Glacier National Park Sat 2nd Sept.

The Park is a very sad place today. There is a big fire in it's heartland and there is a smake pall everywhere. We arrived at the beginning of the "Going to the Sun Hway" at about 10-30am and collected our map and read the fire bulletin. The Sun Hway which cuts across the centre of the Park was open so we proceeded as planned. The scenery is obviously magnificent but the smoke everywhere blurred the outlines and sapped the colour. We stopped at lots of overlooks as it was only the main carpark at the top of the pass which was impossibly crowded. The road was constructed in the 1920's. It is narrow and constantly windng with precipitous drops to the river valley and must have been incredibly difficult to work on given the machinery of those times. There are still large ice sheets across many of the mountain tops so climate change hasn't done away wih the glaciers yet. I couldn't help wondering how they may have looked even 10 years ago. There is a wonderful swimming hole in the river where the hardy types were having a great time. We were tempted to try to eat our lunch by the river but there wasn't any conveniently level places. Instead we drove on to the picnic area beside Lake McDonald. This is a huge glacier gouged lake. We found a remarkably peaceful spot wih picnic table under the pine trees and went for a walk by the lake after we had eaten. On our way back we came across a ranger putting up a notice advising that all the camp grounds to the east of the

Lake are to be evacuated by midday tomorrow because of an expected dangerous wind change. We have accommodation booked for two nights to the west of the Park so checked in to the Visitor Centre to find out about walk trails that are safe to use on the west side of the Lake. We have a couple of good options so can spend the day exploring.
Note the blue water of the river which is crystal clear.

I have picked the snots which show the clearest pictures.

Camp ground near where we  had lunch.