Bonus | Answering Your Questions

A mini mailbag episode answering listener-submitted questions. Send us your questions for future episodes at glac_media_lab@nps.gov with the subject "Headwaters."

Glacier Conservancy: glacier.org Frank Waln music: www.instagram.com/frankwaln Stella Nall art: stellanall.com

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Gaby Eseverri: [mellow beat playing] Hi, I'm Gaby. You're listening to Headwaters, a podcast from Glacier National Park.

Daniel Lombardi: Hey, Gaby, I'm Daniel.

Gaby: [laughs] Hi, Daniel.

Daniel: And this is the mailbag or Q&A episode. We're answering questions.

Gaby: Yeah. So listeners have provided questions for us over the last week or so. [music fades out] And I'll be asking you what the people want to know.

Daniel: Oh, you're asking me?

Gaby: I'll be asking you.

Daniel: I'm not ready for this.

Gaby: We're releasing bonus episodes this spring and summer to help visitors plan their trips to the park, or to just generally get a feel for what's going on.

Daniel: What do you got for me?

Gaby: What do you think was our most asked question?

Daniel: I think the question that rangers get asked the most is where is the bathroom? But I bet you people want to know when is Going-to-the-Sun Road going to open for the summer.

Gaby: Ding ding ding.

Daniel: That's right?

Gaby: Yeah yeah,.

Daniel: Yeah. Everyone, everyone wants to know when is Going-to-the-Sun Road going to open for the summer because it feels like it's not summer till the sun road opens. Well, sorry, we don't have an answer.

Gaby: We really don't know. We don't have any, like, further, more information than what you know.

Daniel: I could say that it seems to usually open in June -- the roads crew are actively plowing it right now -- sometimes early July, but generally it's sometime in June. If it's like a low snow year and we don't have a whole lot of snow in the winter, then it opens in the earlier side of June. If it is a big snowy winter, then it's probably going to be later in June, if not early summer.

Gaby: Or a rainy spring.

Daniel: Yeah, spring weather matters a lot too. Yeah, yeah. Bad weather, avalanches, all that slows the work down.

Gaby: Yeah. Hopefully it'll be open soon. I'm excited. It will definitely mark the arrival of summer. Angela says, can you just talk about beargrass?

Daniel: I… I will try. Uh, beargrass is not a grass, it is a member of the corn lily family. I mean, it is a flower, basically. It has grass on the bottom, and what people love then is that every few years, each plant will shoot up a big asparagus- Dr. Seuss-type flower that looks like a giant q-tip, sometimes like 3 or 4 feet tall.

Gaby: They don't pop up yearly, right?

Daniel: Right. You know, as spring comes along like this, we're always like, is this going to be a big flower year? When was the last time we had a big bear grass year? But there's always there's always some bear grass and...

Gaby: Yeah.

Daniel: I love it.

Gaby: I guess we'll see what this year looks like. [beat plays briefly] Sridevi asks, what are the places to visit without a vehicle reservation? That's a, that's a big one.

Daniel: Yeah. So in 2024 you do need a vehicle reservation, but that's only to get into the busiest parts of the park during the busiest hours of the day in the peak summer season. So if you're visiting in the fall, you don't need to worry about it. If you like to get up early or drive into the park late, again, you don't need to worry about it. It's just for those peak hours. Now, also, it's not for every area of the park. In summer 2024, entering into Two Medicine or the east side of Going-to-the-Sun Road at St Mary. You don't need a vehicle reservation for those areas either. And I promise they are spectacular areas of the park.

Gaby: Truly amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, awesome. Hopefully that's helpful. And as always, check nps.gov/glac for more information and all of the details about vehicle reservation. [beat plays briefly] Claire wants to know, what's it like working for the park. You've been working for the park for seven years, right?

Daniel: This park, yeah. I've made a career out of working for the Park Service, and I love it. The best part about working for the Park Service is that you are working in and getting to, you know, be a part of these amazing places. I love being a part of something that is like, iconic of our country and our landscape and a thing that we all share together. Working for the parks is amazing. I highly recommend it. Go to USAjobs.gov and watch for ranger postings. [beat plays briefly] Give me another one. Give me a hard one.

Gaby: Okay. Olive asks, what are people most surprised about after visiting?

