No headline
Cutting the ribbon on the new Gateway to Glacier Trail, from left are Clyde Fisher, Phil Mitchell, Pam Holmquist, Sarah Dakin, Don Bennett, Valerie Parsons, Patty Grayson, Gregory Lillard (in stroller), Pete Skibsrud, Breta Palmer, Helen Pillling, Rachael Ezell
Canyon Community Church pastor Ken Ainsworth said it well in a song:
Val and her good friends came up with this great thought
Some said it couldn’t be done but they just said “Why not?”
They shared their vision all around, labored hard and labored well
And now we get to celebrate the Gateway to Glacier Trial!
And celebrate they did Friday as about 100 people turned at the Glacier Distillery to recognize the new Gateway to Glacier Trail from Coram to West Glacier. Save for a few small details, the paved trail, which follows U.S. Highway 2 and also utilizes a couple of side roads, is nearly complete.
The $850,000 project was six years in the making, noted organizer Val Parsons, who spearheaded the effort.
“This trail is a wonderful addition to the Middle Fork corridor,” Parsons told the crowd, noting it was a safe way for the slow traveler to make their way up and down the canyon.
With completion of the route, the path now extends from Hungry Horse to West Glacier and there are plans to make a path from Columbia Falls to the Bad Rock Canyon, which could end up with two routes — one along U.S. Highway 2 and a second route on Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. land which runs along the Flathead River. Negotiations are still underway to create the path on CFAC property.
When the state Department of Transportation finishes the new bridge over the South Fork of the Flathead River, it, too, will have a bike-pedestrian path.
“This trail is a lot of people coming together. It wasn’t just our group,” Parsons noted, as she thanked a host of entities that made it possible, including Flathead County, MDT, contractors and engineers, dozens of volunteers and donors, and many local businesses.
The Gateway group raised $58,000 for future maintenance of the trail. The bulk of the funding came from the federal Community Transportation Enhancement program, with a 13 percent match from the state that normally is raised by local funds. The county dedicated all of its final CTEP funding toward the path.
The Gateway Trail group is also financing a welcome kiosk in Hungry Horse that’s being built by ironworker Jeffrey Funk of Bigfork. The structure, which will have a roof, will be a place of respite for bicyclists and community members alike. Most it is being built from scrap iron from the Old Steel Bridge that used to span the Flathead River in Kalispell.
Funk said he hopes to have it up by the end of this month.
Ainsworth’s song summed it up.
So bring your bikes and roller skates, strollers and running shoes
Breathe deep that mountain air; there’s nothing for you to lose
It don’t matter if you’re fast or slow like a rabbit or a snail
Just come on out and head on down the Gateway to Glacier Trail.