Glacier National Park, Montana

July 2025

Glacier National Park is the northern part of Rocky Mountains extending to Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, Canada. We had only one day to explore this park and was able to explore only the Going-to-the-sun road. We did this in July 2025.

Going-to-the-Sun Road is a stunning 50-mile scenic drive in Glacier National Park, featuring massive mountains on one side, cliffs on the other, curvy road taking in the beauty of snowcapped and lush green mountains, crazy number of waterfalls, tunnels and lot of hikes —a true must-do experience. From June through September, timed-entry vehicle reservations are required for the west side of the road between 7:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. Since we couldn’t secure a reservation, we drove from the east (St. Mary entrance) to the west in the morning and returned from west to east in the evening.

The sightseeing tour bus in this park is Red in color and stands out stunningly in the green mountains background.

For booking the time vehicle entry, please visit

Below are the major scenic stops on Going-to-the-Sun Road from west to east. As we did it the other way round, my pictures and writeups will be starting from the bottom of this list

  • Mile 2: Lake Macdonald
  • Mile 12: Macdonald falls and Scared Dancing Cascade short hike– further Johns Lake loop short hike (6 miles)
  • Mile 13.5: Sacred Dancing cascade viewpoint
  • Mile 16: Trail of cedars (short loop hike – 1.4 miles) and avalanche lake trail (4.6 miles)
  • Mile 23: West tunnel – stop at nearby pullout after tunnel.
  • Mile 24: The loop and heavens peak viewpoint
  • Mile 27: Bird women falls and Haystack falls (we drive above it) – pull out right before the falls and right after the falls
  • Mile 29: Weeping falls right on the road
  • Mile 30: Big bend
  • Mile 30: viewpoint for Triple arches
  • Mile 32: Logan pass visitor center; Hike Highline trail to Hidden Lake viewpoint
  • Mile 33: Lunch creek
  • Mile 34: East tunnel
  • Mile 35: Sieyh Bend
  • Mile 39: St. Mary’s falls trail and Virginia falls (short hike – 3.6 miles)/ Jackson Glacier overlook
  • Mile 43: Wild goose island lookout

St Mary’s Entrance

St Mary’s Lake

Short video of the St Mary’s lake area

Wild Goose island

A tiny island in the middle of St Mary’s lake

Jackson Glacier overlook

This stop is also the trail head for St. Mary Falls, Virginia Falls and Deadwood Falls. We didnt do any hike here due to time limitations.

Sieyh Bend

A must-do iconic viewpoint

The striking red tour bus crossing the Siyeh Bend
The red tour bus standing out in the lush green background

Siyeh Pass Trail

Right at the Siyeh bend there is a hike called Siyeh Pass Trail. We did only a little bit of that trail just to spend some time beside the Siyeh creek, a perfect picnic spot.

Random view point before East Tunnel

This was a perfect stop to take in the beauty of the mountains. This spot is soon after Siyeh bend and before the East tunnel. We can see the East tunnel from this spot.

Logan pass seen from this viewpoint

East Tunnel

spot the east tunnel

Short video of Siyeh bend to logan pass :

Logan Pass

Logan pass is right after East tunnel and Lunch creek. We didn’t stop at lunch creek. There are many hikes from lunch creek. Logan Pass has a visitor center and some great hikes too. My chosen hike for this day was Hidden Lake overlook starting from logan pass. Parking lot in logan pass was full, so we ended up parking at roadside pull out between logan pass and lunch creek.

We were lucky to see some wildlife at the visitor center as well as on the hike

Hidden lake lookout hike

Starting from Logan Pass visitor center, it’s a beautiful, well built, heavily trafficked trail. There was snow on the majority of this trail and some people came with their skis 😀. We also saw a lot of wildlife : Mountain goat, Big horn sheep, Mule deer

Start of the hike

The mountain goats on the trail

A small pond on the trail
The Hidden lake
The big horn sheep

Short video of Hidden lake lookout hike :

The big horn sheep

Random viewpoints of the valley

You can see the road on the side of the mountain

Triple arches and Big bend

This was tricky to find, and we found it only on the drive back (west to east)

Big bend area

Weeping wall

Haystack falls

Short video of the Haystack falls

The Loop

It’s a sharp curve that change the road direction by 180 degree.

West Tunnel

Red Rock point

After this point we started our drive back to east entrance