Paving plan doesn't fit

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Glacier Park Inc. building a new dormitory near Lake McDonald Lodge to house its workers.

Work on the dorm, which will cost more than $1 million, is now underway. The new site is behind the post office and to the southeast in a little wedge of land between the Sun Road and the access road to the lodge.

All told, it looks to be a pretty good place for a dorm. It's set back a little ways in the trees and it's away from more sensitive areas, like the lake and nearby Snyder Creek.

GPI should be commended for the investment.

The idea is once the new dorm is complete, several of the old dorms, which are located near Snyder Creek on the lodge side of the road, will be torn down.

This sounds like a good idea, too. The old dorms are nothing to look at. One might even call them ugly, or at least out of place. They're set not too far away from Snyder Creek, among old cedar forests, in what many would describe as a typical Glacier location: In others words, it's idyllic.

But the Park Service plan isn't to just tear down the dorms. It's to replace them with more parking. That's right, more parking. The Park's commercial services plan, in a vague sort of way, allows for it. But the Park clarified its intent in a recent press release, when it said the old dorms would allow for new parking.

I can see the justification for tearing down the dorms. That's all right and good. But should the Park really be replacing them with a parking lot?

The dorms are in a riparain area, in red cedar forests. Red cedar forests are unique to the Park. The cedars don't grow any farther east in the U.S. than the McDonald Creek-Avalanche area. One could certainly make a compelling argument that we should be restoring such places when possible, not paving them over.

But the argument against more parking goes deeper than that. It goes toward precedent. It goes toward example. It goes toward leadership. Glacier Park officials will often wave the flag of wilderness and wildlife values when it opposes a project by an inholder or by a business outside its boundaries — as it should.

But it can't wave that flag and then turn around and pave over an area, that, by all rights it should restore. The riparian area along Snyder Creek is unique by many measures. Simply because a lodge is nearby does not diminish it. If Glacier has an opportunity to restore an area, it should. The old dorms, in my opinion, shouldn't have been built near the creek in the first place.

In addition, Glacier has added a transit center with ample parking and shuttle service in the past few years. If anything, that service should have made parking at the lodge better, not worse.

I hope Glacier re-thinks putting parking in a riparian zone. If not, one has to openly wonder what its true mission is.

Chris Peterson is the photographer for the Hungry Horse News.