Hidden Lake

Bearhat Mountain (8,689 feet or 2,648 m) overlooks a still frozen and snow-covered Hidden Lake. Logan Pass had only recently opened and the otherwise easy hike towards the lake resembled a small polar expedition.

Alpenglow on Pray Lake

Sinopah Mountain glowing red hot in this otherwise serene morning shot of Pray Lake in the Two Medicine area of Glacier National Park. You need to see it to believe it.

St. Mary Lake and Wild Goose Island

One of the iconic views of Glacier National Park in a virtuosic color display at sunrise.

Mary in the morning

Or rather St. Mary Lake in the golden morning glow.

Sunlit valley

Going-to-the-Sun Road

The scenic, 50 mile-long Going-to-the-Sun Road is the only road traversing Glacier National Park, east to west, crossing the Continental Divide at Logan Pass (6,646 feet or 2,026 m). A major engineering feat, it was completed in 1932. The low morning sun combined with threatening dark clouds gives this wildfire scarred area near St. Mary Lake a ghostly appearance.

Beargrass

Beargrass wildflowers were particularly conspicuous on these scarred slopes of Glacier in the St. Mary Lake area. A member of the lily family rather than a grass, beargrass blooms just a few days. Bears usually don't eat it but love to line their dens with the plant.

Black bear

Every now and then, in Glacier it's not bear grass you run into, but the bear.

Unstoppable

Baring Creek in Glacier National Park crashes through its riverbed in an unstoppable manner.

Beyond the bend

You never know what's beyond the curve in Glacier National Park.

St. Mary Lake

The cold and windy weather of this week in Glacier created some fantastic opportunities for photography. Who's complaining…. Preferable to any boring blue sky.

Storm clouds gather over Mount Oberlin

The Going-to-the-Sun Road resembled more the shortest-way-to-the-clouds and if there was anything predictable about the weather this week, it was that it would be changing all the time.

When it rains...

it really pours in Glacier. A field of wildflowers catch a bit of sunlight while the floodgates open up in the mountains. It wasn't long before I had to run for cover.

Bighorn

Bighorn rams are always ready to pose for a few shots along the Going-to-the-Sun road.

Twilight of the gods

Morning on Swiftcurrent Lake, when an infernal wind seems to heaten up the clouds and the top of Mount Grinnell.

The volcano

A wild play of winds and strong morning light gives Mount Grinnell on Swiftcurrent Lake a volcanic appearance.

Swiftcurrent Falls

Low morning light adds to the drama of the thundering Swiftcurrent Falls in the Many Glacier area.

Swiftcurrent Falls

A long exposure shot of the falls topped by Mount Grinnell.

All aboard!

“The Rubies of the Rockies”, the iconic red buses, have been transporting people through Glacier since the 1930s. Masterminded by Roe Emery and Walter White (no relation) and constructed by the White Motor Company, the 33-strong fleet is considered to be the oldest touring fleet of vehicles anywhere in the world. The oldest buses date from 1936. Banners of the USA, the Blackfeet Nation and Canada welcome visitors.

Chief Mountain

It's easy to understand why native Americans named this crag Chief Mountain. In effect, standing 2,769 m tall at the border of the Glacier National Park and the Blackfeet Indian reservation, this is one of the most spiritually charged landmarks for the Blackfeet. We all love to visit and admire the National Parks of the American West, yet these beauties also wear the scars of this never resolved conflict between the American preservationist ideal and an ancient way of life that was either dismissed or ignored.