Confluence | Logan Pass

In this episode of Headwaters we visit one of Glacier’s most popular and unique destinations: Logan Pass. First, we’ll learn about the road that gets us up here, the Going-to-the-Sun Road, and about some hilarious attempts to reduce our impact at Logan Pass. We’ll learn about appreciating the natural smells of the park, and end with the search for a rare and disappearing flower.

Featuring: Bill Schustrom, Jeff Hoyt, Emlon Stanton, Will Rice, and Darren Lewis.

For more info, visit go.nps.gov/headwaters

In this episode of Headwaters we visit one of Glacier’s most popular and unique destinations: Logan Pass. First, we’ll learn about the road that gets us up here, the Going-to-the-Sun Road, and about some hilarious attempts to reduce our impact at Logan Pass. We’ll learn about appreciating the natural smells of the park, and end with the search for a rare and disappearing flower.

Featuring: Bill Schustrom, Jeff Hoyt, Emlon Stanton, Will Rice, and Darren Lewis.

For more info, visit go.nps.gov/headwaters

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TRANSCRIPT:

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

BIKING INTRODUCTION

Andrew: One spring, shortly after I first came to Glacier National Park to start working as a ranger here, I made my first trip up to Going-to-the Sun Road. In spring while the plow crews are still working on clearing the winter snow from the road, the area past Avalanche Creek is closed to cars. At this time of year, it's popular to bicycle up on the closed part of the road. One afternoon, I took my bike up to Avalanche Creek to ride. Only planning to bike a few miles. I was outfitted in just a t-shirt and carrying only a simple repair kit, a small water bottle, and of course a can of bear spray. When I reached my intended destination, a switchback in the road called The Loop, I was still feeling strong. The sun was bright, and the sky as that deep blue color you only really get in wide open country. From that spot there's a spectacular view of a mountain called Heaven's Peak. I just couldn't turn around.

Andrew: I eschewed my original plan [sound of bike pedaling] and kept pedaling up towards Logan Pass. I couldn't stop. Those miles above The Loop are home to some of the grandest mountain views you’ll find anywhere. As I came around each corner, a new and breathtaking vista came into focus. The effect was magnetic. As my legs became leaden from the miles of climbing up towards the pass, the mountain views compelled me forward foot by foot. The beauty of the scenery, practically physically pulling me up. If you've ever ridden the Going-to-the Sun Road, you know exactly what I mean. The feeling was ineffable and unforgettable. Eventually I reached the high point of the road, Logan Pass. And by then I was in a complete euphoria. As I looked around, I relished the alpenglow lighting up the mountains, the evening light shimmering in the snow, and the glacier lilies pushing up through the fresh soil.

Andrew: The pinkish orange of the sunset was so beautiful I screamed. I couldn't react except primordially. I breathed the crisp mountain air and the place became part of me. I turned the handlebars of my bike back towards the car and began to cruise down the road. But as night started to close in on me, my bliss quickly turned to worry. The sun dropped behind the tall peaks and the temperature plummeted. The road was coated with frigid water from the melting snow, which was kicked up by my tires and soon saturated my green t-shirt. My stomach growled with hunger. I had cycled much further than planned and missed dinner. But worst of all was the wind. The air itself was still, but biking, downhill and picking up speed, I would generate my own wind faster and faster. I couldn't decide whether to descend slowly, staying warmer, but dragging out the experience, or to just let go and frigidly descend as fast as possible.

Andrew: Gravity and the thought of my warm car were irresistible. I let loose. As I picked up speed, the cold wind turned my hands numb. They slumped over the handlebars pale and useless. Suddenly I regretted that decision. In the fading light I saw a herd of bighorn sheep jump down into the road from a rocky outcropping above, directly into my path. I squeezed my brakes as hard as I could with my unfeeling hands, not knowing if it would have any effect. With a shriek my tires locked up and my bike came to a halt. I was a little too close for comfort to the curly horns of a large ram. He seemed unmoved. Slowly. I made my way down to the car arriving safely, but well, after dark. At home, I cooked up fried eggs, refried beans, anything caloric and warm I could find in my cabinet. Since then I've biked the Going-to-the Sun Road many times and the views still capture my heart. But now before I leave, I always make sure I have all the necessary safety gear, including snacks, a jacket, and especially gloves. Welcome to Headwaters - a Glacier National Park Podcast. Brought to you by the Glacier National Park Conservancy, and produced on the traditional lands of many Native American Tribes, including the Blackfeet, Kootenai, Selis and Qlispe people.

Michael: We’re calling this season: The Confluence, as we look at the ways that nature, culture, the present and the past all come together here.

Andrew: I’m Andrew. Michael I’m Michael.

Andrew: And we’re both rangers here. And today we're at Logan Pass. And after a brief description of the place itself, we'll hear some stories about what makes it so important.

Michael: As the highest point on the Going-to-the Sun Road Logan Pass is a place of extremes.

Andrew: One extreme is visitation. This is the starting spot for two of Glacier's most popular trails, the Highline and Hidden Lake, and has some of the most coveted parking spots anywhere.

Michael: To get one of the 234 spots here on a summer day, often means arriving before 7:00 AM.

Andrew: Logan Pass is also home to extremes of weather.

Michael: Once, wind speeds of at least 99 miles per hour were recorded for 12 hours straight.

Andrew: It can snow any month of the year here and often there's still 10 plus feet of snow on the ground into July.

Michael: As crazy as this may sound to listeners from warmer areas, if you show up to hike at Logan Pass in July, don't wear your sandals. You'll likely be walking on snow.

Andrew: Because of the extreme geography and weather here. There's really only a short window to visit.

Michael: Crews start plowing the Going-to-the Sun Road every year at the beginning of April, but it's a monumental task.

Andrew: The plows will have to maneuver through avalanche chutes, manage extreme weather, and finally tackle a section simply called "The Big Drift" where snow often blows into a pile 80-feet deep. They do all of this on extreme terrain and it all has to be finished before the road can open to the public.

Michael: Typically, the Going-to-the Sun Road opens for the season in late June or early July, but the opening date will depend on conditions. So if you're planning to drive to Logan Pass, don't plan your trip any earlier than that.

