Travel: Going-to-the-Sun-Road

Going-to-the-Sun-Road was a highlight on our recent trip to Glacier National Park. So beautiful.

My dad knows I love to travel and over the years my stocking has been known to have a travel book or two. They live in the bathroom and often wander out to the kitchen counter to show Bryce where we should travel to next. While we were travelling in Southeast Asia I mentioned that I wanted to go camping this summer and I thought Glacier National Park would be a great spot – not too hot and national parks are quite beautiful. Once home, I grabbed my book, 501 Must-See Natural Wonders and flipped the pages to see if Glacier was listed. Yup – it’s listed! Not only that, but it states that Going-to-the-Sun-Road is known as the most beautiful road in all of North America. What!? Seriously? Well, once I found that out we were practically on our way.

Going-to-the-Sun-Road

The Alberta/Montana border is about 5 hours from our front door and the park is only about 20 minutes past that – easy for a one day trip. We spent 3 days and 2 nights at Glacier National Park and this is our trip on Going-to-the-Sun-Road.

My first suggestions is to visit the National Park website and see the road conditions. Avalanches are common and the road isn’t always open end to end. On our trip it was only open 13.5 miles from the east side. Just enough to see Jackson Glacier from the road and still quite beautiful, yet one day I’ll want to travel the whole road.

You can see below how the road got its name. The road took 11 years to build and was finished in 1932 – oh, and the road is only 52 miles.

Jackson Glacier from the road. Lily’s quite impressed, too.

The glaciers are impressive, but they won’t be here for long. There are two displays – one in the visitor’s centre which suggests that all the glaciers in the park will be gone by 2020 and then the sign below which states they will be gone by 2030. Either way, you’ll need to visit soon if you want to see them.

The beautiful blue skies. The rain just cleared and the sun came out to kiss the mountains. So pretty.

Another family shot – some of these are so funny – trying to get Lily to look at the camera is an experience all in itself. She is so loved.

Going-to-the-Sun-Road is a must for any true natural wonder traveller, or any traveller for that matter. Visit soon and if you’re that close, feel free to visit us, too!