Uh thank you. I'm very excited to be here today because this organization's been a huge part of my life uh through my whole career and now uh after my career I'm now looking at retirement. Uh and this is kind of what retirement's looking like. Uh I started this uh park host thing three years ago. This will be my fourth year starting here in May. But I just want to uh and I think half of you half of you are are dear friends of mine. But uh a lot of you know exactly what I'm what the stories are that I'm going be telling here. So I apologize if you heard the stories before this. But uh I just want to uh start off that uh I'm a camp host uh at uh Glacier National Park and people go to let's see here. What's that? >> What do you wear there? >> What do I wear there? So I am not a UPS driver. This is my uniform. Uh it's my wife Sandy and I at the entrance of Glacier National Park. And I'm going to turn everybody here today into a uh tourist in Glacier. So when you have your camper, when you have your car, whatever you have, you're going to go visit Glacier, you're coming to this sign, and that's the entrance into the park. Uh and this road here is going to the sun road. Going to the sun road is uh 50 miles and you're going to see views. This is why you go to the park. Uh pretty much a lot of the a lot of the visitors come to the park for the going going to the sun road. We have visitors from all over the world. Uh >> just one entrance. >> There is just one entrance and this this is the this was the west entrance and the west entrance goes to the east entrance. So going to the sun road goes from west to east. That's the main artery right through Glacier National Park. There is a couple other side roads that'll take you to different parts of the park, but the main where most people are going are going to the Sun Road. In fact, uh last year you had to have a reservation to get on the road. That was last year. They're not doing it this year. It's wide open this year. Uh so when you're going to the Go in the Sun Road, this is what you're seeing. You're seeing all these views. Uh that's that's actually on the east side of Glacier. This is up towards the uh top. Uh these are uh I threw some animals in here that I've taken along the along the road with a little fox. We have a lot of uh big horn sheep up there. uh there's a two-eek period where the road is actually closed for all uh vehicles and you can ride your bike. So for two weeks you can ride your bike all the way up to uh Logan's Pass which is the top of the uh Continental Divide and then from there you go down into uh East Glacier. So from west to east and then the top of the uh between the two is Logan's Pass. So we we actually rode our bikes from uh Avalanche Lake up to Logan's Pass. And I >> you cannot start at the top. >> And Tony Tony Tony to be honest with you these are electric bikes. They're electric bikes. So, you get up to the top, that's Logan's Pass, which is about uh just under 7,000 ft. And that's the top of the Continental Divide. Everybody wants to go to Logan's Pass during the summer, during the height of the summer. Parking up there is terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible. This year, they're going to have a lot more shuttles going from uh the bottom of the hill up to Logan's Pass. And I think they're gonna have a reservation only for Logan's Pass to get your car in there. Okay. So now, uh, you're in Glacier. You've gone going to the Sun Road. Now you want to stay in Glacier. There's four main campgrounds. Uh, Apgar, Avalanche, Fish Creek is where my wife and I are. And then there's Spray Creek uh, campground, which is a little smaller campground, but Fish Creek has a 174 sites. There's four loops, A, B, C, and D. And there's about 30 to 40 campsites in each loop. We are responsible for all 174 campsites when we're on duty. Uh this is the entrance into the campground. This is our our crew. And uh as you come into the campground, you have to be checked in. It's reservation only. Uh, so we check you in, we give you the rules, and when you signed, when you got your uh, campsite online through recreation.gov, you also had to click that you read all the rules. So, not only when you make a reservation, but also when you get checked in, you get uh, a hand paper copy of the rules. And then uh, we will talk over the top four rules. Uh the major one that we talk about is that's my wife and I with our electric bikes. So every so all the loops uh I do the loops about eight times a day and to do the loops is two miles. So figure eight times a day I go about 16 miles either between walking or with the ebike. This is our camper. Tony, is that something you could >> That's what I >> That's what you'd be pulling in. >> Uh, this is our little campsite. >> It won't fit. >> I had to bring it out. It couldn't fit there, so I had to I had to take it out. This is our actual campsite. Uh, we're right on Lake McDonald. Uh we're in Dloop, which is at the bottom of of the uh the campground. We