The best experience in the trip was driving “Going To The Sun road”. This road was completed in 1932 and goes over the continental divide at Logan pass. The road, 53 miles long, is a National Historic landmark and Historic Civil Engineering landmark.
The road is one of the most difficult roads in North America to snowplow in the spring. Up to 80 feet (24 m) of snow can lie on top of Logan Pass, and more just east of the pass where the deepest snowfield has long been referred to as Big Drift. The road takes about ten weeks to plow, even with equipment that can move 4000 tons of snow in an hour. The snowplow crew can clear as little as 500 feet (150 m) of the road per day. On the east side of the continental divide, there are few guardrails due to heavy snows and the resultant late winter avalanches that have repeatedly destroyed every protective barrier ever constructed. The road is generally open from early June to mid October, with its latest ever opening on 13 July (in 2011).
Lake McDonald is approximately 10 miles (16 km) long, and over a mile (1.6 km) wide and 472 feet (130 m) deep with a surface area of 6,823 acres (27.6 km²).
Views from both sides of the road
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