Glacier National Park-East Side

On Thursday Aug 11, we pulled up stakes and headed for the east side of Glacier NP. The shortest route (45 miles) was over the Going-to-the-Sun road. But they limit the size of vehicles on the road to 21 feet long and 10 feet in height and our 51 feet (with towed) by 11 feet didn't quite fit. So we had to go out the west side of the park, pick up US 2 and head east to Browning Mt. As a side note, we have traversed US2 in all three of our trips around the US. It runs from Seattle Wa to Bar Harbor Me, and we have traveled most of it.
From Browning it was about 25 miles to St Mary Campground, our destination , for a total of about 120 miles. This is where the plains meet the mountains, in this case the Rockies. It is more arid on the east side of the mountains and the vegetation is more sparse. The vistas tend to be more sweeping since there is less to obstruct the view.
St Mary lake is beautiful, flanked by the glaciated Rockies. The Going-to-the-Sun road traverses the north side of St Mary Lake and ends in the town of St Mary, some 2 miles further.
The first photo is of Wild Goose Island, in upper St Mary Lake. The photo was taken from the Going-to-the-Sun road, looking west.
The second photo is of the Many Glacier Lodge, overlooking the Swiftwater lake. This lodge was built in the 1920s, as part of the railroad building in the area. This was the most beautiful part of the park, in our opinion. The views from the lodge include the lake with majestic snow covered mountains in the distance. To our non camping friends, this would be the place to stay. To our camping friends, the CG here had sites that were small, close together, and very shady under the trees. Of course, if the weather is hot, the shade would be an advantage. We have only had one really warm day since we have been camping in WA, ID, and Montana and have looked for sites in the sun.
The east side of the NP is not as busy or crowded as the west side. We stayed at the St Mary CG which has beautiful views of the mountains and is more open than the Rising Sun CG. The sites at the Rising Sun CG tended to be smaller, closer together and under the trees and is first come first served. St Mary is on reservation but there were sites available each day at least in the early to mid afternoon.
We drove the first half of the Sun Hwy from Apgar to Logan Pass on the west side and then drove the second half from St Mary up to Jackson Glacier on the east side after our move. The traffic is very congested on the west side with many stops for construction. It's an easy drive up the highway from the east side and only one construction stop. It would be a long 2 hr plus drive, one way, if you drove the road in one day. Many people use the free shuttle bus because parking is a problem. We are at the heighth of the season and we did see some long lines.

One of the most enjoyable things that we did was to take the boat ride on St Mary Lake. The third photo shows Pris on the "dock" to our tour boat, Little Chief, which was built in 1925.
St Mary Lake is a beautiful turquoise color, due to the glacial runoff, is surrounded by majestic mountains and has 5 glaciers feeding into it. Be sure to take the ranger lead hike to Baring and St Mary Falls that can be signed up for ahead of time and be part of the boat ride.