get no cell phone service. We get no internet service. Uh it's wonderful. We're off the grid. Uh Aloop is on top of the hill. They do get a little bit of phone service and that's about it. Otherwise, we're there. We're we're off the grid. Uh the camp host does uh our site does include sewer and water. and electricity. We're the only sites that have it. All the other sites are primitive. Nobody has water. You have to bring your own water. If you have a camper, your camper is full of water. Uh there's only four showers in the whole campground. So, people are uh >> trying to make or trying to make I think they take showers all night. I mean, they do it all night. But >> Terry, is there any fish in Fish Creek? >> There is fish in Fish Creek, but that's the only spot in Glacier you cannot fish. >> That's why there's fish. >> That's why there that's And I tell everybody that I tell everybody that's where all the fish are. Uh you do not need a license to uh fish in Glacier Park. Uh so this is Lake McDonald. Uh Tony, if you want to bring your boat, if you want to bring your boat, you're welcome to bring it. Uh you do have to get it registered. You have to get it looked at at uh at the uh checkout. All watercraft has to be checked out before it goes on the water. So your boat uh we love to have it, but you're going to be quarantined for one month because you have a motor on your boat. So we're going to quarantine your bo your boat for a month before you can put it in that lake. >> It's amazing. >> What if it's an electric motor? >> Electric motor. Nope. It'll be quarantined. anything that has a mechanical where anything uh invasive could get into anything uh like paddle uh paddle boards, they check them out, but you're good to go that day. Anything that's non-motorized, you're good to go that day. You can rent boats on the lake. Those are uh rentable boats right there. So, we're right on the lake. We're just to the left there about a half a mile and uh this is Lake McDonald, one of the biggest lakes in Glacier, 500 ft deep. Uh so it's a real deep lake and very cold. Uh duties that we do, we pretty much, you know, we we check everyone in. We're more of the concier of the campground. We don't have to clean toilets. We don't have to clean fire pits or anything. We're more there for information and just telling people our biggest, you know, our number one thing that we're looking for is uh no food. Do not leave food out. Please do not leave food out. You know, there's signs all over the place. So, our job is to these are uh pictures I took that people leave their oven out. There's a pan there with a egg in it. like this campsite. This is a kind of a major violation. We'll either call law enforcement and they will uh take the food and bring it to the ranger station. 99% of the time I'm picking this up and I'm putting it into a uh a bear box. But there are some people who get attitudes and my attitude changes when they have an attitude. and it's about a $150 fine by leaving food out. I don't give the fine, but I do have uh support from law enforcement. >> What's attendance been like since CO and is that part of it that you're seeing more noviceses come to the park and maybe not as prepared? >> I think there's a lot of noviceses that come. Uh but our attendance last year was 3.2 million people and that's all just during the summer from May till September. So 3.2 million. And I think you're right. I think we're seeing a lot more people who just don't understand, you know, the, you know, you're in, you're in God's country. You know, it's hasn't changed in thousands of years. >> Are there a lot of people from Illinois coming in here? >> A lot of people from Illinois, New York City. >> Terry, when they leave like this, are they gone? >> They're gone. Yeah, these people are these people are gone. I cannot go into a tent. I can't open any personal items. But if you leave it out like this, I'm hauling that all into a bear box and I'm writing you not a ticket. I don't hand out tickets, but I hand out this is why your stuff is is gone. Uh but like a major major violation, I will call law enforcement. they'll they'll take it away and they have to call law enforcement to get all their stuff back and typically they'll get a ticket. >> I suppose the concern is that there are other campers around there so you might be gone but let's say B and Bear show up >> and I'll show you what happens. Uh so just some more there's garbage in the tree there on the left. You know the big black stone uh stove which is just a bear. You know people bring these big stoves and all that stuff if if it smells if it's unnatural it has to be put away. A clean sight is two chairs maybe a jug of water. Everything else is gone. So my wife, you don't want to get her mad. So she uh so we do have a little cart that we have that we can put all the coolers in and stuff and bring it to a bear box. There's not a bear box right in front of your place. There could be, but uh there's usually typically one uh spread