Following many months of extensive and often noisy renovation, the Polebridge Mercantile officially reopens on May 1st.
According to their Facebook page, the hours will be:
May: 7am-close (6ish during the week and 9ish on weekends)
June-August: 7am-10pm
September-November: 7am-close (6ish during the week and 9ish on weekends)
And even more good news, the Northern Lights Saloon and Cafe plans to reopen about four weeks later, on Memorial Day weekend.
Glacier National Park just announced a two-year project to study harlequin ducks, which are, it turns out, pretty interesting critters. Here’s the core of the press release . . .
Glacier National Park scientists in cooperation with researchers from the University of Montana, will initiate a two-year study of harlequin ducks on Upper McDonald Creek in late April…
Harlequin ducks, a species of concern in Montana, occupy a unique niche among waterfowl. These small sea ducks spend most of their lives feeding in the turbulent surf along the North American coast. Each April, the ducks migrate inland to breed and raise their young along fast-moving, freshwater streams. They are specially adapted to feed on stream bottoms in raging water, a place inaccessible to other wildlife species. Male harlequin ducks are very striking, being slate blue, with bold white, black, and chestnut markings.
The Daily Inter Lake has a good write-up on yesterday’s National Weather Service briefing on the growing flood potential in the Flathead and surrounding areas. Short version: We’ll almost certainly see flooding and it will likely persist into June . . .
As the big chill continues, the snowpack across Western Montana and particularly in the Flathead River Basin persists along with continued forecasts for high flood potential.
In a Thursday briefing, the National Weather Service in Missoula maintained and in some cases upgraded its high-water forecasts for Northwest Montana rivers and streams.
Hydrologist Ray Nickless emphasized that the problem is that there has been little snowmelt in a snowpack that has actually gotten deeper in some areas through the month of April.
According to this article posted late yesterday to the Missoulian’s web site, meteorologists continue to sound the alarm about the flood potential in Idaho and northwest Montana . . .
With no end in sight to western Montana’s unseasonably cool spring weather, the mountains are retaining a winter’s worth of heavy, water-loaded snowpack — and forecasters say more precipitation is on its way.
The delay to spring runoff can only forestall an inevitable flooding event, which meteorologists say is certain to hit all of western Montana and north-central Idaho. In the Flathead and Kootenai river basins, the flood season could be among the worst in recorded history.
Larry Wilson’s column this week reveals some tidbits about the early history of the North Fork Road . . .
This winter, I have spent more time in my Columbia Falls residence than up the North Fork. It has had some advantages. In town, I have a computer and have received a number of e-mails from North Fork landowners who reside in all corners of the U.S…
Four e-mails liked the columns about North Fork history and asked for more information about the Forest Service and the North Fork Road. As luck would have it, Lee Downes loaned me a Forest Service pamphlet prepared by Fred Burnell in 1980. The title is “History of Development of North Fork Road No. 210.” The following information came from the pamphlet.
The Great Falls Tribune reports on the latest developments in the Coalition to Protect the Rocky Mountain Front’s work on a proposal to provide protection for the Rocky Mountain Front . . .
Conservation groups dropped 28,937 acres in the Helena National Forest from a plan to better protect 300,000 acres in the Rocky Mountains…
The coalition’s plan to protect 275,300 acres in Lewis and Clark National Forest — 71,698 acres as wilderness and 203,602 acres as conservation management — remains in place.
An interesting retrospective on Ed Bangs, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wolf recovery coordinator for the northern Rockies, who will be retiring in June . . .
Ed Bangs, who for 23 years led the effort to reintroduce and recover healthy wolf populations in the northern Rocky Mountains, is retiring from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in June.
As the federal agency’s wolf recovery coordinator, Bangs was the face of the polarizing wolf reintroduction, conducting thousands of international, national, state and local interviews and holding hundreds of highly charged meetings, all to explain the effort as part of a massive public outreach effort.
At various times, depending on the stage of the reintroduction, he was heralded as a hero while simultaneously being denounced as a wolf lover or hater, depending on people’s perspective.
More warnings about possible flooding when this year’s massive snowpack starts melting off . . .
Local emergency response officials are urging residents of flood-prone areas to plan and prepare for potential flooding.
“Basically, what we’re telling people the best thing they can do to help responders is to be able to take care of themselves for 72 hours, to have a plan about what they will do in the event there is flooding that impacts their home or business,” said Cindy Mullaney, deputy director of the Flathead County Office of Emergency Services.
Based on well-above-average snowpack alone, the National Weather Service predicts most rivers and streams in Northwest Montana will approach or exceed flood stage.
There are some pretty impressive numbers here. It’s looking more and more like flooding will be a significant issue this spring . . .
Snow keeps piling up in Glacier National Park and in mountain ranges across Northwest Montana at a time when the snowpack usually is diminishing.
Recent storms have delivered 8 inches of new snow at West Glacier and up to 18 inches at higher elevations in the park, causing trouble for park plowing crews that spent part of this week clearing previously plowed roads.
Automated snow measuring sites in the park usually record a decrease in snow water content by mid-April, but they are instead recording increases.
From a recent email sent out by Janet Barwick, NRDC Montana Wildlife Advocate . . .
Senate Bill 414, the Montana Wolf Control Act, has been voted down in the Montana House. This bill would have made it legal to shoot wolves on private land, at any time, even without a hunting license, endangering the hard fought recovery of wolves in the Northern Rockies. It is highly unlikely that there will be a revision of this bill before the legislature recesses on April 30th, and unlikely that it will come up again in the special session slated for June.