Glacier National Park

Lots of great scenery and waterfalls!

Avalanches areas where the snow has cleared a lot of the trees.

A little closer view.

The rock walls were close in places and the water runs off down the sides.

If you look closely at the photo you can see where the 2003 fire ended.

Lots of dead trees from the fire.

You can see the road that we traveled to get to Loop.

Bird Woman Falls.

 

Looking back the way we came, we could see the tunnel we had passed through.  It is 192 feet long, has two windows and was bored in 1926.

The distance shot of the previous falls.

Most of the guard rail wall was probably the rock wall created by the CCC.  This wood guard fence was something we hadn't seen before.

You can see the Going-to-the-Sun Road in this photo.

The Weeping Wall where water sprays the cars as they pass underneath.  Not so great for motorcycles in these 50° temperatures.  

We saw a lot of these circa 1936 buses on the route.  They had rolled back the fabric roof.  I bet that was a cold ride and not great where the water came down the mountains and dripped off the tunnel openings.

The trail at the Visitor Center became snowshoe only after a short distance.  This guy was putting his on.

The top of Going-to-the-Sun Road didn't open until three days before we got there so we expected to see lots of recently plowed snow on the sides of the road.  We didn't see that.  This snow has been pushed to the side for quite a while.  My guess is that they've been using the time between when it was cleared and the opening date to do road construction.

This ram was the only large animal we saw on the trip.  It posed on this snow bank for quite a while.   Just wished the camera would zoom in a little more.

 

This sign is a little worse for wear but it's still readable.

Jackson Glacier

We decided to take a walk to St. Mary Falls.

This is Beargrass, the unofficial symbol of Glacier National Park.  The plant survives for more than a dozen years before it produces its first flowers.   As the individual flowers begin to open, from bottom to top, the flower head elongates.  I'm bummed that it's a bit washed out and you can't see the individual blooms on it.

Our first view of where St Mary Falls ends.

Nolan crossing the bridge so we can get a great view of the falls.

 

All I can say is that it was awesome!

I can't believe I got spots on this, the only shot I got of the falls.

The water swirled under this rock so it hung over the water quite a ways.

Looking down stream.

Paintbrush

A different angle of the paintbrush plants.

There was a short section of path that was raised by surrounding the area with logs and filling it in with dirt.

 

Wild flowers. 

Sunrift Gorge is a narrow, water-carved gorge.

The road crosses over this creek

St. Mary Lake was beautiful.

Wild Goose Island is very interesting looking with the trees on it.

There were lots of waterfalls but I zoomed in on these from the proceeding photo.

Prime mountain goat habitat.

The sun was shining on these rocks and the slate was so many beautiful colors.

Heading back up over Logan Pass.

West side of Logan Pass.  Sure was a lot sunnier on the east side.

Portions of Going-to-the-Sun Road were built in avalanche areas and was very narrow.

Some of the narrow road.

Going under the falls at the Weeping Wall wasn't as wet as I thought it would be.