Day 75 - Glacier National Park's Going-to-the-Sun-Road

Going-to-the-Sun-Road

Crossing Glacier National Park from the east entrance at St. Mary to the west entrance near the community of West Glacier   the Going-to-the-Sun-Road is a scenic landmark.  It is the only road in the US with three designations: National Civil Engineering Landmark, National Register of Historic Places and a National Historic Landmark.

It is a paved 50-mile road, completed in 1930, that is narrow, steep and winding, but has numerous pullouts for viewing the scenery.  The last time we were here in July of 2007 the road was closed near the Logan Pass, so we entered from the west and then turned around and drove back.  

It was very hazy this morning from the wildfire smoke (but there are no fires in Glacier National Park).We were about 15 miles into the park this morning when we saw the destruction of previous fires in 2015 and 2017.

We drove the Going-to-the-Sun highway all the way to the west side of the park and back again which was 100 miles.  On the way going, we stopped at Logan’s Pass Visitor’s Center and hiked a beautiful, but strenuous, 5.75 mile hike.  For the first 1.2 miles of the hike there were lots of people hiking the trail, but from there down to the lake the crowd thinned out considerably.    

The first .5 miles of the hike was on a boardwalk, but had many steps that were too high to walk up easily. After that it changed to a stone and dirt path.  

These goats were up on the hill above where we were hiking.

Tom is walking down to the lake. Look carefully at the trail in front of him that goes all the way down to the lakes,still quite a distance away.

The view of the lake was beautiful, but it was a shame that it was such a smokey day.

Look who met on the way back up the trail!

More hazy sights while driving the Road-to-the-Sun Highway

We are staying the Johnson’s of St. Mary Campground