The eastern side of Glacier

We wanted to see the eastern side of Glacier so we got up early Wednesday morning hoping to beat some of the crowds on Going to the Sun Road.

I was also hoping for a little less haze so that maybe some of my mountain pictures would be a little better but it was hazy early in the morning too.

Here is a picture of the cars behind us after we made it further up the pass to give you another perspective of Going to the Sun Road.

 

 

After crossing the Continental Divide at Logan's Pass, we headed down the eastern side of the mountains.

 

 

We stopped at a pull-off where we could see Jackson Glacier.

The glaciers are disappearing.  The visitors today only see about 25% of the ice that existed in 1850 and they are projected to be all gone by 2030.  :(

 

We soon approached St. Mary's Lake...

...which was as blue and clear and beautiful as Lake McDonald on the west side.

 

 

We continued to the St. Mary's entrance on the eastern side of the park,

 

headed north on Hwy 89 on the outside of the park, and then turned back west to drive into the Many Glacier entrance of the park.  We drove by Lake Sherburne and could see Grinnell Glacier in the background.

 

The layers of rock on the mountains and hillsides occasionally have red tinted layers.

 

The gorgeous wildflowers were everywhere....

 

...giving a nice accent to those big mountains behind.

(Note:  you REALLY need to double-click on the pictures to enlarge them at least occasionally.  I know my posts can get long sometimes; so just click on the pictures and enjoy God's creation.  They are a great stress-reliever!)

The hotel at Many Glacier looks like it belongs in Switzerland...

 

 

and has a great view of the mountains....

 

...and Swiftcurrent Lake.

 

We thought about taking a hike around Swiftcurrent Lake but I couldn't find the trailhead and we still were wanting to drive to Two Medicine also.  So we left Many Glacier...

...and headed  back south on Hwy 89 to Two Medicine.  Most of this drive is through the Blackfeet Indian Reservation.

We could still see the mountains in Glacier now to the west of us.

The drive toward Two Medicine which was beautiful as well.

We had a picnic lunch by lake near Two Medicine Lake.

We were determined to get a hike in sometime today even if it was a short one.  We stopped at the Running Eagle Falls Nature Trail that was named after a highly honored female Indian warrior of the Pikuni tribe called Running Eagle.

The nature trail was a very easy trail...

that ran by the creek coming out from the waterfalls.

The bark on this old cottonwood tree is very thick.

Within a short walk, we could see Running Eagle Falls.

Running Eagle Falls is also called Trick Falls and as we got closer we could understand why.

There were waterfalls flowing over the top; but there was also water falling down below through a cave-like crack in the rock.

After getting back to the car, we decided to travel along Hwy 2 around the southern end of the park rather than go back across Going to the Sun Road because we thought it would be just as fast (or faster) and it would give us a chance to see more new stuff.

Now the mountains were to the north of us.

The Amtrak rail line that runs coast-to-coast across the northern part of the US travels along the southern end of Glacier.

We also noticed several National Forest campgrounds along Hwy 2 on our way back to San-Suz-Ed RV Park where we were staying. 

By the end of the day, we had driven around 225 miles but had been able to see most of the eastern side of Glacier National Park. 

 

View East Glacier day trip in a larger map