Glacier National Park 2021: God’s Autumnal Extravaganza! Day Three

Day 3: Wednesday, 9/29/2021:

The best time to snap photos from the Wild Goose Island overlook, my favorite place in Glacier National Park, is early in the morning. With the sun setting in the west, the light is not good for evening shots. With sunrise slated for somewhere around 7:30 AM we hit the road, at 7:12. We saw one elk on our drive to the overlook, from the St. Mary/East Glacier KOA. It is a little over fifteen minutes, or 7.7 miles inside the park from the St. Mary entrance to the Going-to-the-Sun Highway. On the whole, we did not see much wildlife during out brief trip to the Crown of the Continent. A bear one day, black bear at that, and this elk is all I remember spotting during our travels.

Unfortunately, the weather did not play nice. As is often the case, it was very windy at the overlook, and cloud cover farther up the valley obstructed the view of Gunsight and Fusillade Mountains, so we quickly pressed on toward Chief Mountain. Even views of the “Grand March of Mountains,” Red Eagle, Mahtotopa, Little Chief, Dusty Star and Citadel Mountains, along the south, or left, side of St. Mary Lake were obstructed.

Returning to St. Mary, we made a brief stop at the St. Mary River bridge parking area, which is located a short distance inside the park, just past the entrance station. From the parking lot there were good views of aspens at the base of Singleshot Mountain, St. Mary River (foreground), and peaks part of the way up St. Mary Valley. These peaks received a fresh dusting of snow the previous night. I even walked out onto the bridge and took a few shots from that vantage point.

After a quick stop at the KOA to get some coffee, we headed north to Chief Mountain. The tripmeter was reading 127.1 when we left the campground. Doug noted that the aspen stands on the far shore of Lower St. Mary Lake were extensively carpeted and in peak color condition. We got our first glimpse of Chief Mountain just before reaching the waypoint known as Babb, Montana. According to the tripmeter this was 8.8 miles from the previous reading.

Babb, which is just nine and a half miles from the St. Mary KOA, is the gateway to the Many Glacier area of Glacier National Park. On this journey, however, the “Switzerland of North America” as this region is called, was not open. The park closed the road on the 15^th of September for on-going road construction.

The road to Chief Mountain (Montana State Route 17), however, is just 4.3 miles north of Babb, and that is where we were headed. The sun finally came out, and we had blue skies with a little broken cloud cover for the rest of the day.

The tripmeter read 147.0 as we turned left onto Montana State Route 17, otherwise known as Chief Mountain Road. As we gained altitude, some aspens have already begun to drop their foliage, but the color was superb. As Doug noted, “Whether it is a backlighting effect or not, many aspens that border portions of this road exhibit a Tennessee orange hue that contrasts magnificently with the dark green of adjacent conifers.”

There was a pullout just a little over one mile from the junction with US-89.The tripmeter read 148.1 when we reached this stopping point on the right side of MT-17. From this position, there were “exceptional views of the ‘narrow crest and vertical east face of chief Mountain,’ though it was “not the best vantage point for fall-foliage photography of aspens at the base of chief Mountain.”

We came to the northeastern entrance of Glacier National Park via Chief Mountain Road after traveling an additional 3.7 miles. That makes it 15.1 miles from Babb to this entrance of Glacier National Park.

We came to the end of the road 3.4 miles later. The Chief Mountain Road is 14.1 miles from its start at US-89 to the Canadian border at the Chief Mountain port of entry, or as Google Maps calls it, the “Chief Mountain Border Station and Quarters.” There was a substantial parking area, with pit toilets, for the Belly River trailhead. Doug hiked this trail during the fall of 1978 over forty years ago. Since we had gotten an early start, the lot made a fine place to rest and eat our lunch before turning around and heading back to St. Mary. This last section did not offer particularly good fall-foliage viewing opportunities.

For those of you who want to get an early start in the park, The Belly River Trailhead, which starts from the border station parking lot, usually opens by mid-May as this area of the park is much lower. The elevation is just 5,329 feet at this point. While many other parts of the park do not open until mid-June and sometimes even July, this out-of-the-way piece of geography can give those who don’t want to deal with the traffic in the more traditional parts of the park another place to consider. Anyone interested in taking this trail, you might want to ask Doug about his adventures there.

The tripmeter was reading 155.2 at the Chief Mountain port of entry. It was around noon when we started back, retracing the 14.1 miles to US Highway 89. We didn’t notice it before, but there was a small pullout on the right, just before we exited the park. It identified Chief Mountain, along with its elevation 9,080 feet. This was at tripmeter reading 158.5.

We came to a pullout, on the right for eastbound travelers, a little over six miles from the Canadian border. It provides an excellent view of Chief Mountain, but the stands of aspens were not as nice as those we came to earlier

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We came to another pullout, this time on the left, in a little over three miles. Our tripmeter was showing 164.5 so we had driven 9.3 miles from the Canadian border. This was a larger pullout, a slightly elevated parking area, which we noticed on our trip out, but decided to wait until we returned. Much of the aspen stand across the road, which would have provided excellent foreground material for photographs of Chief Mountain, unfortunately, have already lost their leaves.

Another three miles brought us to a pullout which provides good views of Chief Mountain and decent foreground groves of aspens at its base This was 12.3 miles from the Canadian border. But it still wasn’t that perfect spot. That was yet to come. Just two tenths of a mile further we found the place that had alluded us on our westward drive. I’ll let Doug’s words take it from here: “Tripmeter reading: 167.7. A pullout on the right for eastbound travelers, located ca. 12.5 miles from the Canadian border, offers the MARQUIS vantage point for Chief Mountain fall-foliage photography. Perhaps 80-85% of aspen in this vast expanse are both at peak color and retain their foliage fully.”

