Glacier National Park St Mary’s Entrance.

Spent the weekend in Glacier National Park which earns its title Crown of the Continent. It is one of the most beautifully scenic places I have been too. I took a lot of photos I will have to do this in a couple of posts. Today’s post will focus on the main entrance at St. Mary’s which includes the Going to The Sun Road which runs over Logan’s Pass at 6600 feet and then descends at a 6% grade 14 miles down into the avalanche creek valley, Lake MacDonald, and the West Glacier entrance.

This shot is the early morning fog over Divide Mountain which is 8600 feet along Montana Hwy 89 that runs the Blackfeet Indian Nation.

The next few shots were taken at the visitor center at the St Mary’s Entrance to the Park:

Early morning is the best time to get to the park the early morning sun makes for dramatic scenery and you don’t have nearly the people and traffic that arrives by noon.

The next shot is of the mountains over St Mary’s Lake. It was near hear that I saw the grizzly bear. Sorry no pics of it he was in the road when I came around the corner and he ran off into the woods before I could the car stopped still it was exciting to see one!!

The next series is from a short hike in Sun Rift Gorge one of the prettiest places I have walked in a long time. A narrow little gorge with a stream going over one series of small falls one after another with spruce trees growing high all around you. Don’t rush your drive through the park pull over at as many of these scenic overlooks and walks as you can there is so much you can’t see from the road.

this is Lynch Creek another pull off on the way up to Logan Pass

The road up to Logan pass and down to West Glacier is an engineering marvel a narrow road carved right into the side of the cliff.

It also has some of the most stunning scenery of mountains, valleys, numerous waterfalls and of course the glaciers. Get out of the car and breath the clean air cool air coming off the glaciers and take lots of photos. These next ones are ones I took of a stream that runs down from the glacier and goes over a high waterfall way down in the valley below it is hard to appreciate the size of the water fall as it is 1500-2000 feet below where I am shooting from!

  

The next are some scenes from Logan Pass which has some great hiking trails the black and white shot is a shot I took hiking across a snow field on the Hidden Lake overlook trail. The second half of the trail was closed due to grizzly bear activity lol.

The rest of the shots are from the end of the Going To The Sun Road as you descend into West Glacier along Avalanche Creek and Lake MacDonald. There are literally dozens of waterfalls along the road and the forests of West Glacier are just beautiful dense spruce forests where the trees and rocks are all moss covered. There is also a shot of a mountain goat that I took at Goat Lick overlook on US Hwy 2 between East and West Glacier I included it with this section because mountain goats and big horn sheep are often seen on the road to Logan Pass. I think the turquoise color of the glacial water is amazing.

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