The best known attraction in Glacier National Park — besides the glaciers — is Going to the Sun Road. This road is a scenic 50-mile drive on a highway first built in the 1920’s to connect one side of the park to the other.
It was built in difficult terrain for a different generation of vehicle (read: narrower) so it is not an easy road to navigate. Add in the traffic, the road construction to restore the road, and at times the weather, and it becomes a challenging drive.
It’s also challenging for photography. There are very few vehicle pull-outs, none at the upper part of the road going over Logan Pass (the highest point), so it’s catch-as-you-can for photographs. It’s a practice in quick composition: Photographing out the window of a moving vehicle, between trees and other obstructions to get a good view. I love this photo of my sister and I with our cameras pointing out the truck windows. It just captures it all – the scenery, the road, the photography experience.
Landscape photography isn’t typically my “thing” anyway, but it was fun to see what I could capture. Here are a few of my favorites from our various trips over the road. We traveled it 4 times during our week-long visit to Glacier, so I had ample opportunity to practice.
I like how this image shows the road, the traffic and the dropoff. It gives you a sense of the experience.
The light and shadow on the mountainside caught my eye here.
We even captured wildlife on the move. This was the only mountain goat we saw during our visit. He just happened to turn his head and look as we drove by.
Capturing another sort of “wildlife” — tourists — was fun too. I love the way they are all photographing different directions out of the top of the bus. The buses were pulled over and stopped, but we were moving on the road across the valley.
This is my absolute favorite of the bunch! Maybe not a classic “landscape,” but I love the shades of green and the layers of the hills created by the haze in the atmosphere.
Photographing out of a moving vehicle is not as hard as you might think. You want a fast shutter speed to reduce motion blur and it works best if you don’t have elements very near to the vehicle, as that’s where most of the blur will come from. You get a lot of “throw-away” shots but with practice you can get some good images. Give it a try sometime!
Going to the Sun is an exciting road. We loved it as well. Once, we parked at a lower parking lot, then took the shuttle up to Logan Pass and hiked back (12 miles) along the hanging gardens (can’t remember whether that was really the name, that trail beginns right at Logan Pass). It was a looong hike, but beautiful with lots of wildlife sightings (bears, mountain goats, marmots) – it was simply gorgeous. I wish there would have been more pull outs along the road… Since I’m often the driver (I love challenging roads) there was no chance for me to take pictures out of the car… Your photos brought back wonderful memories. We also loved the less visited parts of the park, we camped in the middle of nowhere and could hear the wolves howl. It was an unforgettable experience. Thanks for the memories!
We loved the parts of the park that were less busy, too. We didn’t get into the back country but just getting off the beaten path of Going to the Sun road it was amazing the difference. What an awesome hike that must have been! So fun to hear about your experience.
You got some GREAT shots! I always have to remind myself to wash the car windows too – because sometimes you just have to shoot through the window!
Great tip Jamie!
Wow, what an amazing landscape. So gorgeous. I love the side view mirror photo. I’ll have to try it.
I like all your shots, Kat, but that last one is also my favorite. It’s simply breathtaking! Since I have lived in the Midwest and been surrounded by corn fields most of my life, any chance to see hills and mountains like this just has my mesmerized.
I’m glad you and your family could make the trip so that we could all enjoy your photos!!
I love that last one, too. It really gives a sense of the scale and grandeur of the place. The one reflecting both you and your sister shooting out the windows is another favorite.
Have been on this road many times and just love it! Aren’t those red buses great! They were remodeled by ??mercedes?? several years ago from the bottom up. A beautiful road with so much history. You should see photos of the snow plows clearing this road from the local newspaper called the Hungry Horse News. A truly awesome place with unsurpassed hiking opportunities
Out of the window shots are fun… you just have to make sure that you are not the driver , especially on this road! LOL