On the Going To The Sun highway, just a little ways from Logan’s Visitor Center there is a valley that will take your breath away. There are many valleys in Glacier National Park but this one is spellbinding. It has all the features that make a valley spectacular. Towering cliff walls, verdant green trees reaching up its sides, an echoing view that recedes back into the distance. Plus a small stream called Lunch Creek that runs down out of the mountains to drop into quickly onto the valley floor below.

Who or what was lunch is not explained. This is a place where you can let your imagination run wild. Personally there’s a preference for mammoth grizzly bears and Mountain men with damp powder but then that’s just me. Your mileage may vary.

While there a constant stream of clouds formed over the mountains in the background and flowed down through the valley sometimes obscuring it completely. Then the wind would kick up and run them out only to complete the cycle over and over again. The emerald greenness of the valley did nothing to discourage intermittent snow squalls that sometimes brought the visibility down to zero. But the ground was still too warm and the snow never had a chance.

It wouldn’t be long though. There was a bitterness in the wind that would not be denied. Soon the snow would stick, so this was pretty much the last hurrah as far as Summer went. The road, Going To the Sun, would be closed before long and then there’d be the long wait as we slogged through Winter before we could get back up there and see the valley again. Start crossing the days off your calendar. You don’t want to miss this sight.