Glacier National Park, Part 2
Going to the Sun Road and Lake McDonald
After checking out of Many Glacier Hotel on Sunday, June 27, 2021, we got our only close grizzly bear sightings, but alas, poor photos.
We drove about 40 minutes south to the St. Mary Visitor Center where
the four of us got into one car to drive on the Going to the Sun Road. The park
instituted a reservation system for the Going to the Sun Road, and we had a ticket that allowed us entry today. The road is an engineering marvel. It annually opens in late June or early July after plowing and repairs are completed, and was not yet open on Thursday when we arrived at Many Glacier. But on Friday, the rangers told us the road had opened. Hurray! Along with Many Glacier, this was a highlight of the trip. The National Park is really spectacular. We drove as far as Logan Pass today (the parking lot was full but there were bighorn sheep) and the scenery was great.
Here are some photos from our drive to the pass.
We came back down and took a short walk at the Sun Point Nature Trail with its view of St Mary Lake.
After a picnic lunch at Rising Sun, we took a boat tour of St Mary Lake and stopped for a walk at Barring Falls.
We spent the night at the lodge in the very small town of St. Mary just outside the park to the east.
The next morning, Monday, June 28, 2021, we got up really early to see if we could get a parking space at Logan Pass (at the Continental Divide, elevation 6,646 feet/2,025 meters). We went through the entry gate at about 6:15 a.m., and there was no one to check our ticket. The parking lot at the pass was two-thirds full when we got up there, so we could have slept later! The hike we had planned on doing wasn’t passable, though, due to a lot of snow. But it was quite beautiful with yellow wildflowers in bloom.
After leaving Logan Pass, we saw more Going to the Sun Road sights going down to the Lake McDonald Lodge where we will stay for two nights.
This is Red Rock just before Lake McDonald.
The above map shows the Going to the Sun Road from St. Mary to Lake McDonald and shows many of the stops we made. We took boat trips on both Saint Mary Lake to the right and Lake McDonald, partly shown to the left. Many Glacier, where we stayed for three nights, is just off the top of the map, but Lake Josephine and Grinnell Lake are both shown.
After reaching Lake McDonald, we drove down to the Apgar Visitor Center (only the bookstore was open) and then back to our lodge for a picnic lunch. In the afternoon, we took a boat tour on Lake McDonald from our hotel, Lake McDonald Lodge. We have now taken three of the four boat tours offered in the park.
From our boat tour of Lake McDonald, you could see scars from the 2015 wildfire.
On Tuesday, June 29, 2021, we woke up to what was predicted to be a really hot day, going to be 100F. So we thought better of hiking. We drove outside the park towards Essex on US 2 to the goat lick viewpoint. Here are the mountain goats we saw. They were lazy in the heat.
Then we drove about an hour to the cute town of Whitefish, Montana. We took a gondola up the side of a mountain, about 2,000 feet higher, where it was cooler. We ate lunch and had a tasty ice cream in Whitefish before returning to Lake McDonald.
Having tired of lodge “take out”, we had dinner that evening at the restaurant in the historic Belton Chalet (West Glacier).
That marked the end of six nights spent in and around Glacier National Park. We enjoyed it immensely. Tomorrow, we start our trip home, which will take us four nights and five days.
