This was one of the most exciting days of our trip! We decided to take a helicopter tour of Glacier National Park and really get some amazing and unique shots. This was a real learning experience for me as well.
As a photographer I know that the best light is before 10:00 am or after about 4:00 pm so I thought that a 9:00 am tour would give me the best light. That might be true if I were on the ground, but it isn't true when you are housed in a glass bubble.
Unfortunately, a lot of my shots and angles were obstructed or obscured by oddly shaped reflections in the windows of the helicopter. Still, when the sun was at our backs I was able to get some pretty good images.
They asked for a volunteer to sit in the cockpit and my arm shot up like a rocket. I figured that would be the best place for shooting. I had forgotten that you could see through the floor to the ground. I thought I would be a little nervous, especially after being freaked out by the shuttle bus being so close to the edge of the cliff on Going-To-The-Sun Road, but I must have been so excited it overrode my terror! In fact, I thought it was really awesome and wasn't scared at all - I would do it again in a Chicago minute!!
This is us before we boarded and took off.
This is a view of the mountain range looking northwest .
I was intrigued by the amazing array of rock formations and the way the glaciers were cracked!
I think this is Gunsight Lake.
This is what Logan Pass looks like from the sky - you can see the parking lot and road in the lower right of the picture. The trail that goes off to the top left is the Hidden Lake trail which is usually not covered in so much snow. This is a good thing though because it will help rebuild the glaciers!
This was my view from the cockpit!! I still can't believe I wasn't terrified!
This is Hidden Lake - this is as close as I got to it on our entire trip. After seeing all the snow on that trail I realize without ice climbing boots there is no way I would have made it - too much potential to slide off a mountain!
Kind of looks like a volcano!
This is Lake McDonald from the sky - it is ginormous! All of that lighter green and brownish area is from a fire in 2003 which burned about 8% of the park!! You can also see a little reddish strip of trees to the bottom right which is evidence of a parasite that is descimating the trees in the park - similar to the Pine Bark Beetle damage in Yellowstone and the Tetons. Thanks global warming!
This is after we came back - we really wanted to go again. Next time we're taking the hour long tour!!
After the heli tour we drove to Two Medicine then up and over the Going-To-The-Sun road and made a pit stop here to scout out a good spot for a sunrise shoot of Wild Goose Island - one of the most photographed features in Glacier. More on that saga in a subsequent post!
On our way to Two Medicine we saw all of these possibly wild horses and stopped to take pictures. We did see a lot of wild horses when we were driving around on our trip. I wasn't sure if these were wild or not because there was a barbed wire fence where I was standing to take this picture but at the end of this road where it meets the highway there was no fence!! I would really like to imagine that they are wild.
Here is a mamma and her foal - so cute!!
This was another stop along the McDonald Creek - sooo many places to shoot along here!
This is McDonald Falls. 
This is Running Woman Falls. If you go, read the story about Running Woman, it is intersting but kind of sad.
This is the lake at Two Medicine.
Another shot of Wild Goose Island.
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