When driving the Going-To-The-Sun Road you want to head out early for great light and views without the crowds. The parking lot at Logan’s Pass fills up very early. If it’s full on your drive over in the morning, try to aim for 5pm or later on the way back over and you will probably be able to find a spot. Plan for a full day to explore the road as there are hikes all along the route as well as pull offs and some picnic spots near the bottom on the West side.
There are lots of pull offs along the road to stop and take in the views which we appreciated. The road is narrow and winding so you are not able to take trailers or vehicles that are wider than 8ft or longer than 21ft. If you have a truck where you can fold in mirrors you will find that at certain points you will have to fold them in when passing vehicles going in the other direction.
Once on the other side of the park our first stop was Sacred Dancing Cascade which is a pull off with a very short boardwalk/path to see the falls.
We took being on the West side of the park as an opportunity to stock up on a few grocery items and drove over to Kalispell as we knew we were going to be camping on the West side later in the week and would have time to explore this side of the park.
After a picnic lunch of grocery pick up we started making our way back up over Going-to-The-Sun Road. We had noted a few spots we wanted to stop on the drive over.
There are lots of waterfalls all along the road which are pretty neat to see. Note how low the barriers are along the road, which meant our oldest was too nervous to get out and look at some of the pull offs.
When we reached Logan’s Pass some of the parking spots were starting to open up so we lucked out. Since the sun doesn’t set until quite late we decided we would take the hike to Hidden Lake. This hike is for a large part a boardwalk and stairs to protect the surrounding landscape. The hike is 3 miles with an elevation gain of 500 feet. The trail is fully exposed so, this is best done early morning or early evening and make sure to have water with you.
Watch for mountain goats along this trail as this is their habitat and they will stroll right across the path. Make sure to give them as much room as possible when you see them coming as they are wild animals. We also saw California ground squirrels and a marmot.
Our youngest loved spotting all of the wildflowers along the trail.
This is a beautiful trail and the views are stunning the entire way. We couldn’t believe that we were here and that this was real.
When you reach Hidden Lake there is a viewing platform and this tends to be a busier spot on the trail. The trail continues on if you wish to do more hiking. When we were there, people coming from that portion of the trail warned of bears, so we decided that was as far as we would go.
Once we got back to the parking lot the visitor centre at Logan’s Pass was closing up. Being that it was getting fairly late it was time to keep heading back to our camp site.
At this time of the evening the road was much quieter. We lucked out and saw a black bear on the side of the road on our drive back down. As always, keep your distance and leave the animals alone. There was a family in a vehicle in front of us on the road that were harassing this bear. I pulled out my zoom lens and took this photo from a distance.
Being that it was quiet, it was a great time to stop at the Jackson Glacier pull off so the kids could see the shrinking glacier and get a sense of how quickly glaciers are disappearing.
We then headed home to get a good night’s sleep as we had planned to join a full day ranger led hike the next day. This campground is very open and does get quite windy in the afternoon, early evening. This area of the park sustained a forest fire in 2003 and as such there aren’t any big trees yet. Some of the sites appeared to be a bit more private that others. These are small pull through sites with no hook ups.
If you are visiting the park in June, it is best to check the road conditions to find out if Going-to-the-Sun rd has opened yet. The road typically opens late June and remains open until Thanksgiving, this however is all weather dependent.
Have you driven the Going-to-the-Sun road? If you have driven this road, what were your favourite stops or hikes?
Don’t forget to come back each week for more details of our trip.
If you missed the previous posts, you can find them here:
Day 1 – Getting our Bearings in St Mary’s
Day 2 – Waterfalls and a boat tour on the East side of the park
Day 4 – Full day ranger led hike to Iceberg Lake
Day 5 – Quiet day exploring the west side of the park
Day 6 – Ranger led hike to Avalanche Lake
Day 7 – Family fun at Whitefish Mountain
Day 8 – Hungry Horse Dam
Day 9 – Two Medicine Valley