This road is only open three months each year, as it is covered with snow the other nine months. It was an engineering feat to design a road through these steep mountains in the 1920's. The road is literally hanging onto the side of the mountain.
It's hard to believe that the faint line running horizontal along that mountain face is a highway that transports thousands of national park visitors every day. In fact, we heard that July broke an attendance record with over one million visitors in just one month. Most of them were on the Going to the Sun Road at some point in their visit. In fact, it felt like most of them were on this narrow little road on the same day we were driving it.
The views from the road are absolutely stunning at day break!
It's impossible to grasp the grandeur of this scene as the new light of day is barely touching the top peaks. It will be more than an hour before the sun will rise high enough to see into the river bed 3,000 feet below.
The Going to the Sun Road is famous for its steep climb up to the peak of 6646 feet. Bicycles are banned from riding here during the busiest hours during the middle of the day. But we saw several make that crazy-hard climb early this morning.
It was fun to recognize some of those crazy bicyclers as actors from the play we had seen in Whitefish a couple days earlier. Part of a group called the "Agile Rascals," we have now seen evidence that they are not only good actors, but also very hardy bicyclists. They were smiling as they pedaled up that impossible incline with their bikes loaded with their stage props. They smiled even bigger when we shouted words of encouragement and told them that we had enjoyed their performance in Whitefish. We recognized those wooden boards on the back of his bike as the stilts from the tall bird costume.
We are surprised by the number of other eager hikers on the road, as we were up at 5:30 this morning. But we had heard that the most popular trail head for the most popular hike in the park will be full by around 8:00 in the morning. As evidence to the massive size of this national park, it's a 1.5 hour trip for us to get to Logan Pass this morning. We were glad to snag one of those coveted parking spots by 7:30. Who knew that vacationing was so intensely competitive?
We noticed a group forming at the edge of the parking lot this morning. They were taking pictures of the herd of big horn sheep that were grazing on the slope in front of us.
This is our closest look at these beautiful animals, with their heavy curled horns.
What a great start to a morning in Glacier National Park!
We are starting this hike at the highest point of the road inside the park. This is also the continental divide, so we are hiking at the top of the mountains.
This trail was literally carved out of the side of the mountain. It's not for the faint of heart, as there is a 100-foot sheer rock drop-off beside our left feet as we hike. You can barely see Denisa in the middle of that rock face, hoping she doesn't trip.
The trail has a handrail on the rock side, giving something to grasp for those that are terrified of heights. We are hiking a hundred feet above the cars speeding beneath us on the Going to the Sun Road.
Denisa is also excited to see that at 6,600 feet in elevation, we are high enough that alpine flowers are still blooming in August! It's good to see so many pretty flowers in one place.
When she finds pretty flowers, she is legally bound to put them on the blog. (At least that's what she told Mark so he wouldn't hassle her for so many flower pictures.)
There will also be too many random pictures of beautiful landscapes as we make our way across this awesome trail.
We can look down to the highway far below us now, but a camera just can't capture the grandeur of this scene. We have wandered into another of God's wonders!
Much of our hike will take us along "The Garden Wall." Again we have a narrow walkway with a craggly rock wall beside us.
But always, we have majestic mountain views in both directions.
We started the morning wearing jackets. But the climbs up and down the rolling landscape have warmed us up. Denisa is walking through more of those beautiful purple flowers, and we can finally see our destination of the day. There is a break in the rock wall ahead that will give us a special view point. Until then, we plod on.
After 3.5 miles, we found ourselves at the saddle between two mountains. This is a turn-around point for people looking for a very nice 7 mile hike.
This is also a good place to spot mountain goats on the rocky slopes around us. We zoomed in to convince ourselves those white dots in the distance were actually mountain goats. There were close to 100 of them sprinkled over the mountain, moving effortlessly among the steep rocks.
On the ground, we are entertained by the Columbia ground squirrels that have figured out this is a good place for hikers to drop food when they eat a snack. We're going to limit ourselves to just one ground squirrel picture, but we saw hundreds of these guys running through the grass beside our trail today.
We headed onward through the rolling hills characteristic of this trail, enjoying the changing landscape of mountains. We are also surprised at the number of people on the trail with us. This is the most popular long hike in the park, so we aren't worried about sighting a bear with all this traffic.
