Red Bus Tour
10 / 10
On our final day in Glacier, we climbed aboard one of the historic Red Buses for a tour up Going-to-the-Sun Road. It was a rainy, cloudy, chilly, all-around gloomy day.
Our first stop was St. Mary Lodge, where we all stepped off the bus and made our way inside. The power was out, leaving the interior dim and quiet, but there was an unexpected upside. A warm fire had been built, providing both light and heat and inviting us to gather around it. We lingered there for a bit, taking in the cozy contrast to the cold, damp morning outside.
Back on the road, we began climbing higher, eventually driving straight into the clouds. The sweeping alpine views were completely obscured. A little disappointing, yes. But we were grateful we had already seen those vistas earlier in the week. Had this been our only day in Glacier, the disappointment would have been pretty brutal. It was a feeling I had a couple of years earlier when we rolled into the Badlands with wildfire smoke thick in the air all around us. Roughly 60–70% of visitors only spend a single day in Glacier, and my empathy went out to those traveling this road on their one and only day.
The driver shared stories about the road’s construction, completed in 1933, an engineering marvel spanning east to west across the park. We also learned that one of the historic Yellowstone yellow tour cars was repainted red and sold as a Glacier bus for 2.5 million dollars. So yes, we were riding in style.
One unexpected perk of the weather was the waterfalls. Every curve revealed another cascade spilling down the cliffs, swollen and dramatic from the rain. While it may not have ended with a bang, Glacier had already blown us away with crystal clear lakes, massive glaciers, abundant wildlife, and towering peaks around every bend.
Back on the road, we began climbing higher, eventually driving straight into the clouds. The sweeping alpine views were completely obscured. A little disappointing, yes. But we were grateful we had already seen those vistas earlier in the week. Had this been our only day in Glacier, the disappointment would have been pretty brutal. It was a feeling I had a couple of years earlier when we rolled into the Badlands with wildfire smoke thick in the air all around us. Roughly 60–70% of visitors only spend a single day in Glacier, and my empathy went out to those traveling this road on their one and only day.
The driver shared stories about the road’s construction, completed in 1933, an engineering marvel spanning east to west across the park. We also learned that one of the historic Yellowstone yellow tour cars was repainted red and sold as a Glacier bus for 2.5 million dollars. So yes, we were riding in style.
One unexpected perk of the weather was the waterfalls. Every curve revealed another cascade spilling down the cliffs, swollen and dramatic from the rain. While it may not have ended with a bang, Glacier had already blown us away with crystal clear lakes, massive glaciers, abundant wildlife, and towering peaks around every bend.