Glacier N.P. - Going to the Sun Road & Logan Pass

Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Logan Pass, Montana, United States

Going-to-the-Sun Road, the road across Glacier National Park is arguably one of the most spectacular roads in America, right up there with the Beartooth Pass is southern Montana and Trail Ridge Road and the roads up Pikes Peak and Mount Evans in Colorado, one that goes significantly above timberline for very dramatic scenery. There’s something about Going-to-the-Sun Road that’s especially impressive, as it essentially goes up one side of a relatively narrow mountain ridge to a pass and down the other. The high passes in Colorado generally go over wider ranges. In Europe this is exactly the kind of thing they’d just blast a tunnel through. By some measures the sheer drops beside the road (especially when heading in an easterly direction as there is technically only one significant switchback the entire distance), are especially scary. On the other hand, while there are not metal guardrails, there are effectively stone guards along the cliff side of the road effectively creating one. The road is considered a marvel of engineering.

Bighorn Ram

The top of the road at Logan Pass is at an elevation of only 6,600 feet but seems much higher. On our 1988 visit we stopped at the Logan Pass Visitor Center, and I did a hike up to the Hidden Lake Overlook. I think I left my mom at the visitor center, but back then she was still able to fend for herself and entertain herself with the exhibits. The hike was memorable to me for suddenly coming face to face with a big mountain goat when I turned around at the top. Back then there didn’t seem to be the crowds there are nowadays. Now there’s a boardwalk much of the way up to keep people from wandering off trail and trampling on too much of the fragile alpine tundra. I’ve seen it described in guidebooks as being about as busy as Times Square.

I skipped the Hidden Lake Trail on my 2001 visit and instead hiked the Stunning Highline Trail that goes north along the Garden Wall from Logan Pass for about 12 miles before dropping down to Going to the Sun Road at “The Loop”. The short three mile round trip hike to the Hidden Lake overlook brings back memories of that trip with my mon in 1988.

View Toward Logan Pass from The Loop

It’s been 31 years now, and she passed away earlier this year. This time I saw plenty of mountain goats, and with all the wildlife I’ve seen since around the world, I have to admit they weren’t as big a thrill as the sole beauty I saw there back in 1988.

Being at Logan Pass also reminds me of my hike on the Highline trail in 2001, probably my most memorable hike in Glacier then. It is hard for me to believe that’s been 18 years ago already. As I like to say, time accelerates as you age. I think it relates somehow to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, but I’m not sure. I’m not smart enough to understand it.

That was in late August of 2001, probably less than two weeks before “September 11^th”, and for me a marked change in my perception of history from an era of relative optimism about the world to one of pessimism. I was reminded somewhat of the movie “The Sound of Music” by seeing the bellhops and other staff at the park hotels dressed in lederhosen uniforms. The movie opens with the titles of it being in the last “golden days” as set in Austria in 1937 just before the Anschluss with Germany and WWII. Maybe similar scenery and similar experience before a major transformative historical event, but that 2001 trip to Glacier, my last trip before travel and my perception of the world changed drastically, reminds me of the opening for the movie. The world and the country may have changed for the worse since, but 18 years later Glacier National Park is as beautiful and glorious as ever, even if the glaciers keep receding.