July 8 Jammer Bus Tour to Logan Pass

Day 8 July 8, 2014

The day started slowly again just the way we like it. Our major accomplishment for today was to get yesterday’s blog written, pictured, and posted. A short stop at St. Mary Lake on the roadside and we reached St. Mary Lodge for free Wi-Fi.

We had decided that we felt like thieves with the Wi-Fi if we didn’t spend some money. So we ordered breakfast of eggs, veggie sausage, potatoes, coffee and toast. We had gotten the Wi-Fi password from the front desk and started our blog while we waited for our food DJ from Idaho was our waiter and I’ll bet he was 6’8” tall! Our host, who seated us, was from Russia. I enjoy checking the nametags of all these young people to work in parks.

After breakfast, we continued our online work in the small sitting area until 1:00 and headed back to Rising Sun. Stopping at the 1913 Ranger Station, we found it closed so we took pictures from afar. A local volunteer astronomer was presenting “A Look at the Sun” so we paused at the Visitor’s Center to have a look-see through his telescope. He drives up from Aron, Mt and stays 5 days each week presenting information on the sun, moon, constellations, and tonight he will focus on Saturn in the night sky. We plan to go back at 11:00p to have a look and sleep in tomorrow. The eyeball-looking sphere at the top is just his lens that allows us to view the sun through his telescope. The black spots on the right are solar flares taking place on the sun’s surface. Mike, astronomer, said it would take 11,000 earth’s to cover the diameter of the sun and 60 million earth’s to equal its volume! We are so insignificant in the universe, aren’t we?

Which one is the Grizzly?

While at the station, another volunteer had pelts of a wolverine, black bear, grizzly, and wolf. Their fur was surprisingly soft but the wolf had a very thick coat. And checkout the different in claws between the black and grizzly bears! The grizzly is identifiable from his hump between his shoulder blades, as they are known for digging up to 25’ dep. The black bear can climb a tree easily with his shorter claws.

Back on the road, we found a line of cars stopped in the road. That means only on thing…WILDLIFE! Sure enough! It was a young coyote evidenced by his long legs. He ran off into the bushes, the cars in front of us pulled away, and we had the fortunate position of being first as he returned to the road. Pictures through the windshield aren’t my favorite but they’re better than nothing!

Once in our room, we had 30 minutes until we had to return to St. Mary Lodge for our Red Bus Jammer tour up to Logan Pass. Even though we’re staying in Rising Sun, our email states we have to drive to St Mary Lodge for our pick up. Chowing down on PJB & Cherry jam with Jalapeno & Cheddar chips, we booked it out so we wouldn’t be late and miss the bus. (The bus…not the boat.) Scheduled to leave at 4:15, we arrived early and two buses left with no room for us or having our names on their roster. I finally called Rising Sun at 4:20p to discover our bus was running late and would pick us up at St. Mary soon.  Jammer’s got their names from shifting the bus (which didn’t have syncromesh back in the 30s) and the gears often jammed during shifting causing the bus to jerk and lurch. The Hill family, owners of the Great Northern Railroad, who put in the tracks through Glacier, loved the Mountain Ash berry and had the buses painted that bright red after the berry.  Jammers used to be able to take their buses home each night until Bill Kelly took a group to town and made frequent stops at the local establishments until 2a.m. This had a deadly end for Bill but his two companions survived and suffer still today with ailments from that fateful night. Jammers were forbidden to take their red bus home from that point in time.

Our 4:15p departure finally hit the road at 4:45p and Lisa was our Jammer. She started by pointing out the small bridge we crossed after going through the Ranger gate and called it the Forrest Gump bridge. It seems Tom Hanks ran across this bridge as part of the movie.

Jackson Glacier is the large swath of snow.

Lisa was a Michigan science teacher in her former life and had great stories to tell about the mountain formations, glaciers, limestone rocks, and waterfalls seeking the path of least resistance through the rock. She came to Montana and Glacier two years ago and became a Jammer during each season. She has friends and family here, which helped her with her decision to choose Montana for her next adventure. I wish I could have had HER as a science teacher and perhaps I would have enjoyed science more in school.

Reaching Logan’s Pass, there was a crowd near the parking lot wall, which meant only one thing…BIGHORN SHEEP! That's Bighorns two days in a row at Logan Pass! Lisa drove us to the spot and let us out in an illegal location so we could get pictures of the sheep before they took off. We were only 25’ from the Bighorn instead of the park requirement of 25 YARDS! The Ranger joined us to monitor the safety of both the sheep and the humans. The four of them were intent on foraging under this evergreen for something tasty and stayed for more than 30 minutes. We only had that amount of time to film and return to the bus for departure. Reluctantly we left the sheep and got on the road again only to have them leave their feeding spot and block our path down Going to the Sun Road.  We did a prairie dog stop and stood up in the bus to get great shots of the sheep in the road through the open roof! I highly recommend the Jammer Tour!

Photo of drift taken through roof of Red Bus.

Lisa explained that the 60’ drift on the side of the road would never completely disappear throughout the season. It will become smaller but there’s so much snow that it never goes way. We did another prairie dog hop when a coyote walked the road in the opposite direction and we were able to get some pictures. Lisa told us that an invasive weed is plaguing the park so the staff is spraying them along the roadside with a blue-green dye placed into the killer mix for easy tracking of the progress. They want to kill it before it blossoms and spread more seeds. A lovely night was had by all. Our 4:15-6:45 trip ended up 4:45-7:30p and worth every minute of it! We took a photo with Lisa to commemorate the trip and she headed to the garage at Many Glacier up the road to wash and clean her bus 79.

A restaurant recommendation by Lisa was for the Two Sisters Café 4 miles up Hwy 89 so we took it. With aliens painted on the roof, a rainbow flag flying outside, a yellow brick road outside leading to the bathrooms, and stickers and license plates from around the world, this was one unique establishment. A little pricey but we each got a huckleberry margarita (can you say YUM?) as waited the 30 minutes to be seated. We decided to share the Mushroom Ragout with crimini, oyster, and shitake mushrooms with baby Bok choi and red peppers in wine sauce. We then had room for huckleberry swirl cheesecake. Can you say we’re getting our huckleberry on?

Catching the sunset at Johnson’s RV park on 89, we finally returned back to Rising Sun to pick up another bucket of ice for our cooler and a knife for our soap before getting to the room at 9:30p. I didn’t tell you about our soap! One side has bumps and the other is smooth. We used the soap and placed it smooth-side down on the sink where it promptly stuck. This left us to rub our fingers over the bumps a few times each time we wanted to wash our hands. So the knife was needed to pry it from the sink since our fingers weren’t strong enough to accomplish the job. The receptionist was amused and had never had that request before! Go figure! Leave it to us!

With an hour to wait until “star/moon time”, I took my shower and wore my water shoes to the gazing back at St. Mary Visitor Center. I saw Saturn with its ring and the moon with the naked eye and clouds was gorgeous. Lots of people to share the telescope with, we saw what we wanted and left early to get to bed by 11:30. I think I was asleep before Melodie got into bed. I remember the lights going out but didn’t hear here reach her bed.