Longtime ranger fondly remembered

Doug Follett remembers Fred Reese well. The two men worked in Glacier National Park together for decades.

Reese, a longtime Glacier National Park ranger and School District 6 teacher, died last week. He was 77.

On one humorous hike, Follett was leading a group of English hikers up to Sperry Chalet while Reese and a woman were just behind them, their destination Mount Brown Lookout.

Follett left a note for the woman at the Mount Brown junction sign.

“Why don’t you dump those sissies and come up to Sperry and hike with a real man?” the note read.

The next day Follett was coming down the trail with the party.

Reese, in turn, left a note for him.

“If you’re so tough Follett, why don’t you untie those five grizzlies we left for you at the septic tank?”

The tank was right near the trailhead.

Down the trail, lo and behold, the party ran into a sow grizzly and three cubs, completely by coincidence.

“Those aren’t the bears,” an Englishman whispered over Follett’s shoulder. “They said there’d be five. There’s only four.”

It was events like those that define a friendship.

“Working with Fred was an honor, a pleasure and a privilege,” Follett said.

Reese, of Columbia Falls, started his park career as a seasonal ranger at the Rising Sun Campground in 1966.

Reese was an elementary special education teacher in Columbia Falls from 1990 to 2010. Most recently, Reese was a familiar and friendly face at Glacier Park’s west entrance from 1990 to 2013, when he retired due to poor health. He suffered from Parkinson’s disease late in his career but still was a main figure at the west entrance, greeting folks with a smile.

He worked as a campground ranger, backcountry ranger, visitor-use assistant, fee collector and entrance station supervisor.

Follett recalled another incident in Many Glacier. A climber was stuck in the cliffs of Mount Altyn and was calling, “Help, help!” Reese was the first ranger to the man. Reese roped the hiker up and lowered him to the scree slopes below.

The man, who worked at Many Glacier Hotel, barely said thank you and ran off to the hotel.

“He told Fred he was late for work,” Follett recalled. “That was the Fred Reese I remember.”

Reese is survived by his wife, Clare, and his son, Blake.