Glacier 2016 Part 3 - Going to the Sun Road, East side waterfalls

Day 4 we left Fish Creek campground and moved over to the east side of the park.  The west side is forested with many mountains, the east side along the Going to the Sun Road is more prairie and flatter (not all of the east side is flat - just the bit we were camping at).  We packed up and started driving the road across the park - expecting to take most of the morning to do the 30 mile drive (there are a lot of opportunities to stop and take pictures).  As we got started, the morning was calm, so Lake MacDonald was reflecting the mountains beautifully.

The drive over the Going To The Sun Road is beautiful, showing different views of the valleys, small waterfalls, snow fields, and a view of Jackson Glacier on the descent.  Some pictures on the way:

The Big Bowl near Logan Pass

Valley on the East Side

Jackson Glacier

St. Mary Lake

Logan Pass was our preferred break point for lunch, and maybe a hike - but the parking lot was full so we proceeded past.  Again, we chose to just head for the campground and eat lunch there.  We had reservations in St. Mary campground, on the no-generator loop.  Again we found that the picture on Recreation.gov was misleading - finding that the tent pad would just fit out tent, but that there were a lot of exposed roots in the area we would be sleeping.  This took a little creative arrangement to get people positioned between the roots, so everybody would be fairly comfortable.  We also had a conflict between the screen room over the picnic table and the fire pit again, but left the screen room over the picnic table in this site.

After lunch we walked over to the St. Mary visitor center (about 1/4 mile away) and took the shuttle up to the Sunrift Gorge trailhead.  The gorge is a point where a creek comes down to St. Mary Lake, passing under the road, and has a deep, narrow gorge that it flows through near the road, along with some  waterfalls.  From this trailhead a trail goes down to the lakeshore, with a stop at Baring falls near the lake.

Sunrift Gorge

Baring Falls

St. Mary Lake

The trail then went along the lake shore to the west end of the lake, then crossed to follow the creek to another set of falls - St. Mary's falls.  The trail along the lake passed through an area that had a fire the previous year, so lots of burned trees, and not much shade.  It was interesting to see how much undergrowth had come in - grass and flowers were filling in everywhere.  We saw two bucks in this stretch feeding on the grasses among the burned trees.

We returned to the road after St. Mary's falls and returned to camp and dinner.  Along the way the bus driver stopped along a meadow where a number of other cars were stopped - apparently there was a grizzly in the meadow, though we didn't see anything.

In the evening we went to another campground for a presentation by Jack Gladstone, a member of the Blackfeet tribe and singer, who told some of the history of the area in song.  Returning from that I took a few pictures of the nearby mountains in the setting sun.