North Forker breaks hip on the ice

I drove the full length of the North Fork Road last Tuesday. Headed up from Columbia Falls at 8 a.m. and had lunch at a neighbors and came back to town by 3:30 p.m. It was a perfect trip. Blue sky and bright sunshine. Temperature was 8 degrees when I started and the winter paving was perfect.

As I drove I could see that there was a lot of ice on the snow-packed road and thought it wouldn’t take much to turn the road really nasty.

I was not wrong. As the week progressed the weather warmed into the 40-degree range. To really make the road difficult it started to rain. The road is at its worst with water on an icy surface. I avoid the North Fork Road when it is snow/ice covered and the temperatures get into the 40s.

Same thing applies to streets in town and private lanes. Just this week Becky Braunig fell in front of her garage on Trail Creek and I fell in the street in front of my house in town. In both cases the only thing injured was our pride and we were lucky no one saw our red faces. Irv Heitz fell in his North Fork yard and broke his hip.

ALERT could not fly so he was transported by ground ambulance and wife, Chris, chained up and followed the ambulance. Neighbors with radios were alerted to monitor their progress on the slick roads, but they made it to the hospital safely although the trip was slow for someone in pain. As I write this on Sunday morning Irv is in surgery and is expected to make a full recovery in the weeks ahead.

This week the Winter Interlocal was held at park headquarters. As usual it was informative and interesting. I was most pleased that the landowner groups kept their reports short and to the point.

Biggest news was that the Forest Service, Park Service, Border Patrol and Flathead County joint request for a $2 million dollar grant was successful. The 2017 calendar year will be used to set priorities and prepare projects for bid in 2018. Main focus is to repair the North Fork Road from Trail Creek north, but will also look at Wurtz Hill and the slump north of Ford Ranger Station. Also, to be looked at is the road from Polebridge to the Park’s west entrance. (I favor reopening the old Loop Road which is or was a county road.)

Also, the county planning director said he and his staff would act to remove the North Fork from the proposed short term rental text amendment.

In his opinion our current land use plan covers the subject and nothing more is needed. North Forkers will continue to monitor this since we have been tricked or misled by the county in the past. Sanitation on the river is still just addressed by information and education but there may be more action in this decade. We will see.

Joe Novak keeps questioning Glacier Park about air quality and I guess their answers seem logical and accurate to them. They seem like a bureaucratic shuffle to many of us.

Larry Wilson’s North Fork Views appears weekly in the Hungry Horse News.