out uh probably 20 yards away, 30 yards away, real close. This is why you don't want to leave your food out. We have the highest grizzly population in the lower continental uh US. Lot of black bears. So, we have, you know, we have tents, we have campers. Uh this is a tent. And this is basically why, you know, you you just you just don't want to have smellables in your tent. >> And this guy here, he was uh I don't know if you can hear the voice. nothing to but he pulled his bear spray out and thank God he didn't spray his bear spray because it would have made a it would have made a big mess. >> That wouldn't happen if you were my hammer. And our ver our bears are very uh uh wild. They're not domestic like a lot of state parks. They know how to open doors and everything. They know uh coolers. They know all that. I we rarely get bears that come into a campsite. This guy here last year, uh he did get into a campsite. We did call law enforcement. Law enforcement came and they hazed him. They called hazing him. They uh uh they shoot a shotgun really loud. Everybody goes, "Oh my god, they just killed a bear." No, they're not killing the bear. They get the bear's attention and then they uh beat him with a uh bean bag, the sandbag, and it uh hits the back of them or wherever they uh the law enforcement hit him right in the ass and the bear just took off and we never saw that bear again uh the rest of the summer. And we also have a lot of uh deer. And you don't want to you only want to burn firewood in your fire pit because the deer and the bear, they all love those fire pits. Uh the perils of glacier are going to change it a little bit. Uh people come there thinking it's the safest place to come. Uh there's been over 300 recorded deaths. This this slide was done three years ago. Since I've been there, we have 317 deaths. We've had 17 deaths in the last uh three years. And if you look at the top 10 there, uh number one is falling, number two is drowning, three cardio, four vehicle, five avalanche, six is bear. There's only been actually 10 bear deaths in in Glacier, but the number one and number two are are the biggest thing. Uh so last year we did have someone that fell into the gorge. Actually three people. Uh mom and dad were taking the picture taking this best picture. Dad goes to fall in and mom grabbed them and uh they fell into the gorge. So this is the gorge. This gorge is super loud, super fast, and people want to get uh a great picture right here. Mom and dad were there. Dad falls in, mom falls in, and the 16-year-old 16-year-old boy jumped in. Uh we were working at the time at uh Avalanche and on the radio the call came in that three people had fallen in and uh the camp host up there is actually the one that called it in and again they don't have cell phone up there. Everything is done through radio. Uh within about 15 minutes, LE2 responded. Law enforcement. Uh they call him LE2 law enforcement. Uh they're first responders and they're also uh pretty well pretty well trained. So he responded and uh showed up at the scene. The mom and dad made it through the gorge, which is amazing. We have not heard of too many people that actually survived the gorge. So, mom and dad made it through the gorge. They were underwater for 15 minutes. There happened to be a medical doctor at the at the spot there where they pulled mom and dad out and the medical doctor uh they started CPR on mom and dad and Ellie 2 came in with a medical bag and he had all the medical supplies the doctor needed to intubate intubate the uh the two. Uh the mom responded right away to the CPR and woke up. Uh the dad uh did wake up, but he was in pretty bad shape. Uh so Ellie too knew that there was another a third person, the 16-year-old had jumped in the water to think he was going to save mom and dad, but there's no way, you know, he's gonna do anything. There's a lot of trees in here, uh a lot of debris. Last year a guy fell in and they didn't find them for a month. So that just tells you this gorgeous just goes deep in the water. There's trees. They get h they get caught up in things underneath there. Anyways, Ellie too dropped off the medical and then ran and they found the 16-year-old on a tree branch in the gorge. And right away he put the uh rope around a tree and he repelled down 20 ft, put a harness on the 16-year-old boy and connected himself to that boy. And the two of them sat there for two hours until they're able to get search and rescue to pull the two of them up. So he sat there for two hours. The boy was in and out of consciousness and he would have died. he would have died. Uh, so all three survived and see if I can show you. So the guy in the middle there is Ellie 2 and this is our son. So our son is why we go out to Glacier and he is uh one of the top uh search and rescue uh kids out there. He's 30 years old. 30 years old and uh he's got three kids, three daughters, three granddaughters, and uh ages 10, 8, and four. They go to school in West Glacier, and he lives