The top of the world! That’s where we felt we were in this day that was truly a highlight of our trip.We began the day in Great Falls, Montana and ended it 237 miles later in Kalispell, Montana. And in between was perhaps the most spectacular of all of America’s national parks.
Before entering the park that was on our agenda for the day, we viewed some of its mountains from a valley filled with a meadow teaming with life. We also saw up close the damage done by a recent fire.
We entered Glacier National Park at its eastern entrance near St. Mary, Montana. After stopping at the Visitor Center there, we headed west on the famous Going-To-The-Sun Highway.
This highway is a monument to human invention. Considering it was laid out and built in the late 1920s and early 1930s, it is a wonder it could even be built. A two-lane wide ledge had to be blasted out of the sides of the mountains, graded and paved. Adequate drainage had to be planned and installed. And all of this in an area that is covered in eight feet of snow each year for nine or ten months of each year.
But a greater wonder from a far greater Creator than man are the mountains themselves. Sheer walls of rock plant their feet firmly in forests of pine trees and stick their snowy heads up into the sky. Only God could create scenes like these.
Two large glacier lakes lie along side Going-To-The-Sun highway. The first we encountered was St. Mary Lake. We found a quiet picnic area to enjoy our lunch, then walked a few feet down to the shore of the lake.
Tiny Wild Goose Island sits in the middle of St. Mary Lake, its smallness providing a sharp contrast to the huge backdrop of mountains.
One of the highlights of the day, and perhaps one I wish my honesty did not compel me to relate, occurred 6,646 feet above sea level, at Logan Pass. We were on the Continental Divide at this point as we parked in the Visitor Center parking lot.
A friend of Linda’s who had recently made her own trip to Glacier told Linda to be sure to take the trail at Logan Pass. She said it offered spectacular views and that we would probably see lots of wildlife from it.
Okay. I enjoy hiking and Linda and I have hiked in many places over the forty years we have been husband and wife. So I thought little of setting out on the trail, camera in hand.
Five days beyond the middle day of July, snow still managed an obvious presence in the scenes that lay before us as we set out, with many other visitors, on the trail that led straight out from the Visitor Center. The early part of the trail was easy, given that it ran first on a paved walkway and then on a wooden boardwalk past alpine meadows that seemed in sharp contrast to the white that lay ahead in our path.
I began to be a little apprehensive. Even though I was raised in Michigan where snow is not uncommon, I had never mastered the art of walking down a snow-covered slope. Walking up was a challenge to me, but walking down was more than a challenge. It was an accident waiting to happen.
We crossed two or three snow patches, then decided that at our ages, it was probably not prudent to proceed further on a snow-covered trail that was going higher and higher up the side of a mountain. In spite of the advice from Linda’s friend, we decided to turn around and return to the area at the Visitor Center.
But there was one fairly long patch of snow lying on the downward slope of our path between us and the Visitor Center. We set out across it, Linda in front and me following and many other walkers nearby. I stepped carefully, but the downward slope and the slippery snow beneath me caused me to tumble forwards, bringing Linda down with me into the snow. Unhurt, except for my pride, I held the camera high to protect it during the fall.
Remind me not to walk downslope in snow again.
But there were pleasant things to compensate for my slip in the snow, things like bighorn sheep walking sure-footed on the very snow that was my downfall. And extraordinary views of giant slabs of rock sporting mantles of snow.
From Logan Pass we continued west on the Going-To- The-Sun-Road toward Big Bend where the road sweeps through a gentle curve alongside a spectacular valley which falls away from the road along the rock face known as the Garden Wall. Here we drove under cascading meltwater that tumbled onto the concrete and splashed over our car.
The Going-to-The-Sun road was undergoing some needed repairs and reconstruction, so we ran into orange barrels at several thousand feet above sea level on a narrow ledge that was blasted out of solid rock nearly eighty years ago. Even in the construction areas, however, there were spectacular views of the glaciers, the mountains that sported them and the valleys that lay peacefully at their feet.
Lake McDonald, the second of the two huge glacier lakes along the highway, provided a late afternoon end to our journey. Before leaving the park, we stopped at Apgar Village on the west end, and then on to our night’s lodging in Kalispell. Tomorrow we would face another milestone on our trip, but one with more impact on our emotions than on our senses.
Photo: Glacier National Park, Montana. Bighorn sheep at Logan Pass.
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