Gym Alternatives: Glacier Nordic Center

             Looking for an alternative to the gym this winter? Of course there is the Whitefish Mountain Resort, but have you discovered the Glacier Nordic Center? The Glacier Nordic Club grooms  several miles of trail on the Whitefish Lake Golf Course which is close to town and right next to our Grouse Mountain Lodge. Glacier Cyclery and Nordic has a kiosk right at the trail head off of Highway 93 and if you visit with Lou, she can set you up with rentals and lessons. They have all kinds of equipment and products right in the kiosk, so you’re not dead in the water if you forget anything at home.

            There are several groomed trails to ski  whether you prefer skate skiing or traditional side by side with part of the course even lit at night. If you want to check out the condition of the course before you head out you can always check the grooming report. The cost of a day pass is $8 per person and $55 for the year. They also have annual family passes for $110. The Club relies solely on the pass fees to support maintenance and grooming the trails and they do a wonderful job. The course is set up to travel one direction, but there are no regulations on this. If you are skiing against the normal traffic, it is etiquette to yield the right of way to any skier who is following the normal flow. There are no dogs allowed on this course, but there are many other courses in the area, and some of those do. It's always wise to check the regulations before you include Fido. 

            

Grouse Mountain Lodge with a snowstorm looming!

Inside Glacier Cyclery and Nordic's kiosk

Checking in with Kevin

Last fall we posted an article about our winter caretaker at the Many Glacier Hotel. If you haven't read it yet, here is the link http://bit.ly/14oajjw. We’ve been keeping tabs on Kevin and we thought you would like to see what's been going on over at Many Glacier. Thanks for the pics Kevin! and say hello to Mr. Wilson for us.

Super Bowl Specials

Join us at Logan's Bar and Grill in Grouse Mountain Lodge as you root for your team during the Super Bowl. We have some specials to cheer about starting 2 hours pre-game.

$2 Domestic Draft Beer

$3 Micro Draft Beer

Ask the bartender about our Cocktail Specials

Two flavors of wings

Duck wings - 1/2 lb - $7

Potato Skins - $1.50, loaded

Jalapeno Poppers - 5 for $6.50  with chipotle dip

Queso Sticks - 5 for $6 with salsa and sour cream

See your bartender about your square on our Super Bowl Board. It's five bucks a square and pays out $125 per quarter based on the score. 
 

Wallpaper Calendar for February 2013

1920 x 1200 (4:3)
1920 x 1080 (16:9)

Click on the link of your monitor's ratio dimensions and then click the "download" button. Open the image and save it to your computer, then set it as your wallpaper. We hope you enjoy and see you at the end of February for next month's installment. 

Specials at Logan’s Bar and Grill in Grouse Mountain Lodge

Daily Apres Ski – Draft Beer Happy Hour Pricing and $1 off Well Cocktails

                              5-7 Monday – Wednesday

                                 4-7 Thrusday  - Sunday
Tuesdays - $5 Martinis 

Wednesdays – Ladies Night - $2 House Wine by the Glass and Appetizer Specials
                        - Also on Wednesdays we have 1/2 off all well drinks, $2 glasses of house wine,               $   2 domestic draft beer, $3 microbrew beer, and a rotating selection of Tapas 5-7:30pm

Fridays - Tapas Night again! 1/2 off all well drinks, $2 glasses of house wine, $2 domestic draft beer, $3 microbrew beer, and a rotating selection of Tapas 5-7:30pm

Property Spotlight - Glacier Park Lodge

Property Spotlight

Glacier Park Lodge

By Seth Eagleton

So you just booked your vacation to Glacier National Park and are completely excited. You can’t wait to drive the Going-to-the-Sun Road and soak in all the natural beauty that you’ve been hearing of for years. This is it! You’re finally going to take the vacation-of-a-lifetime that you deserve. As you sit back, dreaming about the mountain air and sparkling lakes you’ll be soaking in just a few months from now, you might think to check some reviews on TripAdvisor. In a world where everyone’s voice is heard through social media, it can still be just as frightening to book a vacation now as it was the old fashioned way, right? Was Negative Nancy’s review accurate? Or was it Positive Pete’s? With Glacier Park Lodge’s 100^th birthday coming up this year, we have been booking a lot of rooms earlier than normal. We wanted to put some effort into relaying what you can expect to find once you arrive here and enable you to enjoy your trip-of-a-lifetime.

The Glacier Park Lodge was a 5-star hotel 100 years ago. Now, we make every effort to preserve it as a historic national park lodge. On our brochures, “rustic” is not our code name for run-down or dilapidated.

• It does mean that you won’t find TV’s or coffee makers inside your bedrooms.
• It does mean that we haven’t disturbed the historic nature of this lodge by gutting it to replace the interior, insulation-less walls or the original radiator plumbing exposed under the ceilings.

• Yes, you may hear your neighbor snoring. (By the way, can we point out that women snore too? Any comment from guests that involves a neighbor snoring always refers to the “guy in the room next to us.” After all, women snore, too.)
• You may hear your neighbor’s conversation through the walls and it could benefit some to realize that your neighbor might hear your conversation, too. If you forgot yours, we have free earplugs available at the front desk.
• You can expect to meet people from all over the globe, both as guests and as a part of our staff. This is one of the aspects that can entice folks to make an effort to be friendly to their neighbor.  Say hello, but don’t be surprised if you receive a bonjour or guten tag in response.

Now that you’re here and you’ve chosen to embrace the fact that your bandwidth/internet speed for the next few days takes you back to the time when it sounded like a wolverine lived inside your modem and you may not be able to retrieve your email every 30 seconds, we’d like to give you some suggestions on finding activities that don’t require electricity or internet.