Andrew: If you want to bike, like I did, the road will be available for biking before it opens to cars, but you're not allowed to bike in the immediate vicinity of working plow crews for obvious reasons.

Michael: To reach Logan Pass you'll need to bike after hours or on the weekend when crews aren't working.

Andrew: Once Memorial Day hits and car traffic really ramps up, there are more restrictions on when and where you can bike on the Going-to-the Sun Road.

Michael: You'll really want to consult the park website or a newspaper to read all the details.

Andrew: It's only a few short months before winter makes it's return to the past. Winter storms have ended the Logan Pass season as early as September in recent years, but mid-October is more typical.

Michael: It's a narrow window and that's not accounting for wildfire or other natural events that can lead to unplanned closures.

Andrew: But Logan Pass is a magical place full of wildflowers, wildlife, and unsurpassed views. The wild and rugged nature of this place, which makes it so appealing, can also make it unpredictable. It's good to keep in mind that some things you plan to do just might not be available. Be flexible and have a backup plan. There's always something fun to do if you're creative and prepared.

Michael: With all that in mind, let's move into our first story of the day, about how workers in the 1920s and 30s were able to build the engineering marvel that is the Going-to-the Sun Road.

GOING-TO-THE-SUN ROAD

Andrew: So Michael, how many times would you estimate you've driven the Going-to-the-Sun Road?

Michael: Oh gosh. Um, I've never really counted, but I'd say over the last seven years, over a hundred?

Andrew: That's a lot of trips. Do you ever get tired of it?

Michael: Absolutely not. No. Every time you drive it, thanks to changing sunlight or weather, it looks different. And out of all those trips, I've only ever seen one porcupine or wolverine. So it really does feel like each time you go, you notice something new.

Andrew: Yeah. We're pretty lucky to live in this place and to get to drive that road all the time.

Michael: Yeah. You can say that again!

Andrew: When I'm driving the Going-to-the-Sun Road, as it climbs along those sheer cliffs and hugs the side of the Garden Wall, I always think about the engineering that must've gone into it. I mean, they constructed that thing in the 1920s.

Michael: Yeah. And the road would still be impressive if it had been constructed today. So how did they pull that off nearly a hundred years ago now?

Andrew: You know, I have an idea of just who we should talk to someone who's been teaching the history of this road for decades.

Michael: Ranger Bill?

Andrew: That's exactly right.

Andrew: Bill has been working here for a long time.

Bill Schustrom: Well, I started in Glacier National Park in 1966. I worked for the boat company and then in 1988, I was lucky enough to score a job with the National Park Service. And up until this year, I think I had 32 years in.

Michael: If you're lucky enough to meet Bill, you'll find that he's got a ton of stories about the park throughout the years.

Andrew: When I asked him what he'd say to someone about to drive the Going-to-the-Sun Road for the first time he didn't undersell it.

Bill Schustrom: First of all, I would tell anybody that I was talking to that they're in for probably one of the greatest experiences of their life.

Andrew: In Bill's reckoning, the road really democratized Glacier National Park. It made it a place accessible to a lot more people.

Bill Schustrom: It allowed everyone that came to the park, whether you're young or old, or if you're from a different country, it gives you the opportunity to get up very close and personal with one of the finest wilderness areas in the United States, as well as alpine scenery.

Andrew: According to Bill, the Going-to-the-Sun Road's origins go all the way back to the inception of the Park Service.

Bill Schustrom: It came back to Steven Mather who you probably know was the first director of the National Park Service. The National Park Service came into existence in 1916. Steven Mather, within a year, became the director.

Michael: Okay. What about the route? I mean, it seems obvious now, it's absolutely spectacular, but how did they decide where to put it?

Andrew: According to Bill, the routing we have today was not even the one that they had originally planned on.

Bill Schustrom: The first architect, a landscape architect that was involved in the road, was a guy by the name of George Goodwin. And George Goodwin proposed 15 switchbacks over that 3,000 foot climb up to Logan Pass. And Steven Mather came out, and he rode up to the area where he proposed the 15 switchbacks. And Goodwin's whole thought process was, he wanted to show the human spirit, and what the human spirit was capable of doing. And he felt that a road like that would definitely be there for all time to come.

Michael: Oh really? The road was supposed to have 15 switchbacks? I mean it only has one now at The Loop, right?

Andrew: [Chuckling] Yeah. They intervened, and the 15 switchback idea was shot down.

Bill Schustrom: But along on that trip was another, younger, architect by the name of Thomas Vint. And Thomas Vint said, I don't think that's a good idea. And Steven Mather also said he didn't think it was a good idea, that they would ruin this incredibly beautiful, scenic part of the park.

Michael: Okay. Yeah. I've got to agree. That does not sound like a good idea.

Andrew: 15 switchbacks would have covered like the whole area in pavement. So Vint proposed a different route instead: one that only had a single switch back. One where the road would blend into the landscape, emphasizing the natural scenery rather than the human engineering.

Michael: It sounds a lot more like the road that I know.

Andrew: Stephen Mather preferred that proposal as well. He wanted the road to lie lightly on the land, to emphasize the natural over the human.

Michael: So what was the next step to take it from drawing board to asphalt?

Andrew: Well, they had to do a survey of the route.

Bill Schustrom: When they finally decided that it was going to be a one-switchback road, a civil engineer out of San Francisco by the name of Frank Kittredge came in and hired a group of 30 men. And he'd had a lot of experience building roads along the ocean.

Andrew: Michael, you know how steep and cliffy that terrain is. Well, surveying it was so terrifying and challenging, that a lot of people simply quit. Turnover was so high on these survey crews that Kittredge had to have three crews simultaneously. One that was actually working. Then he also had to have...

Bill Schustrom: One crew coming and one crew quitting. And the ones that quit said that it wasn't worth it to climb up and down those cliffs and put your life in the hands of a rope.

Michael: Yeah, I don't blame them. That sounds terrifying.

Andrew: To be out on that crumbly sedimentary rock...no thanks. They finished that survey in 1924 and the next yearn the contract to build the West side of the road was given to a company out of Tacoma, Washington called Williams and Douglas.

