WEST GLACIER - This November, officials at Glacier National Park are giving thanks for a stimulus windfall totaling more than $45 million - but even that "incredible amount of money" won't get all the jobs done.

That park management can invest tens of millions and still not see the bottom of the deferred maintenance hole is testament to just how deeply underfunded yearly budgets have been.

"Our deferred maintenance backlog is estimated at more than $171 million," said park spokeswoman Amy Vanderbilt. That includes the remainder of an ongoing and multimillion-dollar reconstruction of the famed Going-to-the-Sun Road.

The road already was scheduled for major repairs in 2010, with crews set to tackle a high-elevation section above Big Bend. Money for that work was set aside as part of a previous $50 million reconstruction allocation.

Funding for the next phase - from Logan Pass to Siyeh Bend - was uncertain, at least until $27.6 million was channeled to the job through the national economic stimulus program.

"It was hugely welcome," Vanderbilt said. "We had projects ready to go, so it was a perfect fit, and a really big step forward for the project."

In addition to the road work, Glacier received $15.6 million in stimulus money to help repair the historic - and aging - Many Glacier Hotel. That work is scheduled to begin next fall, after the tourist season, and will include major overhauls of electrical, plumbing and structural systems.

The Many Glacier money, Vanderbilt said, comes atop $8.5 million already earmarked for the ongoing hotel rebuild.

Another $2 million of stimulus is being pumped into the park's trails, campgrounds, bridges, boardwalks, employee housing, fire halls and public restrooms, with possible additional investments in heating and water systems.

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How many jobs might be created by the stimulus funds spent in Glacier remains unknown, because many of the projects have not been put out to bid yet. But nationwide, she said, the Park Service received about $750 million in direct stimulus.

"Much of this is deferred maintenance that would otherwise not have been funded at all," Vanderbilt said. "We're incredibly grateful and fortunate to have this infusion - there's such an incredible backlog, both at Glacier and at all the other national parks. Historically, there just hasn't been enough money to go around."

In fact, that parks backlog has been estimated at about $6 billion nationwide by the National Parks Conservation Association.

Vanderbilt said Glacier had so much maintenance backlogged, "it was no problem finding shovel-ready projects for stimulus funding."

"We are making some progress," said Will Hammerquist, who serves Glacier for the National Parks Conservation Association. "This stimulus funding shows a real commitment to progress and reinvestment in the parks."

But, he added, national park infrastructure continues to face "tremendous challenges."

His group is pushing hard for a proposed expansion of the Service America program, bringing service worker numbers from 75,000 to 250,000.

Aimed primarily at young people, the program is not unlike the old Civilian Conservation Corps, which helped build the nation's park infrastructure during the Great Depression.

Hammerquist would like to see at least 10,000 Service America participants on the job in parks, "addressing the critical maintenance backlogs while putting people to work."

Vanderbilt said her park would have no problem finding work for many more, what with Glacier's 358 historic buildings, "most of which have received no attention at all for many years."

Several projects that have slipped through the cracks for years have been picked up recently by private partners to the park - nonprofits Vanderbilt said can "make the impossible possible. Today, we have to find lots of different ways to meet the challenges."

By combining those many ways - and adding a generous dose of stimulus - "we're starting to see some real results," Hammerquist said, "for a park that's so vital to our regional economy."

Reporter Michael Jamison can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at mjamison@missoulian.com.