Daniel: Maybe a big surprise is how cold and how like wet the weather can be, especially in the first half of summer.

Gaby: Totally like in West Glacier or East Glacier it'll be beautiful and sunny, and then you go up to Logan Pass and it's snowing.

Daniel: Like literally snowing. Yeah. The other thing I think that can surprise people about the weather is how in the second half of summer, how hot it can be. They'll be like, oh, it's Glacier National Park, it's the mountains. It'll be cool. But then they start going on a hike with one little water bottle and they're like, oh...

Gaby: It's hot and.

Daniel: It's over 90 degrees. And yeah, it's kind of humid. And yeah, it can get really hot.

Gaby: Yeah. Last summer it hit 100.

Daniel: Wow.

Gaby: [beat plays briefly] So Jack has a question about construction.

Daniel: Okay, Jack, here's the situation. In Montana, we have two seasons: winter and construction.

Gaby: Ha ha. [sarcastic laugh]

Daniel: Yeah. And here we are entering construction season. There's all kinds of jokes about this. You know, the traffic cones, that they put out around construction sites?

Gaby: The bright neon orange.

Daniel: I've heard people joke that that's, you know, Montana State flower. I think other states make these jokes, too.

Gaby: Definitely, yeah.

Daniel: But it's true, the window for construction in Glacier National Park is pretty small because we have such a long winter season, so you have to squeeze all the repair and update, you know, projects into a pretty narrow window. So you can hear the construction going on outside right now. There is construction going on in the park, a whole bunch of different areas, you know, they're working on bridges, they're putting in new sewer lines.

Gaby: They're doing a lot of work. So it will most likely be a part of your visit. Yeah.

Daniel: But if you're just flexible, like it shouldn't be a big deal.

Gaby: Yeah. Not a big deal at all. Check nps.gov/glac for all of those construction updates and all those details as to where those projects are going to be.

Daniel: Yeah, that's basically the answer to everything. Go on our website. Check it out. Yeah. Plan ahead.

Gaby: [beat plays briefly] Okay. This is [laughs] maybe one of my favorite questions that we got. MissCurlyGirly asks, is the damage reversible?

Daniel: This question is sort of silly and also like kind of deep, right, which is fun. Having no idea what curlygirly is actually asking about, I would say let's be optimistic. Let's envision a better future than the one we're living in, you know?

Gaby: Totally.

Daniel: The damage is reversible. We can fix things that are broken and we can...

Gaby: Imagine better futures.

Daniel: Absolutely.

Gaby: [beat plays briefly] This is a little bit of a history question. Are you ready for this?

Daniel: I'll give it a shot.

Gaby: Zach wants to know, how did the whole Glacier-Waterton connection come to be?

Daniel: Well, that is a good question. Basically, there was Rotary Clubs, these are like community social clubs, and they started talking about how these two national parks that share an international border could be and should be an example to the world about international peaceful cooperation. And they sort of developed the concept and everyone liked it, got behind it, and in the 1930s, the international, the world's first international peace park was born.

Gaby: Glacier-Waterton.

Daniel: Well, technically, it's Waterton Glacier International Peace Park.

Gaby: And Zach, if you want to learn more, I would recommend going back to Season One and listening to the Goat Haunt episode where Michael and Andrew dive deeper into Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.

Daniel: Yeah, that's a good idea. I was I thought you were going to say go to the website. I'm like, oh, people are going to be tired of hearing that.

Gaby: Oh no no, no.

Daniel: Yeah. But it's so true though.

Gaby: [beat plays briefly] I have three from Elizabeth.

Daniel: [laughing] I didn't know three questions was allowed, but okay, let's hear them.

Gaby: What do we do when we see fellow tourists not following Leave No Trace principles? Ooh.

Daniel: Yeah, that's hard. I mean, it's not your job to police other people. That's said, I feel like if you have the social skills and the situation is... allows for it, find a way to be friendly and...

Gaby: And be curious, yeah, I would say ask some questions before we make assumptions as to what people are doing or if they're doing something quote unquote wrong.

Daniel: Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you see something dangerous or blatantly illegal happening, you should definitely tell a ranger. But trust that everyone's doing their best.

Gaby: Totally.

Daniel: And that being friendly goes a long way.

