What a Day! Beautiful Scenery and Wildlife!

Today was our last full day here in Columbia Falls just outside of Glacier NP.  What a great week it has been! Tomorrow we hit the road to Helena, MT, on the way to Yellowstone NP!  We packed it in while we were here for sure.  Did a good 35 miles of hiking and I must admit my feet are feeling it;)

The title of todays post refers to yesterday.  We left the park at 7:30am and did not return till 8:30.  We drove the Going To The Sun road in Glacier which extends the 50 mile width of the park at that point.  So I have pics all along the way.  I took well over 300 pics and it was not easy narrowing them down to 2 posts.  Yes, I'll have to do a part 2 tomorrow for this day!

Here are some morning views heading up to Logan Pass.  The dead trees you see in the pic below are from a forest fire 10 years ago.

The river in the canyon is McDonald Creek and as you can see the forest is thick and carpet like in this area.

 There are many waterfalls coming down the mountains and under the road.

 Still large areas of snow in higher altitudes, 7000 to 9000 ft

 Our first hike was not far past Logan Pass.  The St. Mary and Virginia falls.  Just awesome!  This is St. Mary Falls

 This falls did not have a name but was on the same trail....

 We reached Virginia Falls just as the sun was coming up behind it and I was scrambling to get some pics while the light was good!

 Another view of Virginia Falls from a bit further down the creek

 The next stop we made was to hike down to Baring Falls shown below

 Then we were back in the car for several miles driving past St. Mary Lake......

 Out of the park to the town of Babb where we turned back toward the park along Lake Sherburne

 And entered the Many Glacier entrance to the park.  After driving past that lake we came to Swift Current Lake is where the Swift Current Lodge is situated.

 This is a view from a hill in front of the lodge.

 A herd of big horn sheep look like they call the lodge their home......

 View across Swift Current Lake......

 From the lodge looking at the nearby hills we spotted a grizzly foraging for berries! Sorry I could not get a close pic, he was far away!

 The sheep were not concerned;)