20240926 EF Go Ahead National Parks Bus Tour Day 15/20 - Glacier National Park

American West Bus Tour Day 15/20 - Glacier National Park - We be Jammin'

Today marks the final day of the EF Go Ahead Tours trip, but not the end of ours. We will continue for a few more days with details to follow. On this final day of the official tour, we will enter our seventh National Park, Glacier, for a ride up the Going-to-the-Sun Road in a bus unofficially known as a Red Jammer.

We drove to the Apgar Visitor Center for our tour.

One of the safety brochures they hand out

Officially called Red Buses, these unique forms of transportation were built in 1936-1939 and are still in use today. They were built by White Motor Company - the Touring 706 - with a wooden frame and a retractable canvas roof.  They were used by several National Parks. The ones used in Yellowstone were painted Yellow. Glacier opted for brilliant red. These are the only two National Parks where the busses are still used.

In 1998, Ford Motor Company overhauled all the buses, upgrading the engines and converting them from manual to automatic transmissions. The drivers of the buses were known as "jammers" as the double-clutch transmission caused the drivers to jam the transmission into gear. The name stuck and eventually carried over to the buses themselves, now unofficially called Red Jammers. 33 are still in operation in Glacier and a few more are in operation in Yellowstone.

The original White badge and the Ford badge from the rebuild

The 1998 overhaul replaced engines and transmissions, added power windows in the front doors, and in a nod to the jammer driver's comfort, a cupholder

The VIN changed to a Ford VIN with the overhaul

L-R, Jack, Dusty, Bill, Barbara, Jo, Red, Sandy, Garry, Arlona, Donna, Bob, Goeff, Jan, Yorham, Ron, Sandi, Sharon, Connie, Annie, Stephanie

Our group split into two buses - our bus crew front to back, left to right - Jo was in the front seat and not in the photo, Garry, Arlona, Red, Barbara, Tour Director Geoff, Sandy, Bill, Jack, Dusty

And...we're off

We drove the Going-to-the-Sun Road, making stops on the way to Logan Pass - the highest point in Glacier National Park.

Lake McDonald Falls

We did get a little color change

Bird Woman Falls - a 560-foot drop falls

We had cloudy skies and chilly temps with stiff winds

Heading into a short tunnel

I couldn't resist doing a few black-and-white conversions to give photos a feel from the 1930s

The tunnel had a couple large view windows

Climbing, climbing

Another view of Bird Woman Falls

Every turn produced a stunning view

The engineers who designed this retaining wall asked for some artistic freedom

The result was the Three Arches Wall

We arrived at the highest point on the Going-to-the-Sun Road, Logan Pass at 6,647 feet. It is another continental divide so water flows in two different directions up here, depending on which side of the divide it is.

There isn't much up here

We turned around, heading back down the way we came.

Weeping wall - a structure of porous rock where runoff water "weeps" through the rock and down to the road - in the spring, it flows much harder with snow melt water

The only glimpse we got of an actual glacier - out of focus and in the distance

A rock beach at Lake McDonald

Water. Arlona. Touching.

Our intrepid Tour Director, Geoff, more seriously touching the water while simultaneously taking a selfie

We returned to Apgar Visitor Center where Robin was waiting with a freshly-fueled bus.

We headed to West Glacier Village where we all fanned out and grabbed lunch.

After lunch, we headed to Goat Lick Overlook.

It is called Goat Lick as mountain goats lick the rocks as they are laced with minerals that the goats need after a hard winter - alas, we didn't see any goats

We headed for our final stop on this tour - The Huckleberry Patch.

Huckleberries are huge here - syrup, margaritas, ice cream, pie, candy, popcorn, sodas - you name it, they huckleberry it

Arlona's huckleberry pie with huckleberry ice cream

I opted for brown sugar cinnamon ice cream and it was fabulous

A sign in the women's restroom - yes, Arlona took the photo

We boarded the bus for the ride back to the hotel and our last time seeing our incredible bus driver, Robin. She really added to the quality of the trip.

We worked on packing bags for our continuation tour for the next five days. Tomorrow, we'll bid farewell to our fellow travelers and our Tour Director, Geoff. He made the tour better. We'll head to the airport and pick up our rental car. Tomorrow will be a long day of driving as we head east across Montana to Glendive, Montana.