Open for the 2009 Season!

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Today we opened the St. Mary Visitor Center for the first day of business of the 2009 season. It was thoroughly exhilarating! The Canadian holiday, Victoria Day, caused our visitation to increase…we ended the day with 170 visitors. That’s a pretty good number considering the park has very few services. Speaking of services, local businesses are opening left and right. Everything at the St. Mary Lodge and Resort is open: Bears Den bar, Lounge, Restaurant, Coffee Shop, Gift Shop, and Rooms are available. The word is out about the Park Café opening on May 28^th! Only a few more days and I’ll be enjoying a Gypsy Burrito and a slice of sweet pie! I haven’t decided what flavor yet.

Everything went smoothly and we were happy to announce to our visitors that the Going-to-the-Sun Road was open for 14 miles of visitor use. This is sorta a big step. The road closure was at Rising Sun, which is only 6 miles up the road…now they can see Jackson Glacier Overlook, Sunrift Gorge, Sun Point, Wild Goose Island and all the mountains along the road.

Myself and another interpreter took an evening cruise up the road and viewed all the huge piles of snow. There was an amazing avalanche shoot that newly ripped through the mountain side, on down over the road, and below the road. It was just above St. Mary Falls Trailhead. It was crazy how many trees were taken down. The easiest way to describe how many trees there were, is to describe how many chainsaw cuts I saw…probably 50-60 cuts. Huge trees and little trees were dragged over the road. The avalanche came off of Goat Mountain, “jumped” the cliffs and blew through 3 fan-shaped shoots. It’s amazing.

Weather: Sunny and warm! 60's-70's!!!!