The smoke from wild fires north and south of us is making the views hazy here in Glacier National Park. We're already thinking we want to come back another time to see these mountains in crystal clear definition.
The good news is that the flowers on the trail are crystal clear. The bright red paintbrushes are bright among the rocks. (Remember Denisa is legally obligated . . . )
After seven miles of hiking, we had to make a decision. Do we head steeply downhill to finish this 12-mile hike? or do we head steeply uphill to get a view of Grinnell glacier, making this a much longer hike? Of course we had to made the decision to go up, and up, and up. But the pay-off at the top was looking out over one of the famous glaciers of Glacier National Park.
As we surveyed the beautiful scene before us, we saw movement in the sky. We looked up just in time to see a juvenile bald eagle swoop over our heads. Another blessing has been heaped upon us!
We loved the views of the ice from above, as well as the beautiful blue glacial lake beside it. You can barely see Denisa on the right edge of the picture below. She is perched on the ridge of the mountain, where we ate our picnic lunch. We could look in one direction down to the glacier, or the other direction down the very steep trail that brought us here.
If we zoom into the glacier lake, we can see the floating chunks of ice on the water that are as big as a barge. The green-topped hill beside the lake is covered by a web of trails that lead right up to the water's edge.
Zoomed in, we see the shore of the lake is lined with fuzzy hikers seeing the glacier from a different angle.
After lunch, we hiked to the tallest point right above the glacier. That gave us a view of the chain of lakes down the valley towards the eastern side of the park.
We stayed on the top of the mountain for over an hour. Since it was 1:00 when we arrived at the summit, it was almost 2:30 when we left. We worked hard to get here today, so we're including one more view of Grinnell Glacier from the top. What a spectacular place to be today!
Just as the trail to the glacier was painfully steep up, it was also painfully steep to get down. There was plenty of time to stop to take flower pictures on the way up and down this rugged section. Taking pictures gives you an excuse to rest and catch your breath.
We slid our way back to the intersection and another decision point. We could either go 4.8 miles onward to the end of the loop trail, or 6.8 miles back the way we had come. We had heard that the 4.8 was a grueling downhill through a burned section of forest. Then we would have to wait in a long line for a seat on a shuttle up the mountain back to our car at the summit. We loved the views and rolling hills we had experienced this morning, so we pointed our hiking shoes back the way they had come. Cue another flower picture to celebrate our decision.
Since it's already late afternoon, we didn't see as many hikers on this long stretch as we did this morning. The smoke from the Montana wild fires has also flowed in, making the views hazier this afternoon. Obviously, most hikers start this trail early in the morning. That's a good plan, since we have already been on the trail for 8 hours by this time.
There are more flowers and more views from the opposite direction on the way home. We are seeing whole mountain-sides filled with the tall bare stems of bear grass. It usually blooms in July, so these are spent stems.
We found one small group of this ornamental white grass, still filled with the giant white blooms. This would be an amazing sight earlier in the summer when the white bear grass stems fill the mountainside with their blooms.
But in August we still have a good bit of pink and purple blooms to make Denisa happy (and to fulfill her legal obligation).
We pass again by Haystack, and we can still watch through our binoculars the antics of the big mountain goat herd on the side of the mountain. But further down the trail we spot a couple of old gentlemen closer to us on a ledge above the trail.
After the lines of hikers from this morning, this trail looks barren this afternoon. At times, the trail is empty in front of us as far as we can see. And we can see a very long ways up here.
We were still 3.5 miles away from the car when it started sprinkling on us. There isn't much protection from the rain on this wide-open trail. But we would hate to complain about rain when Montana is so dry. They could certainly use some good rain to help control the forest fires around us. But the sprinkle was short-lived, and we got more lightning than rain. We learned that it is that dry lightning that often starts forest fires. (This seems like a good place for another picture, so Denisa has an excuse to insert another of the many flower pictures she took today.)
As much as we loved it, we were sure looking forward to being finished with this hike. Our feet were tired, and the up-hill stretches are feeling even more up-hill. Denisa's Garmin showed that we had walked 19 miles by this time. That's when we rounded a curve, and saw this mountain goat right beside the trail.
