Tales of the Highline

Featured front-page story in last week’s Hungry Horse News was about Morgan Bell, a Glacier National Park trail crew member who slipped just north of the Rimrocks near Oberlin Bend and slid down the very steep snow field 200 feet, then shot over the high plowed bank onto the paved surface of the Going-to-the-Sun Highway.

Her crew was doing preparatory work for the opening of the Highline Trail from Logan Pass. Bell was severely injured but is recovering after an airlift to Kalispell Regional Medical Center by ALERT.

That accident reminded me of past Highline stories. Years ago, a Glacier official called me in early spring and asked if our “Over the Hill Gang” would be interested in opening up the Highline Trail to Granite Park for hikers. Told him I’d check and get back.

Most of my hiking companions thought it an interesting challenge, and we got volunteers. That’s how tradition began, with the Park furnishing hand tools. Because of our years of high country experiences, we immediately saw the task required great care.

There was one unusual year when a Park ranger none of us knew went along. Late in the day near Granite Park he panicked over a grizzly bear in the trail. Getting above the trail, the group was given orders to retreat ... clear back to Logan Pass. Then, while drawing a gun and bear spray at the same time, the ranger accidentally set off the spray, barely missing Ted Rugland but hitting a young woman hiker from Ireland in the face.

The non-aggressive bear headed down into the valley. Gang members washed off most of the stinging pepper with water then, ignoring the retreat order, headed on to the nearby chalet. The ranger went back to Logan Pass accompanied by a newspaper photographer.

The Gang made it out fine down to The Loop, where we gave the honeymooning lady and her husband a signed copy of our book, “Glacier’s Secrets.” This unfortunate incident cooled the Gang’s interest, and no one volunteered the next year; however, relationships were restored and the Gang has opened the trail since.

In late June, about 1997, the Gang met at Logan Pass to open the Trail on a misty windy morning. I was fighting a splitting sinus headache so decided to chicken out on seven miles of shoveling. Took some ribbing but the guys understood. Watched them march across the Continental Divide while feeling guilt. Weather looked nice toward St. Mary so drove to Lunch Creek for Tylenol.

With a drop in headache and clearing skies, soon was at Many Glacier where people were watching a bear on Mt. Altyn. Parked off road near a jackpine thicket, got binocs and put camera on the hood. A man soon drove up and asked me what I was doing. Told him there was supposedly a grizzly way up there. That’s when he floored me by saying, “What’s wrong with the one behind your car?”

Unbelievable! Twenty feet away was a grizzly, closest I’d ever been to a wild one. The bear seemed confused, moving slowly toward an opening. There, he turned and stood up looking me over long enough for one photo. The griz continued east above Swiftcurrent Falls. That one lucky photo made a fine cover for Shannon’s and my book, “Wondrous Wildlife.” That evening at dinner, the Gang forgave me for not helping clear the Highline Trail.

Final Highline yarn! It was usual practice for the Park to create a narrow “tread” furrow with primer cord across precipitous snow fields at the Rimrocks, but then one year they didn’t. After we’d open the trail, I called Chief Ranger Steve Frye and asked, “Howcum?” Steve told me a meeting in headquarters had decided, “If one of those old guys slips off, it would sure be a lot easier to give first aid down on the road.”

G. George Ostrom is a national award-winning Hungry Horse News columnist. He lives in Kalispell.