Going-to-the-Sun Road

One of the most photogenic spots on the highway. The tiny island is Wild Goose Island.

Going-to-the-Sun Road that carves its way through Glacier National Park in Montana is a bit of an engineering marvel. It also is a magical mystery ride that unfolds one vista more dramatic than the next when you travel its 50 miles.

We set out in our Honda (vehicles larger than 21 feet at not permitted on the road and you learn why very quickly). The road clings to a cliff wall, carved in the 1930s. There are rocky overhangs that jut out about 10 feet above your head. This is not a highway for the faint of heart. But those who go are rewarded well.

We wound our way up from the valley floor. At our first picture stop, however, Jo tripped on her handbag strap when she left the car. She cut her hand on the gravel quite deeply and skinned her knees as well as bruised and bled at her eyebrow. The hand wound was the deepest and dirtiest. Her handbag, however, seems to contain everything from coins to screw drivers to wet-wipes and bandages (go figure!). We got her cleaned up as well as could be done, and decided we would stop and talk to a Ranger at the Logan Pass Visitor's Center for some real first aid.

The journey begins with you looking up in awe at the spiking rocky peaks. Eventually, however, you are driving among them and, when you reach Logan Pass, you are halfway up the mountains at 6,646 feet. This is the Continental Divide. Now you can look across the valley far below and see the glaciers that are receding so rapidly in this part of the world that climatologists say all will be gone by 2030. So get your tickets now. This stuff will not last! During the last Ice Age, of course, there were glaciers here that were 5,000 feet thick with ice. Those days will not return until man has departed this planet, however.

The Ranger at Logan's Pass checked Jo out to understand why she had collapsed. He felt better when he determined the issue was klutziness and not related to an older person having a spell of some kind. He gave her an alcohol pad, neosporin and band-aids and we were on our way.

On the other side of the pass, you descend to a hairpin curve that sucks the air right out of your lungs. One moment you are virtually kissing a cliff face of sheer rock. They next you have reversed direction and you feel as though you are hanging out on the edge of a precipice – which you are! MacDonald Lake, at the bottom of the valley provided respite. Lots of people played in the cold water aboard canoes and rubber rafts. We lunched there and decided prudence dictated that we not reverse our journey on this remarkable road. We decided to drive around the southern edge of the park and out into Blackfeet Indian country.

Many of the neat homes have one or two tepees in the back yards. This would be where the young Indian kids sleep out in the summer months.

On our way south from Alberta on Friday, we passed a little town called “Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump”. We didn't drive the 20 kilometers to the town because we were trying hard to get across the border into Montana. But a check on the Internet showed this is a UNESCO world heritage site. This is where Blackfeet used to drive the buffalo over a cliff to their deaths in the days before the white man came and farmed the prairies and indiscriminately shot millions of buffalo for their hides from the window seats in trains crossing the prairie.