Bill Schustrom: When they came in in 1925, instead of starting from the bottom and working up to the high point, Logan Pass, what they did was, they established along the West side five, maybe six different camps. And they would work from there. They'd work in both directions until they ran into the other camp that was coming their way.

Michael: Oh, that's clever. So they were able to work on a bunch of different sections of the road all at the same time.

Bill Schustrom: They estimated that there were 300 men that worked on the road. And you know, there was no OSHA, there were no hard hats and there, you know, the kind of clothing they wore, that wasn't such a big consideration. And the amazing thing about that is there were only three deaths.

Andrew: It's really pretty humbling to know that three people died working on that road, that we all enjoy so much. I can't even imagine what it'd be like to be part of those crews.

Michael: No, I don't want to either.

Andrew: Yeah. I asked Bill what some of maybe the biggest challenges they were facing were.

Bill Schustrom: I think the biggest thing was safety. You'd see guys rappelling down off the sides of very steep cliffs, you know, with a thousand-foot drop below them. And when they did it, they actually to get all of the materials they needed up to those five camps, they actually had packers that came in. Many of them from Columbia Falls, Montana, one in particular was a guy named Joel Opalka. And the interesting thing about Joe was, in 1983, they had the 50th anniversary of the Going-to-the-Sun Road. And I was lucky enough to be there. They had a lot of the civil engineers, a lot of the people that were responsible for building the road were there and they spoke, and they were eloquent. They were eloquent in the fact that this is going to be a National Historic Site, which it is. And it's actually an, obviously a Civil Engineering National Historic Site and said all this big flowery stuff about it. And Joel Opalka turned around to one of his old buddies that was sitting there, you know, 50 years later and said, aw hell, they can talk all they want about it, that was just one dangerous, damn hard thing that we were involved in and a lot of hard work, and it was scary.

Andrew: Joe Opalka passed in 1991. So we're pretty lucky to still have people like Bill who knew those involved in the original construction.

Michael: How long in total did it take to build the thing?

Andrew: While a few small sections had been built in earlier years or even decades, the bulk of the construction was done in just eight summer. Because of the limited working season, it's really only about three years' worth of working days. The road was finished in 1932 and then...

Bill Schustrom: In 1933, they dedicated it, I think it was on the 15th of July, and there were 4,000 people that showed up. Now, today, it would be an environmental disaster, because 4,000 people and they camped out all over the beautiful meadows and the wildflowers.

Michael: That is a lot of people at Logan Pass.

Andrew: [Chuckles] Yeah. So I guess some things haven't changed that much. Bill emphasized to me that hearing about the road and learning the history is great and all, but you know,

Bill Schustrom: People need to come here. You can ooh and aah at the pictures, but when you're on that road, Oh. My. God.

Michael: There's something irreplaceable about really being there.

Bill Schustrom: It's just like now where I live, you know, they're rebuilding my road, and now they're digging. The guy that runs the excavator - he is phenomenal, the way he handles that, that great big bucket. That's gotta be like this, you know? And he's just like, he's just got it in his hand and he can put it here and there. And I, I just actually took a chair out last week and just sat out there one kind of sunny day and just watched them work. It was just so much fun, but you, I was there and I was part of it. And to me, that's what education is all about. You gotta be able to - hell, you can talk about wild flowers, but when you can actually see it happening, it's just so much more effective.

Andrew: It's such a great image of Bill sitting out in his lawn chair, watching the excavator.

Michael: Yeah. It actually does sound pretty cool to watch.

Andrew: [Laughs] Yeah. And I loved the way Bill described the experience of the Going-to-the-Sun Road.

Bill Schustrom: It's like giving somebody a hug. You're hugging the park because it's so beautiful. And the road obviously is a tribute to the, you know, the spirit, the human spirit, but it also is a tribute to nature. You've got to respect it. You got to take your time. And you've got to realize you're in a place that pretty much is starting to disappear in our world, in our country. When you think about all the industrialization that has gone on, but Glacier is a place where you can come and it's still relatively untouched.

Andrew: He told me about an experience that can really only happen at a place like Logan Pass.

Bill Schustrom: Working up there a couple of years ago. And there was a mountain sheep, beautiful mountain sheep, just this big huge horned guy. And it was looking at us and just like a statue and a guy came up to me and he said, "Jeez, Ranger." He said, "I swear to God, that same mountain sheep was standing in exactly that position 20 years ago when I came here." And I looked at him and I said, "You know, who knows? Probably not. But the park is just exactly like it was when you were here 20 years ago, because it was set aside to become a National Park and how fortunate we are to have places like that.

Michael: We’ll be back after this break with a story about some of the interesting steps the park has taken to deal with the impact of visitors at Logan Pass.

[GLACIER NATIONAL PARK CONSERVANCY AD]

Andrew: Each episode, we seem to cover at least one thing that like this podcast wouldn't be possible without the support of the Glacier National Park Conservancy.

Michael: With the help of some friends over there, we got the number of Executive Director, Doug Mitchell, and decided to call him up out of the blue to ask about these projects.

Andrew: For this episode, we wanted to ask about a very special ranger you'll sometimes see at Logan Pass.

Doug Mitchell: Glacier Conservancy, this is Doug.

Michael: Hey, Doug it's Michael and Andrew. How are you doing?

Doug: Michael and Andrew, what a treat to hear from you today!

Michael: Likewise, well, we're calling because Andrew and I have both worked at Logan Pass as park rangers, but no matter how good of rangers we are, most visitors who come up to us are asking for a different ranger, one special ranger. Do you have any idea what ranger that might be?

Doug: I have a feeling that it is our own four-legged ranger, Gracie, the bark ranger. Would I be correct?

Michael: You're absolutely right.

Andrew: Can you tell us who Gracie is and what she's doing up there?

Doug: Sure. So Gracie is an amazing addition to the team at Glacier Park an especially trained animal who helps separate the public from wildlife. Gracie and her handler Ranger Mark Beal have won a bunch of national awards for the work that they've been able to do in Glacier to be able to keep wildlife and people interactions safe.

