Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
by the turn of the 20th century it had become a tourist destination; visitors arrived by train
and ventured into the park on horseback, on foot, or by boat. In 1910 the railroad started
building hotels, lodges, and chalets to further entice visitors. There were few roads at the
time, and visitors spent days working their way through the mountains, spending nights in
different hotels and chalets. As the Great Northern Railway worked to attract visitors, Ge-
orge Bird Grinnell, a journalist who had first come west to cover the plight of the Blackfeet
and who also founded the first Audubon Society, worked arduously to see this magnificent
area achieve national park status, and in 1910 President Taft made Glacier the nation's 10th
national park.
With the railroad, tourist facilities, and national park status, Glacier did attract a fair
number of visitors, and soon there was demand for road access into the park. The Going-to-
the-Sun Road, a 50-mile highway across the Continental Divide that runs from West Glaci-
er to St. Mary, was completed in 1932 after years of treacherous surveying and more than
a decade of construction. The road is an impressive engineering feat, now designated a Na-
tional Historic Landmark, and offers visitors breathtaking (or stomach-churning, depending
upon your tolerance of heights) views of the park. With the addition of the road, the num-
ber of visitors to the park skyrocketed, and the experience shifted. Now people were able
to spend less than a day driving through the park as one of many stops on a cross-country
car trip. Although fewer in number, rugged adventurers remained committed to seeing the
park—on foot, on horseback, and by boat—over the course of several days or weeks.
In 1932, as a gesture of goodwill between the United States and Canada, the park was
joined with Canada's Waterton Lakes National Park to become Waterton-Glacier Interna-
tional Peace Park.
Depending on the amount of time you have to spend in Montana, Glacier National Park
could easily absorb all of it, but often it is a spectacular route to get from one side of the
Continental Divide to the other, in which case some sights take priority.
The 50-mile
Going-to-the-Sun Road
is one of the most spectacular drives you will ever
take and the best way to get an overview of the park if your time is limited. The breathtak-
ing vistas provide a marvelous sense of the geography, and the park's history comes alive
for those who stop to notice the architecture of the road itself. The drive will likely take
at least two hours, not accounting for construction, traffic, or weather-related delays, but
if time permits even just an extra hour, there are plenty of turnouts and hiking opportunit-
ies along the way.
Hidden Lake Overlook
is a wonderful three-mile round-trip hike from
