Today we drove the entire Going-To-The-Sun Road. We also visited Many Glaciers and Two Medicine, two different sections of Glacier National Park. We finally saw alpine glaciers, which are unlike the glaciers in Alaska. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate and it was quite a cloudy day, very windy at times, and the sun was on strike! And, on the east side of Logan's Pass, they are repaving the highway so many of the turnouts were closed, which makes returning here in the future a definite yes! But, we were able to see another part of this fabulous park and its surrounding areas that made for just one more fantastic day in Montana!
We set our alarm for 5:00 a.m. so we could get on the highway early to perhaps find some wildlife. It is suffice to say we must not have gotten up early enough! In our 11 hours on the highway we saw 2 deer and a few mountain goats! I think the wildlife has migrated to Yellowstone; unfortunately, we aren't headed that way!
Snow bridge - one of a few left in the park.
East side of Driving-To-The-Sun Road, which is quite different once you get past the construction on the highway!
How interesting that this block of icy snow still clings to the mountainside for dear life!
Jackson Glacier, so beautiful and the only visible glacier on Driving-To-The-Sun Road.
US Highway 89, on our way to Many Glaciers.
This is the only photo where the lake brags its beautiful turquoise colors! This is Lake Sherburne.
I love this stone face with the snowy eyes and teeth!
We did not buy bear spray @ $42.00 per bottle (non-refundable, which I found funny) and we left our bear bells in the RV! There are warnings everywhere in Glacier about bears and having bear spray on you while hiking the trails, especially the backcountry!
Swift Current Falls
We were heading towards to Two Medicine and the landscape had so many changes with open ranges, plains, and a few valleys and rolling hills.
So windy - about 30 mph sustained winds!
It was so windy, you can see the sign being blown!
An obvious sign that bears are in the area! I must say, I talked the entire trail, or coughed, or made some kind of noise. Thom said, "well, if we see a bear, I'll get a photo", to which I said, "here lies Thom and Bonnie Coste, but he got the shot"! So, there was lots of laughter sounds, too!
This waterfall is unlike what we have seen thus far, where the force of the water gushes through a cave in the rocks, not over the rocks! The water for the falls is supplied by the Two Medicine Lake.
Two Medicine Creek
The stones and rocks in the creek are so different with a variety of colors.
This is the lowest pass over the Continental Divide, in Montana.
Monument to Theodore Roosevelt (see below)
John Frank Stevens was an American engineer who built the Great Northern Railway in the United States and was chief engineer on the Panama Canal between 1905 and 1907.
You can see where the railroad passes through Marias Pass, which is a few miles down the road actually.
We saw this cavern and the beautiful colors on the mountainside that we made a quick left to check it out. Turns out this is an area of Glacier National Park, just outside the boundaries, that is called Goat Lick Overlook, which is an exposed riverbank where mountain goats and other animals come to lick the mineral-laden cliffs.
Mountain goats! There were two that we could see but there were a few more that others had seen. The goats were approximately a quarter mile on the other side of the river.
Until next blog ...
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