This Famous Highway Climbs 6,646 Feet with a 180° Loop & Perfect Alpine Views

The Legendary Going-to-the-Sun Road

Ever driven a road that makes your ears pop while your jaw drops at the same time? It’s guaranteed on Going-to-the-Sun Road.

This famous highway climbs almost 7,000 feet into the sky with a crazy hairpin turn that loops back on itself completely. And the whole time you’re surrounded by the kind of mountain views that make you want to stop every five minutes for photos.

Here’s why Going-to-the-Sun Road should on anyone’s road trip bucket list.

The Only Road That Crosses the Continental Divide in a National Park

Going-to-the-Sun Road crosses the Continental Divide at Logan Pass (6,646 feet). Stand at the visitor center and you’re at the exact point where water either flows west to the Pacific or east to the Atlantic. No other road in any U.S. National Park offers this continental crossing experience.

The Garden Wall’s Hanging Valleys

The stunning Garden Wall section showcases textbook examples of hanging valleys. These U-shaped valleys were left suspended when the main glacier carved a deeper path below.

The famous Weeping Wall is actually runoff from one of these hanging valleys, creating a natural drive-through waterfall that soaks cars during peak snowmelt in June and July.

The Big Drift’s Massive Snow Removal Challenge

Near Logan Pass sits the Big Drift, where snow piles up to 80 feet deep each winter. The spring clearing operation is one of the most complex road-opening procedures in North America.

Special equipment, including the massive Rotary Snow Blower, must delicately remove these towering snow walls without damaging the historic road beneath or tumbling off sheer cliffs.

The Triple Arches’ Unique Stone Engineering

The Triple Arches section represents the only multi-arch masonry bridge of its kind in a U.S. National Park. Built in 1927 using native stone, engineers chose this unusual design over tunneling through the mountainside.

Workers hauled each stone by hand and fitted them perfectly to create a structure that blends seamlessly with the surrounding landscape while supporting decades of traffic.

Miles of Hand-Placed Stone Guardrails

Over 12 miles of Going-to-the-Sun Road feature stone guardrails built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s.

These aren’t simple barriers – each stone was individually selected and positioned to appear as a natural extension of the mountainside. This ‘rustic parkitecture’ style pioneered here influenced National Park design nationwide.

Jackson Glacier’s Deceptive Distance

The Jackson Glacier Overlook offers the only roadside viewing of an active glacier on the entire route.

What makes this spot unique is the mind-bending scale. The glacier appears close enough to touch but actually sits more than four miles away. This perspective distortion is so pronounced here that rangers keep special measuring tools at the overlook to help visitors comprehend the true distances.

Bird Woman Falls’ Inaccessible Majesty

At 492 feet tall, Bird Woman Falls ranks among the highest waterfalls visible from any road in the continental United States. Despite its impressive height (nearly three times taller than Niagara), no trail reaches its base.

Going-to-the-Sun Road provides the only human viewing opportunity of this massive cascade, making it one of the most photographed yet least physically visited major waterfalls in North America.

The Loop’s Engineering Marvel

The Loop’ features the only complete 180-degree hairpin turn on a major U.S. National Park road.

This remarkable section actually passes over itself via an underpass, creating a helix pattern that allows vehicles to gain elevation rapidly while minimizing environmental impact.

When it was designed in the 1920s, this solution was so innovative that engineers from around the world came to study it.

Sun Point’s Native American Origins

Sun Point earned its name from the Blackfeet Nation, who called this area ‘The Place Where the Sun Shines First.’ This eastward-facing promontory was used for traditional solstice ceremonies for centuries.

The road itself borrowed its name from this location and the Blackfeet legend about a deity who came down from the sun to teach the tribe to hunt, making it one of few major American roadways named from indigenous tradition.

McDonald Creek’s Massive Insect Emergence

The McDonald Creek section offers views of one of the most unusual insect phenomena in North America. During mid-summer, tens of thousands of giant salmonflies (with three-inch wingspans) emerge simultaneously from the creek.

This massive hatching creates a wildlife feeding frenzy visible from pullouts along this specific section – a biological spectacle rarely observable from any vehicle.

The Dramatic East-West Climate Contrast

The west entrance at Lake McDonald sits in a temperate rainforest environment receiving 30 inches of annual precipitation. Just 50 miles later, the east entrance at St. Mary exists in semi-arid conditions with half the rainfall.

No other road in the continental U.S. crosses such dramatically different climate zones in such a short distance. This compressed transition creates the strange experience of passing through multiple ecosystems in a single drive.