GLACIER NATIONAL PARK, MONT. — The late July storm broke over the valley like a wave over the prow of a ship. Hikers, emerging from the forest, dashed across stretches of lawn as lightning cut across the darkening sky. Couples in canoes awkwardly zigzagged their way toward the dock as thunder rumbled overhead.
In front of the Many Glacier Hotel, picnickers packed up their lunch and scurried toward the first open door. Only a boy remained, shirtless and thigh-deep in the shallows of the icy-cold lake, shattered now by the brisk tattoo of rain.
Inside, a hastily built fire gained strength and filled the lobby with the scent of burning pine. Wet shoes and socks lined the hearth, and in time, not an empty sofa or chair could be found.
"Look how big it is, Daddy." A girl opened her palm to reveal a handful of hail, which was now bounding off the deck.
A man in his mid-40s shared a Hershey bar with his ponytailed daughter. A young girl fell into the pages of her novel. Someone pushed a trash can beneath a leaking skylight, and over by the piano one guest stood, violin poised, and began to play "Music of the Night," accompaniment for the din of strangers and friends that suddenly filled the room.
The rain and hail lasted two hours that Monday afternoon, but no one seemed bothered. At the Many Glacier Hotel, where storms and bears and rugged expanses of mountainous beauty abound, the communal experience is a welcome, if temporary, respite from the call of the wild.
My wife, Margie, and I stayed here last summer during a 10-day trip to Glacier National Park. We planned to divide our time on the eastern side of the park in a district known as Many Glacier and at the Prince of Wales Hotel in the Canadian township of Waterton. I had initially come here to tell the story of a Southern California man who was returning to the park after being attacked the previous summer by a grizzly on one of its trails.
Confident that encounters like his are the exception, I extended our stay to sample a vacationer's summer experience of Glacier and in the process discovered that the park is a glorious combination of the raw and the cooked, the wild and the civilized, a place where the hand of man is surprisingly at home in a world teeming with predators and untrammeled nature.
ALPINE APPEAL
OK, I admit it: I was beat. By the time I finished the 12-mile round-trip trek to Grinnell Glacier, my dogs were barking. It was my first full day in Many Glacier, and I was hiking with a group that included Johan Otter, the survivor of the bear attack.
