For our first full day in the park the plan was to drive the entire length of Going-To-The-Sun Road. You know what they say about the best laid plans, right? We got up pretty early and hit the road with the first stop being Logan Pass, which is the apex of this road. There is a visitor center and a whole lot of construction and port-o-potties there! Once you get past or around all of that, the view is magnificent and the hiking even more amazing!
This is a Columbian Ground Squirrel and they are all over the place up there and around the park. As you can imagine they are losing their fear of humans so I was able to get pretty close. They are super cute!
If you walk to the far left of the Logan Pass parking lot as you enter there is a very low wall and a drop off and this incredible view!! 
This is another shot from the left side of the parking lot. This picture does not nearly depict the vastness of this view - it just goes on and on! Logan Pass was instantly a favorite stop for us during our trip!
So we went hiking (see below) and when we came back, there was a Mountain Goat chilling out in the shade of the pine trees behind the visitor center. Naturally I b-lined up there and started firing away!!
I guess he wanted to cool off because he got up and meandered to the snow (there was quire a bit from which to choose - more about that in a later post!).
Despite the gathering crowd, he just sat down and caught some rays!
One of my favorite things about Mountain Goats is that they always seem to be smiling!!
He then kicked his leg out in front of him and really got comfortable.
You should have heard all the cameras firing (including mine)! One of the things I was determined to shoot was a Mountain Goat I was super happy I was able to get this close to one!!After our initial poking around the visitor center at Logan Pass we learned that there is free shuttle service throughout the park, so we left the car at the pass (knowing the lot would fill up really fast) and took the shuttle to St. Mary's. Funny story about that, when we were waiting for the shuttle we met this 61 year old toothless mountain woman who was originally from New Hampshire and was carrying on her back over 50 lbs of hiking/camping gear which was her entire existence. She got on the but with us to St. Mary and she and I ended up in the gift shop together at the visitor center there. Suddenly, in the corner where she was standing a shelf gave way and kind of fell on her. So she comes walking back from that area coughing and eyes watering and I didn't really think anything of it. After a minute I start getting a weird itching in my throat and them my eyes start watering. It turns out that when the shelf fell a can of bear spray went off. When I say this stuff is powerful that is an understatement!! This stuff was so potent it cleared out the entire visitor center for over an hour!! She, I and several other people had to go to the restroom to flush out our eyes and mouth! Afterward, when I walked past the open doors, I got another wiff and it made me cough again!! It was really a bizarre experience.
After leaving St. Mary we took she shuttle back towards Logan Pass and got off at the Sunrift Gorge stop to do a little hiking. After checking out the gorge (see below), we took this trail (Sun Point?)towards St. Mary's Falls.
The lake to the left if St. Mary Lake, which is almost as big as Lake McDonald .
This is part of the Sunrift Gorge - it was kind of awkward and hazardous to shoot down here so this was as good as I could manage.
I do not recall the name of this waterfall, but there were people climbing all over it to get their pictures taken. This is really exceptionally stupid because the water is really cold and really fast and there is a lot of it. It is not surprising that the #1 cause of death in the park is drowning!
Stay tuned for more pictures and stories...
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