“The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see.”
― G.K. Chesterton
The family Subaru skidded down Bowman Lake road on washboard gravel. “Shoot!” I hollered. The Forester was more familiar with Missouri roads. The old fly rod I’d snagged from a local thrift shop kept flicking into the window behind me. “I’ll get that for ya.” I cracked the window and the tapping stopped. “I needed some fresh air too.”
This crisp western wind is fresher than what I’m used to, and my memories of fishing from cool muddy banks on hot reedy evenings settled in Missouri bottomlands far behind the mountains. Bass, bluegill, crappie and catfish seem waste of worms now. Painful as it is, I think I’ve fallen for trout. With names like Rainbow, Brook, Bull and Cutthroat and alluring builds to match, these fish thrive in the brisk lakes and sapphire streams of Glacier National Park. Lake trout specifically, are on my most wanted list. Tasty and tenacious, they outcompete the bull trout and are considered invasive in the western lakes. You can catch as many as you like.
I zig-zagged into the red glow of the sunken gravel—knees rubbing water, mountains high and sun low in the June afternoon. Never in my life had I been fly fishing before, but with a few internet videos, several fish ecology articles and a long streak of dumb luck, I felt myself as much of a master angler as any in Montana. I spent the afternoon in the shade, imagining a curious lake swimming up from the dark ravine hundreds of feet below to snack at the surface. I didn’t catch a thing that day. Nor the next. Not all summer.
My parents had about had it with me. “One more quick jaunt!” I insisted. “The Highline trail is right across the road, and the sunset will be magical over Heavens Peak!” We had stumbled through the wind across the parking lot at Logan Pass after an enchanted hike to Hidden Hake. My mom is squeamish with heights and a little uncomfortable with dark in the woods, so I chose not to mention the two hundred foot cliff or advancing twilight ahead. “It’ll be worth it, I promise.”
A quarter-mile past the rimrocks we encountered a small herd of bighorn. However sore my arm was from supporting Mom on the trail above the cliff face, I managed to point in their direction as they scattered ahead. She drew a quick gasp as we trotted along behind my father, who was, perhaps, a bit too enthralled.
“Look at those rams!” he murmured commandingly, eyes glazed in a slack-jaw stare. “We gotta get pictures.”
Weighing over 300 pounds with horns of up to 40, bighorn sheep are formidable animals not to be disturbed. “Give them a moment,” I urged while the herd wandered along the trail out of sight.
Dad crept in front and I grinned as we shadowed them past Oberland peak and into the panoramic McDonald valley. Mom was stunned. We had walked with sheep through the alpine on the continental divide. The sun glanced off heavens peak, streaking around the clouds and into the valley haze. Haystack Butte grew a golden crown. The Garden Wall blushed. Mom cried a little as she snapped some pictures. Dad crouched on a rock like a bighorn and clutched his chest. It was an inspired moment, and one of my favorites of the season.
“What a shot!” the passengers panicked to shove cameras over shoulders and out windows, swiveling and bending like prairie grass in the warm breeze. The Canadairs were flying again, their hundred-foot wingspan slicing above the water as the belly sucked in their 1300-gallon payload. They were stationed at the local airport and were deployed earlier that morning. Two of them were buzzing the fire in swooping rings, engines grinding skyward until they dropped five and a half tons of water into the flames. You could almost hear victory trumpeting down the valley as the plane’s silhouette glistened across mountain vistas and billowing smoke.
“They’re dropping on the hot spots. Should be taken care of in no time, folks.” Lightning had struck on the top of Howe Ridge the evening before. It was a soft Sunday afternoon, my lucky day to narrate the boat tours that circle the head of Lake McDonald from the Lodge. Folks in the office were rightfully jealous. “Don’t worry, it’s in the regrowth from the Robert Fire, an area that burned only 15 years ago. With those planes and the limited vegetation, I'm sure they’ll have it out real soon”. That night, Kelly Camp burned.
Wildfire here is a natural force. Each side of Lake McDonald is enclosed by forests of different ages, from 0 to nearly 500 years old. The ecosystem needs fire to nourish the soil, spread seeds and make habitat for fire-adapted flora and fauna. However, if threatening people or property, NPS policy is to suppress.
On Sunday night, it's devastating consequence was on full display. Word was that even the professionals were surprised. The vertical column of heat broke the mold when it crashed down Howe Ridge on the night of August 11th, one past the the Sprague Fire anniversary. The curling wind cast hundred foot flames towards Kelly Camp while foot size embers and suffocating smoke tumbled a mile across the lake towards the Lodge. We lost many residences at Kelly Camp that day. Not only historic, these cabins and houses were loved by families who called them theirs since the homesteading days over a hundred years ago. The loss is stunning, and understandably so. Thankfully, though, in the month since the Howe Fire began, no one has been hurt. Everyone was evacuated safely and many structures remain secure.
Over the weekend I bet some of my coworkers the road would open by Monday. “The rains are comin’. I’m sure it’ll open up.” Wednesday at the earliest was the consensus of my doubters. I, regrettably, did not put money down. A withering fall storm slunk into the McDonald valley Sunday night. Much of Howe’s smoldering subsided, enough for the fire management team to feel comfortable reopening the Going-to-the-Sun road. By 8am Monday morning, a confused crowd of staff and visitors alike gathered at the Apgar Visitors Center near the western entrance to the park. I was behind the desk, and I’ve never seen a happier sight. After almost forty days fighting this ferocious fire, nature had done what it always does and changed things up, this time in our favor.
“So the road is open?” one visitor asked. “I’ve been waiting all my life to drive it.”
It is my intention, not always my practice, to remain optimistic. After all, any good adventure starts with a bit of bullish behavior. A spontaneous fishing trip, a misinformed boat tour, a half-light hike, or a wishful gamble--none of these stories would exist without a commitment to confidence in each moment, regardless of conclusion. For me, the pull of a parental arm is not inhibitory, but enriching; the full-bellied planes are not defeated, but dutiful; the tug of a trout on a fly is not my intention, but its invitation.
I believe Glacier National Park is a consequence of similar optimism. Built on the idea that wilderness should be preserved for all and protected forever, it’s our mission as a park service to hold this land intact. And so, like all life's best lived moments, the parks calls us to understand them as they are, not as they could be. From fish and fire to friends and family, the struggles and successes of my summer have taught me to accept the the wild circumstance of seasonal life and enjoy the ride all the same. Here in the mountains there’s freeing sense that what matters isn't me or my plans. Each cast of a line, every cloud of smoke, each smile in the sunset brings me a little closer to the serene heart of this wild park. Maybe I’m an optimist, but I find great peace in that.