We arrived in Kalispell, MT at around 1pm, picked up our rental and hit the open road for West Glacier where we would be staying all week, but not after a pitstop at the local grocery store to pick up some trail mix, snack bars and, of course, beef jerkey for the trails!
After getting settled in at the historic Belton Chalet, we decided to recon the Going-To-The-Sun-Road a little before the sun went down. The first part of this road follows the eastern coast of Lake McDonald, which is the largest lake in the park, measuring nearly 10 miles long and 400 feet at its deepest. After the lake, the road follows the McDonald Creek which is really more of a river if you ask me! The following pictures (due to my perpetual inability to load these right) are in reverse order, but I hope you enjoy them!!
In the upper right corner is one of the ubiquitous "Red Buses" that are a common sight in the park. They provide tours all over the entire park, but will cost you a hefty sum to partake in them! They look pretty cool though!
I was really fascinated by the rocks in the foreground here - they were sheered off and as flat as can be, looking like someone just stacked them up along the river's edge.
This was about as far up as we went that afternoon. This was one of the cooler places to stop as it was a lot more wide open than the other turnouts. By the way, if you are ever at Glacier, do take advantage of all the turnouts because there are hidden gems in all of them!!
For these last few shots I climbed out onto this gigantic rock in the middle of the river where the water was forced to turn. It was kind of dome-shaped and there was a bit of a wind at my back so I really had to be careful not to lose my balance and fall - the perfect shot is (much to John's shagrin) sometimes worth a little danger!
In this shot I loved the little patch of daisies along the river bank.
This was a seriously fast moving river - there is nothing creek-like about this, let me tell you!
Again, I loved the delicate little daisies clinging to the ground.
This is a shot from the southeastern shore of Lake McDonald with its iconic view of the mountains. 
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