.” But Shea adds that the “common sense” precautions that hikers follow today are the good that came of the horror.

The tragedy is attributed to years of poor wildlife management. Bears had become accustomed to eating human garbage and being hand-fed by tourists at dumps, chalets, and roadsides. The animals completely lost their natural fear of humans, associating them directly with food.

This historic tragedy forever changed wildlife management and park conservation policies. The National Park Service completely overhauled its protocols to focus on keeping bears wild, which included:

Closing open-pit garbage dumps that attracted bears.

Installing bear-proof trash cans and hanging steel cables to secure food bags in the backcountry.

Requiring campers to separate their cooking and sleeping areas.

Launching aggressive educational programs teaching visitors not to feed or interact with wildlife.

The new practices soon spread to other national parks in which bears lived. By 1970, Yellowstone, the other park in the lower 48 where people were most likely to encounter a grizzly, had enacted many of the same policies.

Information from: 

Smithsonian: Night of the Grizzlies

 

Murders in the park:

Cody Johnson

Date: July 7, 2013 (body found July 11).

Location: The Loop trail on Going-to-the-Sun Road.

Details: Twenty-two-year-old Jordan Linn Graham pushed her 25-year-old husband face-first off a steep cliff following an argument. She initially lied to authorities before pleading guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Frederick Pongrace

Date: July 1983.

Location: Crystal Point, near The Loop.

Details: Pongrace gave a hitchhiker, Scott David Steel, a ride into the park. Steel stabbed Pongrace and pushed him off a cliff, later fleeing in the victim's Volkswagen van before turning himself in the following year.

 Check out my video below!

7.24.26 A huckleberry French toast breakfast!

Al sat in the hot tub and I sat in the shade. A very hot day!

We went to Columbia Falls for diesel and a truck wash. We stopped in Hungry Horse at the Huckleberry Patch for huckleberry treats. Huckleberry milkshakes, huckleberry syrup, huckleberry fudge...

Our time on the west side of Glacier National Park is over. The heavy wildfire smoke is definitely disappointing but we made the best of it and ate lots of huckleberries! 

Next up...St. Mary and East Glacier!