We set off Monday at 8:30 AM to get in line for the 9:00 opening of the Going to the Sun Road on the St. Mary side … just up the road from our campground. We could see a lot of the fire damage on the road around the Rising Sun area. We were not allowed to make any stops until we arrived at Logan Pass because of the fire damage.

We were glad we set out early because we were able to snag a parking spot at Logan Pass. We then took the hike up to Hidden Lake. It was a lot longer and steeper than I remembered so I really got my exercise this morning!

The wildflowers along the path were spectacular. Once we got to Hidden Lake we could see a lot of fog rolling in over the lake valley but we were able to get some good photos of most of the lake before the fog came across. Later on the other end of the lake cleared so Jim could get some good shots of that end.

 

We also saw about 10 mountain goats in that area and were able to take some photos and video of them.

Then is was back down the trail back to the Logan Pass Visitor Center - a little easier on the way back. We saw a whole heard of big horn sheep moving along a trail up on the mountain at the Visitor Center.

We set off again across the Going to the Sun road with a few turn offs … a great one with an awesome view for our lunch stop.

We didn’t make a lot of stops because the mountains were very hazy and we were thinking if would work better to come back in the morning.

We stopped at the Lake McDonald Lodge and walked around a bit and then stopped in West Glacier to see if we could stay the night on the West side of the park and then have more time to make the trip back. The only Motel option in West Glacier didn’t look really promising so I called ahead and reserved a room in Kalispell (about 30 miles out of the park) and we headed over there. We wanted to have more opportunity to recharge devices and download and manage photos.