there year round. There's just a handful of uh full-time rangers, and he is one of them. During the winter, he's like Jack Nicholson. If you ever see The Shining, uh all work and no play. Uh it gets pretty quiet during the winter, but uh during the winter he is he is actually pretty busy. Uh they get they do a lot of planning for the summer because they're planning for those 3.2 million people. But uh Nick, our son, uh did get a hero award uh from the park service and uh save that 16-year-old uh boy in the in the gorge. So pretty pretty amazing. He's also a firefighter, landfire and uh uh housing fire. He also teaches the uh search and rescue teams there. I was part of that. I was part of this team. Uh I'm certified for search and rescue. Not like he is. Uh basically they need people to uh carry gurnies out. It takes between eight and 12 people to bring a gurnie out of the back country. Uh typically uh that's done quite quite a bit during the summer. Uh summer is very busy. Uh lot of lot of medical, you know, not only people die, but there's a lot more people breaking their legs, dehydration, uh just a lot of because there's most of the time when you're in Glacier, a lot of the people are back country and they're hiking. A lot of people are hiking and I've experienced uh uh over the radio there's a lot of cardio people in trouble who are in back country who are either having a heart attack or are dehydrated. This is a kind of a cute story. Last year uh not long after the incident where the three people fell in uh there was a empty wheelchair there and you saw one of the statistics that there is a lot of suicides there. Uh last year there was one suicide uh but we came across this wheelchair near the gorge and we thought oh my god where did this person go? and we sat there and we looked and we looked and called it in and uh we had more people come and you know you don't want to panic right away but we're trying to figure out whose wheelchair it was why it's just sitting there. So about an hour, hour and a half and we're looking in the water. We're look, you know, we're kind of slowly trying to figure out but nobody's going in the wheelchair. We don't know and there's quite a few people around. So the story is a guy, he was about 40 years old, carried his wife two miles to go see Avalanche Lake, one of the premier hikes, and wanted his wife to see it and carried her all the way because you cannot have a wheelchair on any of the trails. You can't have bikes, you can can't have dogs, you know, no animals. He carried her and it took him pretty much all day to carry her to Avalanche Lake. Saw the views and then carried her back and put her back in the wheelchair. It was a pretty pretty neat story. Uh >> you carry her back. >> Yeah. >> You're so nice. You're so nice. So >> all >> uh so this is the crew for all the uh campgrounds uh in uh in West Glacier. Most of them are volunteers uh or most they're all volunteers but most of them are uh retirees. So a lot of them are retirees retirees. Uh there is some uh school teachers that uh become camp hosts during the summer. And uh it's one of my favorite friends. The uh ground squirrel. We have a lot of ground squirrels. And that's pretty much the end of the presentation. So he's asking you, do you have any questions for me at all? >> Um you had mentioned the glacier. I've been to Glacier Park a few times, but a lot of glaciers are restrained, even shrinking after some of the recent years of climate change. Is there still a significant glacier there? What's the status of it? Are there several glaciers in the park? >> So, Glacier National Park had 150 glaciers uh back in the 1800s. We're down to about 23 glaciers. Active active glaciers. Yeah. So, there's not a whole lot there anymore. And the ones that are there, they're they're still pretty big. And they're creating their own lakes. Like Lake McDonald is a glacier lake. There's a big glacier there at one time. And that's that was a a glacier huge. Do >> uh when you said they closed, I wrote down for bikes. If when it's open to cars, can you still ride bikes? You can, we we don't recommend it. >> Uh because it's uh bikes get hit. Uh cars are, you know, it's just not a good But there it is open during certain during certain times. >> A lot of motorcycles out there. >> Yep. A lot of motorcycles. A lot of motorcycles. But going to the Sun Road, if you if you haven't been there, so the guard rails, there's some guard rails that are only two feet high. Two feet high. And it's just it's scary to go along this cuz looking down it's 1,000 ft. The Highline Trail is one of the most premier trails. It's six feet wide at one point and you're walking along the uh the edge of a cliff for probably a couple hundred yards. A lady tripped last year and went down a thousand ft and she died. You know, they do have a cable that you can hold on to, but again, it's uh it's natural. I mean, you're out you're in a place that there's a lot of a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff. A