Glacier's friends make significant investment for 2015 park season

Thousands of Glacier National Park Conservancy friends and businesses from around the valley and across the country stepped up last year to make a significant investment in the park’s highest needs in conservation and resource protection, visitor experience and education programming, and I want to thank you for your deeply meaningful support.  

With you, we increased our grants to the park by more than $200,000, a growth of 30 percent from one year ago.

The impact of this community’s generosity will be seen by every visitor to the park in the year ahead. Glacier Conservancy-funded initiatives for this year integrate significant improvements to the park’s world-class trail system including reconstruction of Trail of the Cedars, rehabilitation of the first mile of the Highline, improvement of the Avalanche Lake and Iceberg Lake trail systems, increased family programming at the Discovery Cabin, and expanding the bear box program across the park’s day use and backcountry campsites.  

The Glacier Conservancy is also investing in the next generation of park stewards by providing transportation funding for field trips to the park for all Glacier gateway school district students. Our students will be greeted by and informed about the park’s ecology by National Park Service education rangers and interns, funded by the Glacier Conservancy. 

A significant portion of this year’s support will also focus on natural and cultural resource protection including the monitoring of mountain goats, pika and loons through the model Citizen Science initiative, to provide park managers the baseline data necessary to ensure that the park’s ecosystems remain healthy for generations to come. 

Grizzly bears will be studied in greater detail, including advanced DNA analysis tied to their movement patterns within the park. To preserve the park’s native bull trout, a new fish barrier will be constructed at Akokala Lake in the North Fork region of the park. For the adventurous park visitors who make the journey to the Belly River Ranger Station, they will see significant repairs made to one of the last remaining intact historic backcountry ranger complexes in the park, preserving it for future generations and continued use.

I’m deeply moved by our many Glacier Conservancy supporters like Tom and Louise Bannigan, residents of the Flathead, who earmarked their donation to the conservancy to fund the park’s Avalanche Trail project. This project will define trail access along the lake, replace the broken wooden walkway and handrails leading down to the lakeshore and will rebuild benches from the head to the foot of the lake to allow hikers to spread out and find less congested spots to enjoy their visit.  

When I met with Tom to ask him why he and his family chose this project to fund, Tom said, “Glacier National Park has thrilled generations of visitors. Avalanche Lake Trail provides an easily accessible experience for park visitors of all ages and conditions. We want to do our part to ensure that future visitors can enjoy the vistas of Avalanche Lake as much as our family and friends have done over the years.”

 As you know, Glacier National Park hosted a record-breaking 2.3 million visitors in 2014 — and the need to protect this local and international resource through increased private support is essential to maintaining its integrity.  The community committed to Glacier in a significant way this year. Through Backpacker’s Ball, Day For Glacier, our Friends of Glacier program and the Glacier Champions fall campaign, our own Glacier community stepped up to support our park’s highest and most critical needs so that it can continue to serve as a visitor destination and international model of resource protection.

Thank you for your partnership.  Here’s to an exceptional year ahead in Glacier Country.

Mark Preiss, of Whitefish, is president of the Glacier National Park Conservancy.