Michael: Basically Gracie the bark ranger is a specifically trained wildlife dog that the park uses to mitigate human wildlife conflict at Logan Pass. When you say Gracie's helping maintain a safe distance between animals and visitors, is it usually visitors approaching animals, animals approaching visitors, or a little bit of both?

Doug: It's a little bit of both. So, you know, obviously, as unfortunately we know animals are attracted to salt, which can, can come from the bottoms of our cars. And so they can end up in the parking lot and either people can get too close to them, in which case Gracie will gently nudge her way around both the people and the animals. And generally shoo the animals back to the other side of the road, where they are safe and sound and out of harm's way as are the people who may not know that you just don't get within five feet of a bighorn sheep. That would be a bad idea.

Michael: Yeah, big horns have a few big reminders on their head to keep that distance, but it's nice to have a charismatic ranger doing the extra work.

Doug: I think in the, generally in the name big and horn you just would get the idea.

Andrew: It's always fun to hear about the special projects that Glacier National Park Conservancy funds and supports here in the park.

Doug: Always fun to hear your guys' latest podcasts. Thanks for the work you're doing.

Michael: Great. We'll talk to you soon.

Doug: All right. Thank you. Bye.

LOVED TO DEATH

Michael: Welcome back to Headwaters, a Glacier National Park podcast. In this episode, we are at Logan Pass. And for this next story, I wanted to talk to someone who had worked there. On an average summer day. How early would you say the parking lot filled up there?

Emlon Stanton: Uh, normal, probably 7:45 was about average. When I first started working there in 2013, it was probably closer to 9:00.

Michael: Wow.

Emlon: So it started people kind of got the idea that they need to get there early.

Michael: That's Emlon Stanton.

Emlon: Emlon Stanton, and I was a Visitor Service Assistant for Logan Pass.

Michael: Who spent seven years more or less managing the whole area. You're one of the people that would make the call to close the parking lot?

Emlon: Right.

Michael: When it's full. How do you know when it's time to do that?

Emlon: Uh, normally for closing it, if there's more than 20 cars circling is normally when we made the call to close it.

Michael: In the summer of 2019, Logan Pass was open for 86 days, and three fourths of the time the parking lot of the visitor center was full by 9:00 AM.

Andrew: And from having staffed that visitor center, it's worth noting that Emlon or another ranger who's making the announcement that it's full, they don't live up at Logan Pass. They have to drive up in the morning like everyone else. So if the lot is actually full at 6:30 in the morning, it won't get called in until Emlon arrived at work.

Michael: Yeah, you're right. So what would your advice be to somebody who didn't find parking at Logan?

Emlon: Just go down the road, try to find a pull—, a legal pullout, and have them just take the shuttle back up.

Michael: Now on a personal level, I don't think anyone when they visit Glacier is excited to have to jockey for parking or deal with congestion. I mean, it's just not fun. But there are some other concerns that park managers have when they see crowds like this at Logan Pass.

Andrew: Yeah. You've got to think about, you know, can an ambulance get up here? Are people going to be forced to walk on the vegetation? Are we getting too close to the wildlife? Is someone going to get gored by a mountain goat?

Michael: Things like this are often cited as proof-positive that our national parks are being "Loved to Death." And while that might be a little hyperbolic, they are great examples of the difficult nature of carrying out our agency's mission. Now the mission of the NPS is beloved, but actually implementing it proves challenging—thanks to what's known as its dual mandate. Could you describe the dual mandate?

Andrew: Sure. Well, the mission statement says that places like Glacier are to be preserved unimpaired, but you're not going to set a glacier aside in a museum or hermetically seal it only to be viewed at a distance. Because the mission also states that they're to be preserved for future generations to use, for people to enjoy and learn from.

Michael: Yeah. And that balance between protecting something as it is and allowing for others to enjoy it—that's a tightrope walk. Too far to one side and you'll preserve it so well that nobody could ever see it. And too far to the other, you build enough road, resorts and attractions that you built a theme park.

Andrew: Yeah. You've got to find a middle ground somewhere.

Michael: Logan Pass, as we've said, is a place of superlatives, it's the highest point on the Going-to-the-Sun Road with some of the park's most extreme weather and abundant wildlife, but it's also a case study in how in the face of extreme visitation Glacier has grappled with this dual mandate.

Michael: And none of these concerns are unique to Logan Pass, destinations all along Going-to-the-Sun Road seem to grow more and more popular each year. But as the literal and figurative high point of many people's visits here, Logan Pass has been at the center of both the visitor experience and park management for a long time. And if you look at its history, you'll find some of the most misguided, controversial, and just downright bananas attempts the park has made to define our relationship to this place. Today, I'm going to share three examples of times that our favorite alpine playground was nearly "loved to death." Now the Logan Pass Visitor Center was built as part of Mission 66; a massive National Park Service program to expand and standardize infrastructure park sites all over the country in preparation for the 50th birthday of the NPS. Andrew, could you describe the Logan Pass Visitor Center?

Andrew: Sure. It's built into a hillside and it's got this big sloping roof that kind of matches the contour of the hill. It's made with stone walls and big windows everywhere to enjoy the views.

Michael: Yeah, it's beautiful. It's visually striking and I think really compliments the scenery well. But as with any construction project, it disturbed the ground it was built on. This is my first story of management foibles and folly at Logan Pass, and I'm calling it the coverup. But first Andrew, could you describe what the meadows are like?

Andrew: There's all those sub-alpine Meadows with glacier lilies, monkeyflower, all sorts of grasses...

Michael: Exactly. By the time construction had finished in 1965 pictures of the building show barren dirt all around it. But the same photo just two years later shows lush green vegetation all around the building.

Andrew: Wait, what? This seems impossible.

Michael: Yeah, no, look at it.

Andrew: Things don't usually grow that fast up at that elevation.

Michael: They don't?

Andrew: Those meadows are covered in snow for like eight months of the year. So I would expect it to take decades for all those plants to grow back.

Michael: Yeah, you're right. And here's how they did it—if you could read this excerpt from a newspaper article at the time.