She was a beautiful white female. She's lost her ragged winter coat, and looks slick and well fed.
We were delighted to see that she also had a baby nearby.
It was just the shot of cuteness we needed to give us the energy to make it up the last steep section of the trail. It was sprinkling harder now, but we know that Denisa will stand out in the rain to take pictures of cute kids. When the sprinkling changed to rain, we had more incentive to hurry back to the car.
We did pause long enough for Mark to take this picture of Denisa on the trail, with the winding Going to the Sun Road far below.
By the time we got to the car in the parking lot, the Garmin showed we had gone 19.96 miles. We'll round that up to say it was a 20 mile hike today. The rain really came down as Mark drove the treacherous downhill section of the Going to the Sun Road towards home.
We would love to say that the entire valley had been soaked, but it was just a little local rain today. We'll pray that the mountain sections of Montana that have been plagued with fire this summer will soon enjoy some rain.
By the time we made the 1.5 hour trip back to the motor home, our tired muscles had stiffened and we weren't sure if we could make it up the six steps into the motor home. We left home at 6:00 a.m., and we didn't return until 9:00 p.m. It's hard to get much sympathy from our friends that are still working back home, but that's a long and tiring day. Tomorrow is definitely a rest day as we let our muscles recover from the blessings of another great hike.
When she finds pretty flowers, she is legally bound to put them on the blog. (At least that's what she told Mark so he wouldn't hassle her for so many flower pictures.)
There will also be too many random pictures of beautiful landscapes as we make our way across this awesome trail.
Much of our hike will take us along "The Garden Wall." Again we have a narrow walkway with a craggly rock wall beside us.
But always, we have majestic mountain views in both directions.
We started the morning wearing jackets. But the climbs up and down the rolling landscape have warmed us up. Denisa is walking through more of those beautiful purple flowers, and we can finally see our destination of the day. There is a break in the rock wall ahead that will give us a special view point. Until then, we plod on.
After 3.5 miles, we found ourselves at the saddle between two mountains. This is a turn-around point for people looking for a very nice 7 mile hike.
This is also a good place to spot mountain goats on the rocky slopes around us. We zoomed in to convince ourselves those white dots in the distance were actually mountain goats. There were close to 100 of them sprinkled over the mountain, moving effortlessly among the steep rocks.
On the ground, we are entertained by the Columbia ground squirrels that have figured out this is a good place for hikers to drop food when they eat a snack. We're going to limit ourselves to just one ground squirrel picture, but we saw hundreds of these guys running through the grass beside our trail today.
We headed onward through the rolling hills characteristic of this trail, enjoying the changing landscape of mountains. We are also surprised at the number of people on the trail with us. This is the most popular long hike in the park, so we aren't worried about sighting a bear with all this traffic.
The smoke from wild fires north and south of us is making the views hazy here in Glacier National Park. We're already thinking we want to come back another time to see these mountains in crystal clear definition.
The good news is that the flowers on the trail are crystal clear. The bright red paintbrushes are bright among the rocks. (Remember Denisa is legally obligated . . . )
After seven miles of hiking, we had to make a decision. Do we head steeply downhill to finish this 12-mile hike? or do we head steeply uphill to get a view of Grinnell glacier, making this a much longer hike? Of course we had to made the decision to go up, and up, and up. But the pay-off at the top was looking out over one of the famous glaciers of Glacier National Park.
As we surveyed the beautiful scene before us, we saw movement in the sky. We looked up just in time to see a juvenile bald eagle swoop over our heads. Another blessing has been heaped upon us!
We loved the views of the ice from above, as well as the beautiful blue glacial lake beside it. You can barely see Denisa on the right edge of the picture below. She is perched on the ridge of the mountain, where we ate our picnic lunch. We could look in one direction down to the glacier, or the other direction down the very steep trail that brought us here.
If we zoom into the glacier lake, we can see the floating chunks of ice on the water that are as big as a barge. The green-topped hill beside the lake is covered by a web of trails that lead right up to the water's edge.
Zoomed in, we see the shore of the lake is lined with fuzzy hikers seeing the glacier from a different angle.
