Glacier Outdoor Center Blog

We are knocking the doors down with a huge sale on all our winter equipment. Time to suit up and get ready for the snoooooowwwwww!

Skis. Boots. Poles. Snowshoes. Apparel. Gear.

Rossignol Nordic. North Face.  Outdoor Research.  Salomon.  Talus.  More!

Friday, November 11 9am to 4pm

Saturday, November 12 9am to Noon

Glacier Outdoor Center

12400 HWY 2 EAST
P.O. BOX 210
WEST GLACIER, MT 59936

TOLLFREE: 1-800-235-6781

SPREAD THE WORD!!!!

Those  folks over at National Geographic Kids are sending kids to Montana! Right on!

NGK are having an essay contest for 9-14 year olds, and the grand prize is an adventure trip to Montana!

Go over and check out the contest rules and details and make sure your literary little ‘un gets to work on an essay about adventure.

Click image for deets

When you get here, we’ll be ready to take you on the river!

We recently spent an incredibly beautiful Montana fall day at the Whitefish Legacy Race.  Our gal, Kali – reservation master and all around does-just-about-everything GOC superstar – hit the trail with our public relations guru Sammi Johnson, and showed folks how Canyon Critters can run.

GOC was a proud sponsor of the race, which raises money and awareness for Whitefish Legacy Partners – they’re working to preserve open space and bring more trails to the area.

Sammi and Kali proved their mettle. They light-stepped 10k and came in 2nd and 4th, respectively, in their age group! AWESOME!

Check out all the race results here.

We’re proud to help our community connect with the outdoors!

Somebody once said that you can get a long way by going one mile at time. Seems like pretty sage advice. Turns out you can go quite a distance if you do it in short trips.

Cruising on Highway 2 from West Glacier up the Middle Fork to the river put in, our legendary Red and Yellow Vans added up to more than 234,000 miles on the odometers. Our epic workhorse vans witnessed the real lives of raft guides on the river in NW Montana for decades.  The vans may be just machines, but they were part of the family, and they have provided us with a lot of memories.  We’re talking about 30 years of hard working, hard driving, and crazy living.

“Those vans have seen everything. There’s not a guide that doesn’t have some story of an adventure in the Red or the Yellow,” says former whitewater and fishing guide Shane Hutcheson. When pressed for deets, all we got was “Uh, no comment…”

Sadly, the Red and Yellow have made their last adventure. This week they made their final journey, leaving the river behind and offering up the ultimate sacrifice at the recycling center.

We wish good rides to our friends. Your next journey is more than the infinite loop you ran for us for 30+ years. You have taken so many people a very long ways, and we will miss you, you big ol’ hunks of steel and junk.

Goodbye old friends

Last Saturday The Flathead Valley Chapter of Montana Wounded Warriors teamed up with Columbia Falls Rotarians to show servicemen returning from Iraq and Afghanistan a good time fishing on the river. Wounded Warriors gives veterans a chance to get together and enjoy the outdoors. Glacier Raft Company provided guides and rafts, Columbia Falls Rotary supplied a steak dinner and funded the event, and Glacier Outdoor Center put the soldiers up for the night in one of their cabins. The veterans, John Greenwood of Butte, Brandon Olson of Billings, and Char Gatlin of Missoula relished the opportunity to be appreciated and treated to a great day of fishing and fresh air. You can read the Hungry Horse News article here.

Glacier Outdoor Center hosted Northwest Montana’s first-ever Casting for Recovery retreat this past weekend. The retreat was for Montana women in various stages of breast cancer treatment and recovery. We taught them how to fly fish, relax in nature and be with others who understand their experiences.

The CFR Montana Glacier Country included the opportunity for participants to meet pyschosocial counselors, fly fishing instructors, and volunteers from the community who trained to be part of the Casting For Recovery program. Check out this article from the Flathead Beacon about the event last weekend.

Sometimes there’s no better therapy than being out on the river, casting a line and taking in the gorgeous scenery of the Flathead Valley. Join us in April 2012 for a Second Annual Fly-Fishing Film Tour Fundraiser for CFR in Whitefish.

Also, CFR retreats are held throughout the country–so if you don’t live here, you can find one in your area.

Locals know that September is the best month in the Flathead Valley.  The crowds are gone, the weather is great, and the colors start to change.  Plus, it’s the time of year when we have our giant gear sale!  Get ready for your next outdoor adventure with these great end of season deals at the Glacier Outdoor Center.

We carry awesome brands like The North Face, MSR, Yeti Coolers, Salomon,Outdoor Research and Aire – to name just a few. If you’re looking for used gear,  we are selling some of our rafts, wetsuits, life jackets, and accessories. Or you can ask us for the scoop on something we don’t have, and we’ll help you look. For a complete list of gear featured in the sale, call us at 406-888-5454 ext. 3.

Don’t miss out on these amazing deals–and since all your friends will be here, it’s a great time to hang out and talk about what you did during your summer vacation.  See you soon!

With summer winding down, school starting and cooler temps,  it is always interesting to hear what our seasonal employees have planned for the GOC off-season. Our guides and seasonal staff travel the globe and always return each spring with amazing stories and experiences to share.

This fall, five Glacier Outdoor Center seasonal employees are hitting the road with the Warren Miller Film Tour! Ryan Thompson, Kelsey Klevenberg, Ryan Callahan and Connor Scott are leading the charge on the NW and SoCal routes for the Warren Miller Film Tour that starts October 2nd and ending December 11.

Ryan’s business card reads “Road Crew Manager“, Kelsey’s title is “”MC”, Conner is the “Sponsor Liaison” and Ryan Callahan is the “Professional Projectionist.” Also, GOC employee, Richie Carter, will be touring with Warren Miller on a different route in Canada–he is the MC up there because he is bi-lingual and can speak French.

Check out the Warren Miller tour dates here and see if it is coming to an area close to you and say “hi!” to our boys on the road this fall.

One of the best things about working at Glacier Outdoor Center is the fact that we get to meet some pretty awesome people from around the world. We get to hear their stories, and we get the honor of introducing them to a place like no other: Glacier National Park.

One such awesome person is freelance writer Debbie Olsen. Hailing from Alberta, Canada, Debbie recently visited Glacier Outdoor Center for some fly fishing lessons. She later wrote about her experience in the Calgary Herald; check out what she had to say!

Thanks for joining us, Debbie — we hope to see you back in Glacier again soon!