Andrew: Sure—okay. Park officials decided to gather alpine turf elsewhere and transplanted around the visitor center, exactly as one might in developing a new lawn in the city. The source of the alpine sod, unfortunately, is a short distance from the visitor center, just out of the line of sight. Collectively the sites represent an area as large as a football field. Wait, they just stripped away plants from another spot and replanted them there?

Michael: Yeah. And they didn't try very hard to hide what they were doing either, cause hikers on their way to the Hidden Lake Overlook just behind the building immediately noticed patches of barren dirt, like 200 yards from the visitor center.

Andrew: Oh no—that's, that's pretty egregious.

Michael: Yeah. So management caught some flack for that, as seen from that article you just read from, but what came next was an attempt to actually protect the meadows.

Andrew: Okay. That seems like a good thing.

Michael: In a story I'm going to call "The Toxic Trail."

Andrew: Well that doesn't...

Michael: The hikers that noticed the side stripping were on their way to hidden Lake overlook a mile and a half southwest of the visitor center. Now, today, if you were to hike there, what would you be walking on?

Andrew: It's mostly on a boardwalk.

Michael: Yeah. A raised wooden boardwalk. When the visitor center opened, it was just a regular trail.

Andrew: So let me guess. After they built the visitor center, it got a lot more crowded up there. And the park was worried that all these people would start to stray off trail and walk on the plants. So they built a boardwalk to try to keep people on the trail?

Michael: It's almost like you work here! But you're right. A boardwalk was proposed for that very reason, but it wasn't a popular proposal. It was widely criticized notably by the trail crew members that would be tasked with its construction. In a letter to the editor of the Hungry Horse News. They opposed the boardwalk for four reasons. Now I haven't here. Can you read them?

Andrew: Yeah, sure. Okay. Obvious damage to the aesthetic value of this Alpine area, nothing short of an atrocity.

Michael: And their second complaint?

Andrew: We do not feel that this boardwalk will fulfill the purpose for which it is intended.

Michael: Third?

Andrew: There are a good many well-used trails in Glacier Park that are in dire need of repair and maintenance. And this money could be put to much better use.

Michael: And final.

Andrew: And finally, we feel as do all park employees, that visitor impressions are important. And so far all comments from visitors viewing this project have been negative,

Michael: A pretty thorough rebuke. Yeah.

Andrew: But there actually is a boardwalk up there today. So they must have changed their minds?

Michael: Well, park management actually dismissed both the feedback and the employees who gave it. The trail crew members who spoke up were actually fired.

Andrew: Wait really? Yeah.

Michael: The parks superintendent at the time, William Briggle, was so insistent on finishing this project despite widespread concerns, that the trail crew was replaced and work began immediately on the boardwalk. And this haste led to additional complications as well. The wood initially used was treated with pentachloraphenol, a petroleum based solvent. It pretty much right away began to leak out onto plants.

Andrew: Oh, that's not good.

Michael: Yeah. And folks that were there at the time observed the death of trees or grasses growing alongside it, but it also made it slippery and toxic for us to walk on

Andrew: What a mess. .

Michael: Yeah. Needless to say, they got a lot of flack for that as well and replaced all the wood with environmentally friendly wood at great inconvenience to visitors—because it stayed closed for longer—and at great cost to the park. But I saved the best for last, the most absurd story of visitor management, in my opinion anywhere in the park, centers around the toilets at Logan Pass.

Andrew: Oh no, this can't be good.

Michael: We often advertise that the park is home to over a million acres. But we don't advertise that we've got over 300 toilets.

Andrew: 300?

Michael: Not including lodges or hotels.

Andrew: Does that count all the backcountry campground toilets too?

Michael: Yeah. Vault toilets, pit toilets, flush toilets, outhouses, low riders, visitors centers, campgrounds, you name it.

Andrew: Hmm.

Michael: Waste management is kind of a great unspoken truth of civilization. When you've got to go, you've got to go. Even if you're miles into the backcountry. And remote restrooms, like some of them here are met with a unique set of challenges. Sperry and Granite park chalets, which you reach after hiking thousands of feet up from the trailhead, get enough traffic that their pit toilets rely on barrels that are sealed and flown out at the end of the year by helicopter.

Andrew: And I think I've heard that there used to be a solar-powered composting toilet somewhere.

Michael: Yeah, there was! Until it was destroyed by an avalanche.

Andrew: [laughs] That sounds like a huge mess.

Michael: And I even ran into a backcountry toilet this summer that had been completely torn off its foundation by a curious bear.

Andrew: Oh no, that also sounds messy.

Michael: So one of the reasons we don't advertise that we have over 300 toilets is because they're kind of gross, but it's also because nobody seemed to know the number offhand. I had a series of really humorous emails with facilities management to try to track down that estimate. But the whole reason I started looking into toilets and waste management in the first place was because I learned about our third and final story: a story I'm going to call "The Fleeting Fountains." Coinciding with the new visitor center, a new waste treatment facility was installed at Logan Pass. One that promised to capture and treat waste with a septic system that filters out liquid waste in a 17,000 gallon tank, before spraying clean water out of nearby nozzles.

Andrew: Nearby as in, out onto the meadows at Logan Pass?

Michael: Yep, watering the plants so to speak. The only problem was after the 17,000 gallon septic tank opened to the public, it got 5,000 visitors and 20,000 gallons every day.

Andrew: Oh no, that's what... 3000 gallons over capacity?

Michael: Yup. Yup. And that 17,000 gallon tank that they advertised to the public, that they reported to a federal sanitary engineer. Well, they exaggerated the size a little bit, it turns out it was only 6,000 gallons.

Andrew: So the system was faced with a demand more than three times its capacity.

Michael: Mmhmm.

Andrew: That's a big, that's a big difference. That's a lot of excess waste you gotta deal with.

Michael: A LOT. The result was... Well, can you read this?

Andrew: Okay. "The tank continued to overflow and untreated sewage effluent continued to run directly into Reynolds Creek. It was an awful sight. Saturated toilet paper made its way through the spray heads and was draped on adjacent small trees, undecomposed fecal matter was sprayed onto the subalpine vegetation, killing some of it with the liquids then flowing into Reynolds Creek."

