What Is The Glacier St. Mary Valley And Where Is It?
The St. Mary Valley is located in the northern Rocky Mountains of Montana within the boundaries of Glacier National Park. The village of St. Mary is located on the east side of the park along Highway 89 in Montana. The village itself is located just outside the boundaries of Glacier National Park.
As soon as you enter the park, there is a visitor center on the right hand side followed by a campground to the right a little farther along the famous Going To The Sun Road. As you continue on up the Going To The Sun Road you will pass the Wild Goose Island Overlook and soon you will see St. Mary Lake on the left hand side of the road. As you near the peak of the Going To The Sun Road you will come to the parking area for Logan Pass. The hike to Hidden Lake starts at the Logan Pass area. It is also a common place to see the Glacier Big Horn Sheep.
When you park at or near Logan Pass you can look back down near the edge of the parking lot over the St. Mary Valley and see a tiny sliver of St. Mary Lake in the valley below. This is an awesome view that will change based on the time of year and of course, the weather.
What Is It Like To Travel To Glacier National Park And Photograph The St. Mary Valley?
If you want to go see and photograph the St. Mary Valley at Glacier National Park, you’ll need to go to the east side of the park. To get there, you’ll need to find an airport to fly into and one of the scarce (as of 2022) rental cars in the area. The closest place to fly into is the Kalispell, Montana Airport.
It’s a smaller airport but growing. Flights into Kalispell during the peak summer season can get quite expensive and also be hard to come by. You may need to fly into somewhere like the Spokane, Washington airport, a 6.5 hour drive from St. Mary, Montana to get an affordable flight and available rental car. There are other closer airports in Montana that may also have better deals on flights and rental cars.
Once you get the flight and rental car all set, you’ll need to find a place to stay by or in Glacier National Park. If you wan to see this view of the St. Mary Valley, it will be convenient to stay on the east or west side of the park because Logan Pass where this photo was taken is roughly in between the two.
Glacier now requires a special pass just to drive the Going To The Sun Road between 6am and 4pm during most of the peak season (late spring to early fall). If you stay somewhere along the Going To The Sun Road you won’t have to get that road pass but if you stay outside the park or even somewhere in the park that is not along the Going To The Sun Road you will have to get a pass for the road. Unless you enter the road before 6am or after 4pm or have lodging along the road you’ll have to get one of those passes.
Once you have that squared away you’ll need to get up to Logan Pass. Once you have access to the road, this is easy but you’ll want to get there shortly after sunrise or go later in the afternoon if you want to have a decent chance to get a parking spot at Logan Pass. The pass for the road gets you access to the road but does not guarantee a parking spot anywhere along the road.
This can be a nice view anytime of day but is probably best at sunrise, sunset, or at some time other than mid day when the sun and the shadows are harsh. If you are on the east side of the park or at Logan Pass during sunrise or sunset, Hidden Lake, Wild Goose Island, and Sun Point often provide much more dramatic views than the St. Mary Valley. This spot may be lower on your priority list for these prime photo opportunities.
What Is The Best Gear For Photographing The Glacier National Park St. Mary Valley?
If you wan to get a wall art quality photo of the St. Mary Valley, the most challenging part of the process will be traveling all the way out to Glacier and getting a place to stay in or near the park. Once that is out of the way and you have access to the Going To The Sun Road, you’ll need to get up to Logan Pass and get a parking spot.
Once you get a parking spot at or near Logan Pass, you’ll want to grab your camera gear and head over to the edge of the parking lot. Sunrise, sunset, and days with softer light will yield the best photos from this area. At sunrise or sunset you’ll get some fiery spots on the mountain peaks. On partly cloudy or cloud days you’ll get a nice evenly lighted landscape that may look a bit more light a painting than a photo.
What Does It Take To Get A Wall Art Quality Photo The St. Mary Valley At Glacier National Park?
Wen you go tot Glacier National Park and want to photograph the St. Mary Valley, this photo is a pretty standard view and fits well within a standard 4×6 aspect ratio photo that a standard DSLR or mirrorless camera will take.
For a wall art quality photo of the St. Mary Valley you’ll want to have good quality DSLR or mirrorless camera an a good quality lens. For this view you’ll probably want to have a standard 24mm-105mm lens that will give you the ability to zoom in and out a bit to frame up the perfect image. If you take a secondary lens, something on the wider side like a 17mm-40mm lens would be a goo second choice. It all depends on how much of the foreground you want to get in the photo.
If you’ll be there in lower light conditions you’ll want to have tripod to keep the camera steady for a nice sharp photo. In addition to the tripod, a cable release to help keep the camera steady would be a good idea. If you have a circular polarizer, it would be good to bring that as well. A polarizer can help improve or enhance the colors in the photo and make the skies a deeper blue if there are blue skies.
