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!

Folks up our way (West Glacier), are used to being kinda “out there.” Our local phone company announced recently that they finally got high-speed broadband “up the line.” Until now, we’ve been relying on satellite service, DIAL UP and smoke signals.

Fortunately, GOC has been hooked up for a while at our Hwy 2 office, but at the West Glacier office it’s been all mirrors and semaphore flags.

This will make a huge difference for us, of course. We’ll be able to better communicate with our customers, and it will make it much easier for our back-of-house folks to do that back-of-house stuff that they do.

And Farmville will be soooooooo much faster!

Our own Sally Thompson was in the Flathead Beacon’s story about the big upgrade: Click here to read it:

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.

On July 23, we filled our rafts with people who are the very definition of inspiration and dedication.

It was on that Saturday that a group of fathers, uncles, brothers, cousins, volunteers and staff members all took part in Glacier Outdoor Center’s Wounded Warrior Project Caregiver Retreat. As members of the Wounded Warrior Project, these volunteers are committed to caring for loved ones who have been severely injured in the line of duty.

Just like the servicemen and women who risk and sacrifice their lives for our safety, these Caregivers deserve some serious gratitude. Many of us have never experienced the injuries inflicted by war, and thanks to our brave servicemen and women, many more of us never will. Injuries like these require special care, countless hours of support and encouragement every step of the way. That’s where the Caregivers come in, pouring their hearts into the recovery of an injured brother, son, daughter, friend or a complete stranger.

The Caregivers’ work is purposeful, necessary and –for many–a full-time job, which can make it exhausting. With that in mind, we here at Glacier Outdoor Center decided to say thanks to this incredible crew by treating them to a well-deserved float trip.

The weather couldn’t have been better, and visiting with each of these people –who have sacrificed so much for the healing of those who have sacrificed even more– reminded us what true heart really looks like.

Wishing you a mindful day playing in the park and on the water –

Your Glacier Outdoor Center crew

We already thought the folks at R.L. Winston Rod Co. were pretty cool — after all, they’re the masterminds behind the cherry R.L. Winston fly rods we carry here at Glacier Outdoor Center.

Then we discovered that when you call R.L. Winston on the phone after hours, you’ll hear the voice of this famous actor.  (Click to hear the actual answering machine message.)

Tom Hanks as your answering service?! On the 1-10 awesomeness scale, we’re calling that a definite 12.  Fish, Forrest, Fish!

While we don’t have Tom (yet) our fly shop at Glacier Outdoor Center does have a full line of  R.L. Winston rods ready  to join you for a weekend on the water. We’ve also got anything else you might need: the best brands in fishing gear, angling advice and guides who can show you the perfect place to cast your line.

Click here for more information, and as Mr. Hanks says, we’ll see you on the water!

This very moment, Americans are loading up their cars and hitting the road to come visit us and Glacier National Park. With gas prices always threatening to spoil the fun, we thought we’d offer up some advice we harvested from AutoGuide.com on how to cut down on your fuel costs while vacationing. It’s good to know how to stretch your fuel budget so you can spend money on more fun things– like rafting!

Here is a summary of the top five ways to cut your fuel costs this summer while traveling.

1. Don’t pack everything in sight—just bring what you need. The key point to remember is, “An extra 100 pounds in a vehicle can reduce gasoline mileage by up to two percent.”

2. Make sure your tires are properly inflated–that can improve gas mileage by 3.3 percent.

3. Don’t get stuck in traffic, so don’t leave on Friday at 5:00 p.m. if you can help it. “Speeding, acceleration and braking can lower gasoline mileage by 33 percent at highway speeds and 5 percent around town.”

4. Use the right kind of oil and don’t just get the cheapest kind at your next oil change. Use what your cars recommends.

5. Also, fill up with high quality gasoline. “High quality gas improves engine performance while driving. To help recognize what makes a certain gas high quality, look for fuel that is designated with the TOP TIER Detergent Gasoline Standard. This will help you avoid problems that can be associated with using lower-quality gasoline.”

Do what you can to make the experience at the pump less painful and your vacation more enjoyable.  To read the entire article from Autoguide.com click here.

Spring is always a busy time of year around these parts. The Glacier Outdoor Center shop  is bustling, the seasonal employees start begging for hours and there is an overall feeling of waking up after a long, cold winter!  The sun is out, up for later in the day and we play outside more.  I love this place!

We aren’t the only ones awaking from a sleepy winter–the local wildlife have made their presence known too! Here are a few shots of some wildlife some GOC employees have snapped around the shop and West Glacier. Aren’t we lucky to live here? Come and check out these wild animals for yourself this summer with a visit to Glacier Outdoor Center and Glacier National Park. See you soon!

After a winter (and an ENTIRE spring) of powder days and headlines about La Nina here in Northwest Montana, we are ready for fun summer days on our rafts or along the shore with fly rod in hand. But snow that piles up must melt and flow down.  Reports show that the snowpack water content levels for the Flathead River basin are currently 200% of average. That’s some heavy H20!  We’re so excited to have plenty of water for a full summer of river adventures, including whitewater river rafting, fly fishing, wilderness camping and scenic floating.

Our friends at Quadrocopter took an FRV Hexakopter out for some video flights following the snowmelt east from the Continental Divide. There are some amazing shots of the Flathead River’s Middle Fork and South Fork converging.

The video is just a taste of how beautiful this area is. Book your river trip today.