The tripmeter was reading 169.9 miles when we reached the junction of MT-17 and US Highway 89. So, it was 2.2 miles from the start of the Chief Joseph Road to the pullout with the best views of fall color at Chief Joseph Mountain. The number 2.2 is one I will always remember

As we headed south, toward St. Mary, I was already planning a sunrise return to photograph this iconic mountain image the following morning. But for now, it was the Going-to-the-Sun Highway and another round of the great vistas from one of, if not, the best scenic drives in the United States of America.

There was a pullout, on the right, as we traveled south toward the St. Mary KOA, just south of Babb, tripmeter reading 175.1, that was an excellent vantage point for photography of peak-color aspens on the far shore of Lower St. Mary Lake. We did not stop, though, as the GTTS Highway was calling. Perhaps next time.

We made a brief stop, at the St. Mary KOA, for a bathroom break and a new round of fresh coffee before hitting the road with our second trip over the Going-to-the-Sun Highway in two days (actually it will be three trips when we turn around and return for the night). I would like to take the time to mention three exceptional KOA employees. Jennie, a Blackfeet Indian was the KOA clerk, who along with Katie, who wore a Colorado hat, were behind the desk. Mike, the maintenance man, also a Blackfeet native-American, was an older gentleman. When we had problems with one of the wall outlets in our cabin, he responded quickly and resolved the issue. The two ladies in the office were so pleasant and very helpful about local conditions.

With the odometer reading 175,323 miles, we have driven 672 miles since leaving our apartment in Billings. The tripmeter was showing 183.8 as we headed toward the sun, over the Going-to-the-Sun Road. It was somewhere after noon, but not too late, perhaps 12:30 PM.

It’s just a few minutes, 1.3 miles, from the St. Mary/East Glacier KOA Holiday to the entrance of the Going-to-the-Sun Highway, and in no time, we were driving westward. Now, I do love the Beartooth Highway, the 15.8 miles between the entrance to the Grand Teton National Park and the Snake River Overlook in the northwest corner of Wyoming, and the San Juan Skyway Scenic Byway, in particular the 23.4 miles known as “the Million Dollar Highway” between Silverton and Ouray, Colorado, is spectacular. But my favorite drive, anywhere in the world, is the Going-to-the-Sun Highway that traverses fifty of the most scenic miles, from east to west, through the heart of Glacier National Park.

Fifty-two-and-a-half miles later we pulled into a gas station at West Glacier to refuel and reset the tripmeter. It is what the traveler sees in that 50-plus miles that makes this journey so jaw-dropping.

After refueling, we turned around and, this time, traveled east over the Going-to-the-Sun Road. It was 2:34 PM when we hit the highway again. The first twenty-five miles is nothing special. It is that eight miles, from The Loop to Logan Pass, that is so exceptional. And on this day, it was even better, as the sun was out.

The tripmeter was reading 24.6 miles when we arrived at The Loop. As I have previously stated, this is a great stopping point as there are many parking spaces on both the lower and upper levels. And there are toilets, too. From the lower level, you have a great vantage point of Heaven’s Peak, an 8,986-foot peak As Doug said in his notes: “In general, the best destinations for viewing fall-foliage concentrations of aspens are on the east side of Glacier. For eastbound travelers on the Going-to-the-Sun Road, the segment from The Loop to Logan Pass (ca. 24.7-32.6 miles from West Glacier) is a distinct exception to that rule.”

Since I noted on yesterday’s post, September 28, 2021, that there were seventeen pullouts, all on the right side, as you traveled east across the Going-to-the-Sun Highway, I won’t rehash that information. I will just include a lot of new photographs. I will, however, include Doug’s notes of what we saw on this day. “Because of McDonald Valley’s geographical orientation, eastbound travelers, as they gain altitude, encounter increasingly expansive vistas that encompass the length of the valley and vast swaths of aspens that cascade down mountain slopes for hundreds of yards on either side of McDonald Creek. The grandeur of fall foliage visible from this highway segment is enhanced by the fact that, when one looks back to the west, the Going-to-the-Sun Road and McDonald Creek are, at some points, visible 2,500 feet below!”

The views along this stretch of the highway were much more impressive than yesterday’s as the sun was out, and there had been an overnight dusting of snow on the peaks. As Doug said, “There is sufficient sunlight to accentuate the brilliance of aspens at or near peak color and, yet the contrast between sunlight and shadow creates an interesting, but subtle, compositional contrast.”

About halfway through this stretch of  highway, with the tripmeter sitting on 27.5, just before reaching Haystack Creek, we came to a pullout with a sign that points to Bird Woman Falls. Doug pointed out that “the aspen stands that prominently accentuate the snow-dusted peaks to the immediate left and directly above Bird Woman Falls present an impressive composition.”

After returning to the St. Mary KOA at 5:43 PM, we wanted to take one last look at Chief Mountain and see what kind of sunset scenes I might get with my camera. Traveling 2.2 miles up Chief Mountain Road, MT-17, we parked at the “marquis” pull off until the sun had set. As Doug pointed out, the junction with Chief Mountain Road is located near mile marker 44 on US-89. I missed this when I was visiting with my Tennessee friends, Karen and Wayne, during our trip in July.