Crown of the Continent

April 16, 2014 at 8:00 am · Filed under montana, tourism, travel, U.S. travel and tagged: going to the sun road, montana glacier national park, travel writing

By Linda Tancs

Its crowning achievement is the preservation of more than a million acres of forests, alpine meadows, lakes, peaks and glacial-carved valleys, 70 species of mammals and over 270 species of birds.  That’s reason enough why Montana’s Glacier National Park is aptly dubbed the Crown of the Continent.  Named for its prominent glacier-carved terrain and remnant glaciers descended from the ice ages, it’s nearly four times the size of rival Rocky Mountain National Park.  Take a ride on Going-to-the-Sun Road, a 50-mile drive through the park’s interior offering some of the best sights in northwest Montana.  Glacier is also a hiker’s paradise, offering 700 miles of trails, like the shutterbug-friendly Logan Pass.  Better act soon; some scientists predict that by the year 2030, Glacier National Park will not contain any glaciers.  In fact, the park has only 25 glaciers now, down from 150 in the 1800s.

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