Reflections on Glacier National Park

Sunday July 24- 31

We began our visit on the west side of Glacier National Park. Our first glimpse of the glacier carved mountains brought a "WOW" from both of us. They don't call this Big Sky country for nothing.

Lake McDonald

The sharply carved mountains decorated with bits of brilliant white against the stark blue sky are amazing. When you toss in the many lakes, streams and rivers in the park, it's hard to imagine anything more beautiful.  Apparently a lot of other people think this is a great place to visit too, as we've never seen such crowds.  The visitor centers at Apgar and up on Logan Pass are so crowded people hover and circle the lot looking for a parking spot. 

Traveling Going-To-The-Sun Road

This road is an amazing engineering feat. Linking the east and west sides of the park, it is designed with only one switchback, it is supported in many places by beautiful stone work bridges and terracing.

We started our route on the west side, where the road parallels the river for a distance, then begins to climb.

Weeping Wall

Gradually winding its way up the mountains, in some places the paving of the narrow roadway runs clear up to the base of the stone walls, leaving no "shoulder" at all.

Along the way we encountered several of the historic "jammer buses." These bright red vans have been fully restored to their original glory by the Ford Motor Company. They were built in 1936-1939 by the White Motor Company. With retractable canvas tops they allow the riders to view the tops of the mountains, as well as all the side scenery.  The drivers dress in 1930's style clothing, and provide riders with narration as they tour the park. The fleet consists of something like 34 of these beauties. One was in a wreck many years ago and the remaining pieces are now on the wall of one of the restaurants near the lodge at McDonald Lake.

The sides of Going to the Sun Road are filled with wildflowers, rock formations, and views of the beautifully sculpted mountains. One section of the road, where the solid rock wall hugs the road, is called Weeping Wall, because water seeps, and in some places gushes from the layers and fissures in the stone.

Near Logan Pass we spotted a mountain goat, a big horn sheep, and a marmot.

The marmot was quite tame, and has probably been offered bits of food by other travelers as he kept looking hopefully at our truck. This was one of the very few opportunities we had to get off the road.

When we reached the visitor's center at Logan Pass there was not a parking space in sight, so we passed that up.

 Even the smaller pull-out below the center was packed, so no opportunity to photograph the mountain goat we potted.

We'd left the campground early, so we thought there'd be a chance to be ahead of the traffic, but it wasn't early enough!

Park rangers report this  year, system wide, is the highest visitor count they've ever had. They don't know if it's because it's the National Parks 100th anniversary or cheaper fuel, or something else. At any rate, it's good to see people out enjoying the parks, I just wish there weren't so many. . . Guess you could say I'm conflicted!

Logan Pass is where Going to the Sun Road crosses the Great Divide, elevation 6,646 ft. Truly an alpine environment, and this ram looked right at home leaping over the little stream and climbing the grassy slope, just across from the visitor center parking lot.

These sheep have become a problem for the park service as they congregate in the parking lot and on the highway and cause accidents. They've come up with a novel solution and are experimenting with it this summer.

We didn't get to meet her, but they've added a Bark Ranger to their staff. Her name is Gracie, and her job is to keep the sheep out of the parking lot.    

Bark Ranger Gracie
NPS photo

After several days on the west side we needed to regroup and get charged up, so on our way around the park to the east side we spent one night in nearby Columbia Falls RV park. Again, met a lot of nice folks. Pretty park, with gorgeous flowerbeds everywhere.  

We traveled highway 2 around the southern end of Glacier Park, stopping at a rest area on the Continental Divide. There are multiple monuments in the parking area, and while checking them out we met a couple on motorcycle, with a sidecar, from England. They had their equipment shipped over from England and are touring for 5 months. Sounds like fun!

Everywhere you look the mountains dominate the landscape, but on the east side there are also views of of rolling plains, and lower elevation hills. Large swaths of naked tree trunks stand like silver toothpicks reflecting the evening light. All are victims of the pine beetle.

In between the ghostly trees wildflowers and shrubs are filling in, creating food sources for bears and deer that weren't available when the forest was dense and dark. 

Our explorations on the east side took up up the eastern side and then west back toward the center of the park at Many Glaciers. This little area has some very interesting geology, and a beautiful lake. 

As the  name of this park suggests, these dramatic valleys were created by glacial action.

Those glaciers carved the valleys, and the bits of gravel and boulders they drug along as they moved, carved deep groves in the underlying stone. Uplifting made the mountains higher, and the valleys deeper, and then the glaciers faded away.

That was 15-30 million years ago. About 10 million years ago a few new glaciers formed, and they are now fading away too.

Waterfall at the Many Glacier bridge,
over Swift Current Creek

Much of the white we now see tucked up in the peaks is not glaciers, but snowfields. Glaciers move, and carve the rock below, snowfields don't move, we learned. That's the primary difference between the two.

There are more photos in the album, and you can click on any of these photos to see a larger version and page through all the photos there.