This is one area in which a panoramic setup would not be helpful at all. Since this photo spot will likely be very close to your parked car, there is no concern about the weight of the camera gear you take to this spot.
What Is The Story Behind This Photo Print Of The St. Mary Valley At Glacier National Park?
During the autumn of 2016, I was back out road tripping around the western US National Parks and had been on the road for months. I’d been exploring Montana, Wyoming, the Canadian Rockies and more. The sights in all those places are absolutely stunning and so, of course, is Glacier National Park.
At Glacier I’d been bouncing around between sleeping in my car in various places outside the park, camping in the park and staying at Brownies Hostel in East Glacier. At this point I was staying at Brownies Hostel. To be able to get a good night sleep in a real bed with a kitchen and shower available was a welcome reprieve from camping and sleeping in the car. Brownies is very close to the Two Medicine section of Glacier and the best place to stay for exploring that section of the park if you want an actual roof over your head.
For exploring the St. Mary section of the park it is OK but a long 45 minute drive to the St. Mary section of the park. From there it is about another half house up to Logan Pass. So long as you are not going to Logan Pass for sunrise and gas isn’t $5.00+ per gallon, staying at Easy Glacier is still a reasonable place to stay to explore the St. Mary area.
On this day, I slept in a bit and got started around noon. Sunset was pretty late and I didn’t feel like I’d be missing much to get a noon start if I wasn’t going to get up for sunrise. First I headed all the way up to Many Glacier to hike around a bit, take in the view and head to Fishercap Lake to look for some big bull moose. After wandering around Many Glacier for a while, I departed that area of the park, headed down to St. Mary and looked for wildlife along the road after a brief wifi stop at the visitor center.
There was what looked like a black bear way off in the distance but too far off to shoot right away. I pulled of the road at a pull off to see if it would come closer but it remained far off in the distance. After driving up and back along the St. Mary side of the road a couple times and coming up empty I went all the way up to Logan Pass and parked. Logan can often be a good place to see mountain goats and bighorn rams. I took a walk part way up to Hidden Lake and again didn’t see much in the way of wildlife and hiked back to the parking lot a while before sunset.
As I wandered back to the parking lot I walked around the parking lot a bit in search of some photo worthy views from the parking lot or within a short walk. With lots of cars and people around, anything that included the road or the parking lot was out. I took a few photos looking out from the parking lot across the mountainous landscape.
In this photo a recent dusting of snow capped the Montana Rocky Mountains. There were light shadows on the mountains but no really bright high contrast spots thanks to moderate cloud cover. There was enough light to bring out some of the red and pink color on the mountains and a circular polarizer helps to bring out those colors a bit.
In order to get just a little sliver of St. Mary Lake in the photo, I had to get up on my toes and extend the tripod as far as possible. It took a little wandering around to find a spot with a good composition where that sliver of the lake made it into the frame. The cloud cover continued to thicken after this photo was taken. It didn’t look like there would be anything good for sunset and with a long drive back to East Glacier I decided not to stick around till sunset. That turned out to be a good move since the skies were just bland at sunset.
In What Formats Is Glacier St. Mary Valley Wall Art Print Available?
This St. Mary Valley wall art print is available in sizes up to 40×60 inches on metal, paper, canvas, acrylic and wood. If you’ll be hanging it in an area with diffused lighting, any material with any finish will look great. Anything with a glossy or metallic finish will have a night bright vibrant look to it. Anything with a matte finish will have a more subdued and classic look to it. If you’ll be hanging it in an area with bright direct lighting, paper and canvas prints with a matte finish on canvas or paper will look best. Those with a glossy or metallic finish will still look good but tend to reflect bright lighting.
If you’d like to give you bathroom a Glacier National Park theme, this image looks fantastic printed on a shower curtain. The shower curtains are high quality and the image looks great on them. If you’d like something for the living room or bedroom, the Sherpa fleece blankets are a great choices. They are great to curl up under, they look great and can be complimented with matching throw pillows for a complete look.
Now that plastic shopping bags are vanishing from stores, why not get a heavy duty canvas tote bag? This image comes on a variety of tote bags in various sizes. The largest makes a great shopping bag and it large enough to use as a beach bag for those summer trips or stacations to the beach near home. If you’d like something smaller to use on a daily basis, there are phone cases available for the newest Apple and Samsung phones. Show off your love for Glacier and protect your phone at the same time!
Finally, you can get this image on a jigsaw puzzle. They come in 500 and 1,000 piece sizes. The puzzle pieces come in a cardboard box with the image on the outside. These puzzles make great holiday gifts and often stock out around the holidays. If you want one for a holiday present be sure to order early!
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