After lunch, we hiked to the tallest point right above the glacier. That gave us a view of the chain of lakes down the valley towards the eastern side of the park.
We stayed on the top of the mountain for over an hour. Since it was 1:00 when we arrived at the summit, it was almost 2:30 when we left. We worked hard to get here today, so we're including one more view of Grinnell Glacier from the top. What a spectacular place to be today!
Just as the trail to the glacier was painfully steep up, it was also painfully steep to get down. There was plenty of time to stop to take flower pictures on the way up and down this rugged section. Taking pictures gives you an excuse to rest and catch your breath.
We slid our way back to the intersection and another decision point. We could either go 4.8 miles onward to the end of the loop trail, or 6.8 miles back the way we had come. We had heard that the 4.8 was a grueling downhill through a burned section of forest. Then we would have to wait in a long line for a seat on a shuttle up the mountain back to our car at the summit. We loved the views and rolling hills we had experienced this morning, so we pointed our hiking shoes back the way they had come. Cue another flower picture to celebrate our decision.
Since it's already late afternoon, we didn't see as many hikers on this long stretch as we did this morning. The smoke from the Montana wild fires has also flowed in, making the views hazier this afternoon. Obviously, most hikers start this trail early in the morning. That's a good plan, since we have already been on the trail for 8 hours by this time.
There are more flowers and more views from the opposite direction on the way home. We are seeing whole mountain-sides filled with the tall bare stems of bear grass. It usually blooms in July, so these are spent stems.
We found one small group of this ornamental white grass, still filled with the giant white blooms. This would be an amazing sight earlier in the summer when the white bear grass stems fill the mountainside with their blooms.
But in August we still have a good bit of pink and purple blooms to make Denisa happy (and to fulfill her legal obligation).
We pass again by Haystack, and we can still watch through our binoculars the antics of the big mountain goat herd on the side of the mountain. But further down the trail we spot a couple of old gentlemen closer to us on a ledge above the trail.
After the lines of hikers from this morning, this trail looks barren this afternoon. At times, the trail is empty in front of us as far as we can see. And we can see a very long ways up here.
We were still 3.5 miles away from the car when it started sprinkling on us. There isn't much protection from the rain on this wide-open trail. But we would hate to complain about rain when Montana is so dry. They could certainly use some good rain to help control the forest fires around us. But the sprinkle was short-lived, and we got more lightning than rain. We learned that it is that dry lightning that often starts forest fires. (This seems like a good place for another picture, so Denisa has an excuse to insert another of the many flower pictures she took today.)
As much as we loved it, we were sure looking forward to being finished with this hike. Our feet were tired, and the up-hill stretches are feeling even more up-hill. Denisa's Garmin showed that we had walked 19 miles by this time. That's when we rounded a curve, and saw this mountain goat right beside the trail.
She was a beautiful white female. She's lost her ragged winter coat, and looks slick and well fed.
We were delighted to see that she also had a baby nearby.
It was just the shot of cuteness we needed to give us the energy to make it up the last steep section of the trail. It was sprinkling harder now, but we know that Denisa will stand out in the rain to take pictures of cute kids. When the sprinkling changed to rain, we had more incentive to hurry back to the car.
We did pause long enough for Mark to take this picture of Denisa on the trail, with the winding Going to the Sun Road far below.
By the time we got to the car in the parking lot, the Garmin showed we had gone 19.96 miles. We'll round that up to say it was a 20 mile hike today. The rain really came down as Mark drove the treacherous downhill section of the Going to the Sun Road towards home.
We would love to say that the entire valley had been soaked, but it was just a little local rain today. We'll pray that the mountain sections of Montana that have been plagued with fire this summer will soon enjoy some rain.
By the time we made the 1.5 hour trip back to the motor home, our tired muscles had stiffened and we weren't sure if we could make it up the six steps into the motor home. We left home at 6:00 a.m., and we didn't return until 9:00 p.m. It's hard to get much sympathy from our friends that are still working back home, but that's a long and tiring day. Tomorrow is definitely a rest day as we let our muscles recover from the blessings of another great hike.
We did the all the way down hike but holy smokes you two lit up the trails today!
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