Michael: [laughing]

Andrew: Oh, that is, that was a terrifying description.

Michael: It's just horrific. Some people began referring to them as the fecal fountains of Logan Pass and suggested the best way to solve the issue of people seeing and being disgusted by them was to only set off the nozzles at night and light them up with a colorful light show that rivals that of Disney World.

Andrew: [Laughing] Oh my God.

Michael: [Laughing] Isn't that nuts?

Andrew: That's... yeah.

Michael: Luckily these three examples of management fiascos at Logan Pass. Weren't all for not each scenario has new management solutions today. Take the sod-stripping. What do you think we do in that situation today?

Andrew: Well, rather than pull up plants that are already doing fine in the park, we'd grow new ones and the native plant nursery.

Michael: Yeah! In the case of disturbances like construction, we can replant vegetation using local seedlings collected and raised by our nursery staff. Now in the case of the boardwalk, there are systems in place now to evaluate potential development or construction before it happens.

Andrew: Yeah. And it's not unique to National Parks, but any project like this boardwalk would now require an environmental impact statement.

Michael: Or assessment.

Andrew: Which would detail all the ways that the project would impact the environment.

Michael: And finally, the toilets.

Andrew: Yeah. I don't think we use that system anymore.

Michael: Oh no. We've got a new system.

Michael: [in the car] Wow, it is a beautiful day.

Michael: And one morning this summer I drove up to Logan Pass to meet with one of the folks that helps the system work.

Michael: I feel absolutely puny in my little sedan behind this thing.

Michael: The fecal fountain fiasco was a huge black eye to the park, ultimately attracting national attention. In a letter to the then Senator from Montana, the assistant director of the national park service wrote the following: here, one last thing to read.

Andrew: Okay—"Sprayfield on Logan Pass is being eliminated and there will only be holding facilities. Next summer, Logan Pass sewage will be pumped into tank trucks and hauled to lower elevations for disposal. This will make unnecessary any additional engineering improvements to the existing system and will obviate further intrusion on the natural environment."

Michael: What's your name and job title then? Jeff: Jeff Hoyt, equipment operator.

Michael: I met with Jeff outside these vault toilets at Logan Pass. After he drove one of those tank trucks all the way up here. Speaker 4: Do you have a name for this thing?

Michael: No, it's the bigger one. Either the big pumper or the little pumper, that's which one you're taking.

Michael: And they are as noisy as they are enormous.

Andrew: How big is that tank?

Michael: Huge. Do you know how big this tank is? Jeff: Um, it is a 3,500 gallon.

Michael: Wow. Jeff: 3,500 gallon.

Michael: That tank could hold 18 hot tubs, and when full would weigh as much as seven bull moose. Now all of the waste at Logan flows into a storage tank, which is periodically vacuumed up into tank trucks like this one before being trucked down to a waste management facility near the entrance. Jeff: On a busy season. We're usually three, four loads minimum.

Michael: A day? Jeff: Every day.

Andrew: Three to four trips every day?

Michael: Yeah.

Andrew: That's like what? 28 bull moose worth of human waste.

Michael: Yeah, and that's just Logan Pass. There are at least three more vaults like it along Going-to-the-Sun Road alone that get the same treatment. It's an incredibly labor intensive strategy today. It's worth noting. We get more than three and a half times. The number of visitors that they did when the visitor center opened in 1965. All these tools, the native plant nursery, environmental impact statements, vault toilets—the park uses them to maintain the balance of our dual mandate: using and enjoying these places without destroying what we love about them.

Andrew: Yeah. We can have convenient bathrooms with no fecal fountains.

Michael: Exactly. But this balance can get harder and harder to handle in the face of increasing visitation. Now we wouldn't have the solutions we discussed today if people hadn't spoken up about the old ones. It was the voices of visitors that raised awareness of sod-stripping and put pressure on the park to fix the boardwalk. The most effective management tool a park could hope for is a community of people that support it, that care for it and are conscious of their impact during a visit. And if my time here has been any indication, we're incredibly fortunate to have supporters and stewards all around the country. In fact, if you're listening to this right now, you're a part of that community. So thank you.

Andrew: Yeah, we really couldn't do all this without you.

Michael: So the next time you're at Logan Pass, pat yourself on the back and spare a thought for the toilets. Because they are a slightly smelly symbol of our collective ability to protect this place.

SMELLSCAPES

Andrew: Okay. All this talk of toilets has got me thinking about the smells here. There are so many things to smell. Do you have any scent related memories here, Michael?

Michael: Yeah, I remember the second summer I came out here to work. I noticed how much I associated the smell of the forests around park housing with the park itself. I remember calling my family to let them know that I made it safely to Montana and mentioned that I realized how much I missed that smell. My sister, Katie thought it was hilarious. Like, what do you mean you miss the smell? Bringing it up on phone calls from time to time. But when they finally got the chance to visit, I remember her apologizing, you know, I know, I know what you're talking about now. It's it smells great.

Andrew: Yeah. That's a great story. And you're definitely not the only person who has ever been teased for their interest in the smells here. I want to play you a clip from a conversation I had recently.

Will Rice: So much grief from my colleagues, just like kind of jabbing at me, like smellscape, are you still like doing this? Like, what are you talking about? Smellscape that can't be real! And I was reading Aristotle for a class at the time and he called smell the lowest of the human senses. And it's like, even he's beating up on smells! We've never given smell its due whether it's in the parks or just in culture.

Michael: I mean, that sounds a lot like what happened with me and my sister who is, who is that?

Andrew: That's Will Rice. He's an assistant professor at the University of Montana's department of society and conservation.

Michael: Did I hear him use the word smellscape like, what is that?

Andrew: When will was doing his graduate studies at Penn State, he worked on a survey about what motivations people had to visit an especially busy part of Grand Teton National Park. One visitor told him:

Will: Well I'm here for the smellscape and initially it was kind of funny, you know, like the smellscape, that's kind of an odd term. We hear soundscape a lot in national parks and a lot of the research I do surround soundscapes. So, I was just interested. Well, is this even a thing that's been studied in any capacity.