• Hiking -You may want to purchase a permit from the Blackfeet Reservation that allows you to hike the Scenic Point Trail. More info here http://www.hike734.com/trip/scenic-point/
• Hiking - If you are up early and want to make a whole day of it, hop in the car (Didn’t drive here and need to rent one? Our concierge desk would love to help) and head north to the Two Medicine area and hike the Dawson-Pitamakan Trail. http://www.hike734.com/trip/dawson-pitamakan/
• Shuffleboard - If hiking is not your thing, feel free to play some shuffleboard on the back lawn. Supplies are available at our concierge desk.  
• Dining - You’ve seen the Great Northern Dining Room and should definitely give it a try, but if you are looking to find the spot that the locals frequent, head south to the Bison Creek Ranch. It’s a mom and pop shop where you’ll be treated to a hearty home-cooked meal.
• Summertime Snacks - On those warm summer days, you could head over to the East Glacier Trading Company and try their ice cream and homemade fudge.
• Kayaks - Head up to Two Medicine Lake and rent kayaks for the day. You’ll tend to find a lot of wind in that area, but you can stick close to the shore or you might luck out with a calm day.
• Souvenirs – Walk up to the Spiral Spoon for a handcrafted wooden spoon or even a wand. Yes, you read that correctly - a wand.
• Tours – One of the most popular methods for viewing the park is via our Red Bus Tours. If you want to see Glacier National Park like they did 100 years ago, the Red Bus Tours are perfect for you. http://bit.ly/d68UKW
• Golf - The very first golf course in the state of Montana to have greens made out of real grass was the nine-hole course at Glacier Park Lodge and the evenings there are gorgeous!

We hope this helps you plan your vacation and will possibly even prompt you to visit TripAdvisor and steer some of our future guests the right direction. You are now the local expert and can share your knowledge of local activities so they can arrive next year knowing what to expect. Oh, and one more thing. If you want to blend with the locals, crumpled up cowboy hats are the new shorts and knee-high socks in the Montana tourist world.

Grouse Mountain Lodge Timeline

From its construction through today, Grouse Mountain Lodge has played an integral role in shaping the Whitefish tourism industry. 

Spring of 1983 – Construction of Grouse Mountain Lodge begins

June 25^th 1984 – Gov. Ted Schwinden drives a golf ball into a canvas tent releasing balloons on his 3^rd attempt, as a part of the opening ceremony of Grouse Mountain Lodge.

April 26^th 1991 – continental Divide Conference Center is Christened by the Montana Meat Packers Association

May 8^th 1991 – Grand opening of the Continental Divide Conference Center

Summer of 2004 – Remodeling of conference rooms, lobby and 145 guest rooms for the 20^th anniversary celebration.

Jan 6^th 2011 – GPI purchases GML and begins renovations

May 12 2011 – Front Desk, lobby, gift shop, concierge desk, Logan’s Bar and Grill, and first half of guest room renovations completed.

Jan 20^th 2013 - All renovations completed

Photographer's Corner

Ever notice how depressing pictures of snow can look? Here’s a quick tip to liven up your wintery shots. If you make sure that your white balance is shifted a little to the yellow side (instead of blue) and add a little bit of contrast (using a filter or editing software) it’s like adding Vitamin D to your picture. You can also set your exposure based off of the darkest part of the scene, which makes the snow turn out white, instead of neutral grey. Especially on these overcast, grey days.

#throwbackthursday

Thomas Sorkness sent us these photos from back when his Grandfather was the winter caretaker at Many Glacier Hotel. The image shows the grounds at Many shows the old sawmill buildings in the background if you look very closely. These buildings were blown up by the superintendent at the time Stephen Mather in 1925 in a bit of a temper fit. Some of the material was later used to construct the Prince of Wales Hotel. #throwbackthursday

Checking in on Kevin

Kevin is still braving the ultra cold over at Many Glacier and it looks like he is enjoying it!

Doctor Ector Bossatti

As a part of our preparations for the 100-year anniversary of the Glacier Park Lodge, our marketing team has been spending some time researching exactly what Glacier National Park was like 100 years ago. Recently we received a photo album that has obviously been around for a while. I carefully took the time to view the pages of this album which were marked only with the headings of what year they were taken: 1926, 1927, 1928 and 1929. The photographer appeared to be a gear jammer during those years. The images were epic, and viewing them felt like stepping back in time for the afternoon as I contemplated what it must have been like to live and work inside of Glacier back then. Curiosity got to us and a little researching paid off.  We found that the photographer of the late 1920s album was a soon to be Doctor Ector Bossatti. Apparently, one of his descendants sent us the album with permission to use the images. All we knew of him was what he looked like in his early 20s and that he must have loved Glacier National Park as well as climbing peaks and exploring the backcountry, because there were lots of images from all over the Park.

                As it turns out, those four summers in Glacier National Park took place while Ector was in college at the University of Oregon Medical School. He was born in 1904 and we were saddened to learn that he passed away in 2004 at 100 years of age. However, in those 100 years he spent 62 of them married to his wife Edith; traveled extensively to many places around the world racking up over 100,000 miles of travels; worked 46 years as a doctor where he delivered over 800 babies; served as the Polk County (OR) health officer for 33 years; climbed all of the mountains in Oregon; and visited over 84 countries. Wow! We were able to locate his obituary (http://bit.ly/THxZd0) and the only other photo of Dr. Bossatti  was here: http://bit.ly/Ub4Jz1

                There were around 300 pictures in the album, and we wish we could have posted all of them but due to space limitations we picked a number of our favorites. Dr. Bossatti must have had an extraordinary journey. We hope you enjoyed this little portion of it as much as we did.