Record Breaking Snow - East Glacier Park, Montana

East Glacier Park, Montana winter's are notoriously long. Snow drifts as deep as a backyard swimming pool and hurricane force winds are as normal as heat in Arizona. Deep snow, days of sub-zero temperatures are no surprise, they're expected. The weather on the east-side of Glacier National Park, also the Blackfeet Indian Reservation is brutal, just ask anyone who's spent a half dozen or more winters here.

By most standards winters here are as long as a pregnancy. Snow can linger in the shade until June. Over the dozen or so years I've called East Glacier Park my home, I've seen, in one year or the next, snow on the ground every month of the year.  

So when the news is reporting a, "major storm" in some other part of the country, we pay attention because we like to know who else in the Nation may share our lifestyle. Unfortunately, what's breaking news for most, is life for residence of the Rocky Mountain Front in Montana.  

As if that description of our winters was not bad enough, this winter was a bit different, a little more dramatic. Instead of getting our snow spread throughout the winter, half of it fell in four days. 62.5 inches as recorded by some friends who live a few blocks away - I trust them, they're kinda weather fanatics and know how to accurately record snowfall. 

I was gone while it piled up. I returned just as the snow stopped. Here's what it looked like, and here's what I did about it! 

Watch this time lapes as I move 60" of snow in about two hours (no telling what model snow thrower this is - Bubbles say's I'm not suposto tell. This video was watched more than a quarter million times on facebook.  

Enjoy the rest of your winter, I know I will, how much worse can it get - right!  

Winter on the Edge - Glacier National Park - East Glacier Park, Montana

Winter on the eastern edge of Glacier National Park, in the small town of East Glacier Park, Montana, is known mainly to the few people that make this place their home, and a few travelers. Life in East Glacier Park is nothing like life in the more well known and often cited West Glacier (the headquarters of Glacier National Park). The wind blows more, it's colder, winter lasts about two months longer, and there's always more snow! That's a good thing if you like snow.

Recent study's indicate that about two million people visit Glacier National Park, Montana each year. People from all over the world travel to Montana and Glacier National Park for vacations and many of them travel though East Glacier Park, Montana. When people come to Montana it changes them.

I hear stories all the time about people affected by their time spent in Glacier National Park and in East Glacier Park specifically. I talked to one person last year who was working as temporary employee for the National Park Service who said they love the place so much they decided to stay for the winter. I replied with a question, "Where are you from?" Most are not use to long, hard winters in deep snow and often don't last long in East Glacier Park, particularity after spending one winter here.

The long winters are brutal on people who prefer warmer temperatures! There's often snow in yards starting in September and finally melting in late May and sometimes into early June. I hope that some of you will recognize a few of the locations shown in the photographs and in the slideshow.

I’ve been thinking about this blog post for a long time. I’ve always wanted to share the sights of winter in East Glacier Park. I finally got it together and made it happen.

This post really is for those that love East Glacier Park, and Glacier National Park, but who only ever see it when it’s green and warm! Please enjoy the photographs and the slideshow with images of snow and ice in East Glacier Park, Montana. Please share a link to this post with anyone you think would be thrilled to see East Glacier Park in the winter, or those who you think don’t really know what snow looks like!

Have you ever been to Glacier National Park in the winter?

Stay warm out there!  Tony Bynum