the absolute best way to enjoy eye-popping vistas on the Going to the Sun Road is to leave the driving to someone else. Glacier National Park has escorted guests aboard a fleet of 33 charming open air red buses since the 1930s, and the grinning faces and high held smartphones you see everywhere on these buses belies the absolute blast everyone is having. Early one morning, we drove the first 9 miles of Going to the Sun Road along the shores of Lake McDonald near the West Entrance to try and catch the sunrise. The vivid colors we’d hoped to see arrived in muted shades instead. We walked along the edge of the glassy lake in the early morning glow and strolled among the log cabins that surround historic Lake McDonald Lodge. The park was established in 1910, and by 1915 it housed a collection of lodges and chalets for tourists arriving from the eastern states on the Great Northern Railway. Tiny Apgar Village was settled earlier by homesteading farmers. When we stopped there the heavens put on a show. We watched storm clouds move across the lake from the end of a jetty. Distant mountain peaks were reflected in the water. Continuing the Going to the Sun Road, we were mesmerized by the U-shaped valleys stretching out to the distant mountains on either side of us. Enormous, rounded basins ground out by the gradual
Another view of gorgeous Lake McDonald
motion of massive glaciers scraping the land over millions of years rose to sharp peaks around us. High up at the 6,646-foot summit of Logan Pass, we hiked a short trail to Hidden Lake, where we suddenly came face to face with a mother mountain goat and her baby. Snow-white in color and sporting a goatee and a pair of long horns, the mama moved through the grass and bushes at a leisurely pace, her baby close behind, nibbling leaves as they went. To our delight, they ignored our quickly snapping camera shutters and seemed undisturbed by our presence. The 32- mile descent back to the West Entrance gave us endless changing views. St. Mary Entrance On the east side of Glacier National Park, the tiny hamlet of St. Mary Village is the eastern terminus of Going to the Sun Road. On a different trip, we ventured up the 18 miles of switchbacks from that entrance to Logan Pass. The air was heavy with mist, and wildflowers poked their lavender heads between the granite boulders in a lovely display. Again, we were struck by the obvious lines and powerful forces of glacial grinding that created the vast rounded valleys and basins between the mountains. Waterfall cascades flowed here and there, and a rich vivid shade of green blanketed the landscape between the jagged gray mountains.
Swiftcurrent Falls is classed as one of the major waterfalls in the Many Glacier areas of the park.
GLACIER NATIONAL PARK
COAST TO COAST MAGAZINE SUMMER 2025 | 25
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