Andrew: You realized the same thing that you were just talking about and that your sister realized when she visited: that smells play a big role in how we experience national parks, but we hardly ever talk about them. So, he wrote a paper here. You can check it out:

Michael: Pungent Parks: Smell's Growing Relevance in Park Tourism by William Rice, Garrett Hamilton, and Peter Newman.

Andrew: Luckily for us, since Will now just work down in Missoula, he was willing to drive up and take a walk with me around Apgar here and talk about the smellscape.

Andrew: So, first of all, Will, can you tell me what is a smellscape exactly?

Will: Sure. So a smellscape is just the aggregate of all the smells that make up a certain area, and the scale can really vary. So we can have smellscapes that are just the size of a small room or just a meadow, or we can have the smellscape of all of Glacier National Park, you know, the aggregate, but really it's, it's kind of what you're smelling as you're moving through a space.

Michael: The whole concept of a smellscape kind of seemed like a joke at first, but I totally get what he's talking about. If you're at Logan Pass, you're going to have a very different experience if the main scent you smell is the pit toilet versus wildflowers.

Andrew: And interestingly Will told me the biggest threat to natural smellscapes is not toilets, but actually climate change.

Will: Droughts we know are going to become more prevalent in an era of climate change and droughts tend to really change, like we're standing right now around a bunch of wild lowers that are dependent on rain every year. And if we go through a period of drought, those wildflowers may become less prevalent. In turn, if we have a larger rain event, like you're seeing, you know, with the super blooms in Southern California, that changes the smellscape. Changing weather patterns, but also wildfire is a big one. A wildfire can really dramatically change the character of a smellscape rather quickly.

Andrew: Have people tried to capture these national parks smells in any way?

Will: If you go into a store, they have officially licensed candles, air fresheners, and laundry detergent that smell like various parks. So we're trying to bring that home. I would say, you know, like if you open up the candle for Rocky Mountain National Park and you get this hit of lavender, maybe that's not exactly what it smells like, but we're trying to authenticate it somehow, but we really failing because it is so unique.

Andrew: Why should people care about smells?

Will: They're vitally important from an ecological standpoint, but also from the standpoint that I study parks from, the social experience, the visitor experience. Imagine walking into Glacier, you know, with your nose pinched, it's really going to affect your experience. And as we, as we noted in the paper, there's so much about your park experience that you can curate, that you can really make your own. Now it's taking pictures and putting them on Instagram. You can share this experience. You can record the soundscape as some people are starting to do with microphones and taking those home and mixing that. But you can't really take the smell home from a park, at least legally, you're not supposed to take, you know, pine straw home. Everyone's experiencing the smellscape while they're in the park, it's tying us all together in a place. And so we're left with this really authentic experience.

Andrew: Thanks so much for joining me today, Will.

Michael: I had never thought about it that way. There's all sorts of pictures and videos of the park. There are recordings and now even a podcast of the sounds, but to experience the smells, you just have to be here.

Andrew: Yeah, and our last story today is about another experience that you really just have to be here to have. It's something you can't experience anywhere else in the whole of the American Rockies. Just this one spot in Glacier National Park.

Michael: What is it?

Andrew: Well, you'll have to join me to find out.

Michael: Okay.

GENTIAN

Michael: Okay. You've really got me on pins and needles here. What is this experience you were talking about that's rare?

Andrew: Well, I think we should replicate the journey of one Marcus Jones.

Michael: Who's that?

Andrew: Jones was a botanist. He worked in Montana in the early 1900s. He was pretty prolific. In his career he documented and even named a ton of plants. So he was a really great botanist, but he's actually best known for his roasts.

Michael: Wait, so he's a botanist that moonlights as a roast comic?

Andrew: In a sense, he was a pretty prickly guy. And in fact, his views were so unorthodox that by the late 1920s, he was shut out of most of the botany journals. So he just took matters into his own hands. He bought a printing press, taught himself to typeset, and he started putting out his own botany journal called “Contributions to Western Botany.” With no one to edit or censor him, Jones just took to excoriating those botanists he disagreed with. I had a friend dramatize, a few of his comments for you.

Darren (As Marcus Jones): It is a common comment of workers in the Gray Herbarium that Fernald is becoming a common scold. He needs to be taken out in the woodshed and given a spanking. It is to be hoped that this will be done before he gets to the Bronxian position of seeing nothing good in the work of outsiders.

Michael: Wow. He really doesn't pull any punches.

Andrew: Yeah. And the next one's probably even worse.

Darren (As Marcus Jones): There have been several notable deaths in the botanical world since my last Contributions. Green, the past of systematic botany, has gone and relieved us from his botanical drivel. They say that the good that men do lives after them, but the evil is interred with their bones. I suspect that his grave must have been a big one to hold it all. Green was first, last, and it all the time a botanical crook and an unmitigated liar.

Michael: Holy crap, wow, wow.

Andrew: He was not afraid of speaking ill of the dead. Now to be fair, Jones was just as likely to praise those he agreed with as to nail those who he felt had crossed him.

Michael: So, okay, you can't deny that he was witty if a little bit temperamental, but what does that have to do with Glacier?

Andrew: Well, Marcus Jones spent the summer of 1909 all around Glacier National Park. During that time he spotted a rare plant, the glaucous gentian. And to this day, over 110 years later, it's never been found anywhere else in the American Rockies, besides this one pond along the continental divide in the alpine of Glacier National Park. I think we should go see it.

Michael: I'm game. What was it called again? Glock...?

Andrew: The glaucous gentian.

Michael: Okay. Uh, where is it?

Andrew: I'll have to show you it's near Logan Pass, but it is a bit of a hike.

Michael: Yeah. Okay.

Andrew: Okay. So yeah, we've hiked just over 10 and a half miles already this morning, climbed 4700 feet. And now I think we're within like a hundred yards of our gentian. We're getting really close. I'm pretty excited to see it in a minute here. So when we get up to the pond, there's some water kind of seeping out the bottom of it, and you can see there's these mossy patches that have started growing in that wet area below the pond. That's our habitat. So we're gonna walk down there, I think that's where we're gonna find our flower. And we're just going to be looking for something just a couple inches tall.