Gaby: Absolutely. How do we convince people that nature is worth protecting as much as people?

Daniel: That's a good question. I like that one. You know, people are nature. The national parks operate with the belief that a really important part about getting people to care about the world around them, and to care about this country's history and making the world a better place is learning and experiencing and making connections firsthand. So that is a really central part of the mission of the National Park Service is to give people an opportunity to come visit natural places like Glacier National Park and make those connections and realize why that's so important to protect and preserve and honor.

Gaby: Yeah, totally. Okay. Elizabeth has one more question.

Daniel: Oh is it, what's my favorite beetle? I knew it.

Gaby: That's exactly right.

Daniel: Mountain pine beetles. A natural insect that eats away at pine trees in the park. It's not good for those pine trees, but it's good for the ecosystem as a whole. And they're cool little beetles.

Gaby: Are these the beetles on whitebark pines?

Daniel: Pretty much every species of tree in the park has an associated species of beetle. So, yeah, whitebark pine included.

Gaby: That's so cool. And if you want to know more about beetles or whitebark pine, you can go listen to Season Two of the podcast. Of course. Thanks, Elizabeth, for those questions. [beat plays briefly] Okay, so the next question is from Lane, who wants to know how has climate change impacted the way the park is managed?

Daniel: Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, it's... it would actually probably be simpler to say how has climate change not impacted the way the park is managed, because it it infiltrates every decision made in the National Park Service at this point. There are broadly four big categories in how the National Park Service is responding to climate change. One is through communication. So just doing things like podcast episodes about, you know, educating on the topic. Then there's science. There are scientists actively studying how a shifting climate is directly impacting the resources or the plants, animals, history, culture and all of that. How that's being impacted. But then on top of communication and science, there is also a whole lot of adaptation work. Basically people studying and thinking about how, okay, we have more wildfire now because of climate change, how do we need to shift our response to wildfire in the face of that? Right. And then the fourth big area of the National Park Service's response to climate change is mitigation. And that means that we're trying to actively reduce the amount of greenhouse gases that are emitted inside the national park, reducing the amount of fossil fuels burned, stuff like that.

Gaby: How are we doing that?

Daniel: Putting solar panels on roofs, switching to more fuel efficient or zero emission vehicles, recycling, composting basically anywhere we can find ways to reduce the park's emissions, we're trying to do that.

Gaby: And that's not just here, right? That's across the National Park Service.

Daniel: Yeah, it's across the federal government in general.

Gaby: That's great. How might visitors see and/or experience everything that you talked about?

Daniel: Well, if you come to Glacier National Park in your electric vehicle, you can plug it in and charge it with pretty much renewable energy resources that we have here, with hydropower. You're going to see solar panels on the roofs of some buildings. But you're also going to experience the impacts of climate change. Almost inevitably, it gets a lot hotter here in the summers than it used to. We have a lot more wildfire smoke than we used to.

Gaby: And of course, the namesake of this park.

Daniel: Everyone wants to come and hike to a glacier, or take a look at the glaciers as they melt. So that's a big part of the visitor experience these days.

Gaby: [beat plays briefly] Okay Daniel, I'm going to close it out with one more question.

Daniel: Okay.

Gaby: Okay. What snakes are in the park?

Daniel: We have two kinds of snakes. They're both garter snakes, we have two species of garter snakes. And neither of them are venomous or dangerous. Snakes are cool. A lot of people don't come here for the snakes, but they really should.

Gaby: [laughing] It's always, "where can I see a grizzly bear?"

Daniel: Never "where can I see a garter snake?"

Gaby: [laughing]

Daniel: Yeah. All right, well, if people have more questions, they can, you know, hit us up on social media or email us here at the podcast.

Gaby: Glac_media_lab@nps.gov [mellow beat begins to play]

Daniel: We'll put it in the show notes too. Our music's by Frank Waln and our art is by Stella Nall.

Gaby: They're both great. Check out their work.

Daniel: Info's in the show notes.

Gaby: Headwaters is made possible with support from our nonprofit partner, the Glacier National Park Conservancy. We absolutely could not be doing this without them. Check them out at glacier.org. If you have a moment to leave us a review in your podcast app, that helps so much.

Daniel: Thanks for listening. [music fades out]