lot of stuff goes on. I had a guy a a quick story. I had a guy last year uh wife and I were sitting there and a lady comes down and said there's a guy in the bathroom and he's he's bleeding. He's he's he's in bad shape. So, we go up there and it's about 48 degrees out as uh right at the beginning of June. uh pitch black out and we come across this guy walking down the road and he's just covered with blood and I'm going, "Oh boy, here we go." Kind of interesting, but uh he uh we stop him and he's looking for his car. He's in Minnesota. I go, you know, what are you doing? We're looking for my car and he had this huge hemoma on his on his head. So, he fell and uh he was in a bad what do you call it? Uh concussion. big concussion. So, we got got him to his site. We got the medical there and everything. Uh he ended up going to the hospital that night and the doctor said, "Yeah, huge concussion. He probably had a seizure. He had narcolepsy and had fallen in the bathroom." It was just He said, "If you if you guys didn't find it, he could have wandered. He could have wandered all night >> or gone off an edge >> or gone off whatever." Uh >> how close is the closest to the hospital? uh 30 miles about 30 miles. So where that where that uh gorge is to where we are is about 15 miles. So any response, you know, there isn't people right there for you. So the response time is really about 15 15 20 minutes to get to you. So it's uh could be a long time. There is a helicopter service uh tubar helicopter. I don't know know the that guy's name but he uh multi multibillionaire uh he provides the service all the helicopter service for Glacier National Park. If you're stuck up there there's no charge. He's not charging anybody. He also hires a medical staff that's on the helicopter and they're running pretty much every day. Every other day you hear the helicopter who's going up there and so it's kind of crazy. Any other quick questions? >> So Lake McDonald is the lake that has the super vibrant rocks. Is that >> Yes. >> So what you see >> when you see those pictures >> what it's like >> those rocks are colored not like AI though. They are they are dimmer when you see the AI pictures. All these brilliant colors. They're colorful, but not as colorful because people come up to us, I want to see this. I want to see this. Where is this? It's the whole lake. Whole lake is covered. >> Okay. If my got my history right, did Roosevelt designate this as a as a national park, wouldn't the >> That's sounds That sounds right. But it is a peace park. It's a It's the only peace park I think we have in uh in the US with Canada. So for Canada and US, uh it's called Waterton is the north part of Glacier and that's uh run by Canada, but it's all connected. >> But it was Roosevelt that got it as a national park. >> That sounds right. >> Yeah. And he can you imagine the foresight that he had? >> Oh, >> I mean a million acres of nothing back in the 18 something or whatever. How could he foresee that this was going to be a tourist track, like a tourist place, right? >> I mean, God bless that man. Thank you. >> How long are you there for? >> So, we we start uh the start of the season around May 15th and we end uh September 6th, 7th. So, we're there for 5 months. >> And it's all volunteer or when you're on the clock here? So, my work schedule, I work four days off, three days. Work three days off four days. And usually when we're on schedule, we start at 7 in the morning and we go till about 10:00 at night. >> And that's pay volunteer baby. >> Yeah. >> No, it's offset your volunteer. Well, we get uh we get volunteer hours. So, at some point I might have a little like a little pin on here that we'll say I've got a thousand hours or whatever. >> Oh, sorry. >> Do you get your site as well? >> Yes. So, we do get So, that's what we get. We get the site. Uh I do have my own camper. We got to bring our own camper. We just get the site. >> Do you have your own shower? >> We have our own shower. So, >> I don't think I could have got my wife to to be there. Your >> off day. Where do you go on your off days? Like, you have four days off. You guys just hang out. >> So, we do a lot of hiking. We do a lot of hiking. I do have a map here if you want to see the map. Uh, I'll I'll hang around. But, uh, our son has three kids, so we see the three grandkids, and we see them a lot. >> How close do they live to the park? >> What's that? How close does your son live to >> He's about uh 10 minutes away from us. So, he actually lives inside the park. He's government government housing. >> Awesome. >> Y the other thing we have is mountain lions. We have mountain lions, too, that uh last year we had a baby and a mama that were separated and to hear mountain lion scream is crazy. Crazy. >> Do you want to mention that? >> Yep. So, I have a fleece from Glacier National Park. Anybody else? Uh, don't have your name in here real quick. >> Jeffrey The came to listen to the >> Great. All right. Well, thank you everyone.