Glacier Mountaineering Society

Sat, May 28 2022 - Old Flathead Ranger Station (View Original Event Details)

Coordinator(s):		Tim Anderson
Participants:		Tim Anderson, Cindy Weaver, Michael Raymond, Jody, Sean Mihalko

Click for Album

Write Up:
Great day!

I was a little worried people might be disappointed with this event, thought it might be too short of a day, 4 mile bike and 3 mile hike, but ended up being challenging and fun.

Many years ago while looking at Google Earth I found a strange gridwork carved into the trees in the woods in the park in an area between Blankenship and Glacier Rim. I made a few phone calls and email, and learned these were in a private in-holding where, in the 1970s they planned to build a small village and cut out streets and avenues, but for some reason the project was cancelled.

I also noticed a small round white dot in the middle of this area, Zooming in it looks like a flying saucer, So I dubbed this the UFO crash site. I had to get in there and see what this is.

We extended the bike portion of our day by starting in West Glacier Village and biking into Glacier Park.This also meant we didn't have to worry about entry reservations tickets. We rode in to Quarter Circle bridge then 1 mile up the Apgar Lookout road found the Old Flathead Ranger station trailhead. This is the only unpaved trail in the park you are allowed to bike on. It was a real fun ride.We parked our bikes at the old ranger station site above blankenship bridge and started hiking.Nice trail until we hit the swamp. A quarter mile stretch of the trail is under water, our feet got wet, no way around it.

When we reached the site you could barely make out the old roads. The moose fire ran through there in 2003, that and regrowth and just about erased them. But we did find a small trail leading off the main one that took us back to the UFO. I will not tell you what we found, I don't want to spoil the surprise in case any of you want to check it out. A picture of it is in the album attached to this if you want to see.

Have some photos from this event that you'd like to share in our photo album? Please forward them to Tim Anderson at twamontana@gmail.com. Please note that we prefer to receive the photos in approximately 640x480 or 750x500 pixels - do NOT send original high-res photos. If you have a LOT of photos, please submit up to twenty of your favorites (only) for a day event, or up to forty of your favourites for a multi-day event. Thank you.