Michael: It's a pretty tough hike up here. So I was glad to get a little break while you explained some of the background of the flower and why we're up here in the first place. So he discovered the glaucous gentian, the gooseneck sedge. Did he name all these things?

Andrew: He didn't. The glaucous gentian was named actually all the way back in 1790, a Prussian botanist named Peter Simon Pallas named it.

Michael: What does glaucous mean?

Andrew: Glaucous is, I think it's a really interesting word. It's not one that people use very much these days, but it's actually one of the oldest color words that we know about. Glaucous goes all the way back to Homer. In the Odyssey, Athena is described as glaucous eyed and so it became a descriptor of a kind of blue-green color.

Speaker 3: So what is special about this glaucous gentian?

Andrew: Well, it's a pretty unique plant because it grows in so few places. It really has evolved to a very specialized kind of habitat here. This is a really harsh environment. There's a lot of snow, a lot of wind, it's cold, really short growing season. This particular spot we're in is really wet. It's fed by a snowfield. You'll see more of this type of habitat, like in the Arctic circle. So this plant is really adapted to, really an Arctic situation. But because this area is kept moist by a snowfield, it's pretty threatened by climate change. If that snowfield were to disappear, this area is going to dry out. So, scientists have been monitoring this site for 40 years, trying to track how the hydrology affects the plants. And they've noticed a statistically significant decline in the number of gentians that grow here. It really seems like it's attributable to that shrinking snowfield. It's not keeping things as moist as it used to be.

Michael: Oh, wow. So it sounds like climate change is making this plant even rarer.

Andrew: I talked to one scientist, who's been coming up here for years. And he said, when he first started, he would kneel down to look at the flowers and when he'd stand up his pants were soaking wet. And in recent years he stands up and his pants are still dry. It's just not as moist here anymore. It's interesting because you know, we've seen the climate trends in this area. We've seen increased temperatures obviously, but we've also seen somewhat increased precipitation, so you think maybe a wet plant would benefit from that, and it would be fine. But because that summer heat is so intense, it starts so early, it's warmer in March, April, May. Often it stays about freezing at night in May things are just melting out faster and it doesn't stay wet late enough into the season.

Michael: So it's less about the amount of moisture, but about the consistency?

Andrew: The timing. Yeah. It doesn't stay all, all summer anymore. So we're gonna keep monitoring this site and see what happens to the gentians, but they're really a signal for us to the health of our snowfields and, and the changing climate up here. Oh, and there's a mountain goat.

Michael: Well, I'm excited to try to find it.

Andrew: Should we go ahead down there?

Michael: Sure.

Andrew: Okay. It's been about 30 minutes now. I really actually thought we would have found it by now, but, no sign of it so far, the search continues.

Michael: Spotted saxifrage, buttercups, and lots of moss. No, Gentian yet.

Andrew: Alright, we're hitting the one hour mark. Still no sign of the flower. I'm a bit puzzled. Thought we definitely would have found it by now.

Michael: Big pile of bear poop.

Andrew: Okay. We're approaching two hours. Starting to wonder if this thing is even here anymore. I really don't know where else to look, but, I think we're going to give it just in a little longer, maybe another half hour.

Michael: I think Andrew just found it. I heard him shout.

Andrew: I have like the biggest smile on my face right now. It feels so nice to find it. Ah, ah, it feels so good. We've been looking for a couple of hours at this point. Yeah. Two and a half hours of just combing every square inch of this area, but it's here. It still exists. It's as glaucous as advertised.

Michael: Yeah. When you said blue-green, I was picturing more blue than green, I think. But it definitely was hard to pick out from everything around it.

Michael: I can only imagine the insults Marcus Jones would have hurled at us after that performance.

Andrew: Hey all's well, that ends well. And it was pretty exciting when we finally found it.

Michael: One of the coolest and most special things about Glacier National Park is the easy access to these wild alpine habitats. I mean, you could just drive right up to what is basically an arctic habitat zone at Logan Pass. That's pretty incredible.

Andrew: Yeah, it's really great. But it comes with some responsibility as well. These alpine environments are really sensitive to disturbance, like from climate change as we discussed, but also our small individual actions like walking on or picking the flowers. It's never worth stepping on one flower to get a better picture or view of another one. But despite the toilets and the cars and all of the people up there, Logan Pass is still one of the best places in the world to get close to nature.

Michael: And together, if we leave no trace, we can be sure to keep it that way for a long, long time to come.

Andrew: That’s our show for today—If you’re interested in learning more about visiting Logan Pass, or how to Leave No Trace when visiting a natural area, you can find links in the show notes for more info.

Michael: Thanks for listening!

CREDITS

Renata: Headwaters is a production of Glacier National Park with support from the Glacier National Park Conservancy. The show was written and recorded on traditional Native lands. Andrew Smith and Michael Faist produced, edited and hosted the show. Ben Cosgrove wrote and performed our music. Alex Stillson provided tech support Quinn Feller designed our art Renata Harrison researched the show, Lacy Kowalski was always there for us, and Daniel Lombardi and Bill Hayden were the executive directors. Support for the show comes from the Glacier National Park Conservancy. The Conservancy works to preserve and protect the park for future generations. We couldn't do it without them, and they couldn't do it without support from thousands of generous donors. If you want to learn more about how to support this podcast, or other awesome Conservancy projects, please go to their website at glacier.org. Of course you can always help support the show by sharing it with everyone you know— your friends, your family, your dog... And also leave us a review online. Special thanks this episode to Bill Schustrom, Emlon Stanton, Will Rice, Darren Lewis, Jeff Hoyt—along with the entire facilities crew here at Glacier.

In this episode of Headwaters we visit one of Glacier’s most popular and unique destinations: Logan Pass. First, we’ll learn about the road that gets us up here, the Going-to-the-Sun Road, and about some hilarious attempts to reduce our impact at Logan Pass. We’ll learn about appreciating the natural smells of the park, and end with the search for a rare and disappearing flower.

Featuring: Bill Schustrom, Jeff Hoyt, Emlon Stanton, Will Rice, and Darren Lewis.

For more info, visit go.nps.gov/headwaters