What Is St. Mary Lake And Wild Goose Island And Where Is It?
Wild Goose Island is a tiny little island in a glacier fed lake in Montana. That lake is the St. Mary Lake on the east side of Glacier National Park in Northern Montana. St. Mary Lake can be seen along the Going To The Sun Road, an historic steep winding road that connect the east and west sides of Glacier National Park.
The Wild Goose Island Overlook is along the Going To The Sun Road. It is a popular spot any time of day for visitors to the park to stop and gaze out over the lake. It is especially beautiful at sunrise as the mountains are splashed and soon doused with buckets of red and orange light that slowly flows down to the lake level.
The Wild Goose Overlook requires a hike of no more than 100 feet from where you park your car. It’s a very easy spot to access and a scene most anyone who has been to the St. Mary section on the east side of Glacier National Park will recognize.
What Is It Like To Travel To And Photograph Sunrise At The Wild Goose Island Overlook?
If you want to head out to Glacier National Park and you’re going to fly and not take a road trip, you’ll probably want to fly into the Kalispell airport if you can find a flight AND a rental car. Ever since the pandemic hit, flights into Kalispell have gone through the roof and rental cars are sometimes sold out. You may have to find another Montana airport or fly into somewhere like the Spokane Washington airport to find a rental car these days.
Once you get your flight and rental car, you’ll need to get to the east side of the Going To The Sun road at Glacier National Park. If you plan to go to the Wild Goose Island for sunrise, you’ll probably want to stay on the east side of the park. On the east side you’ll probably want to stay in or near the St. Mary Village. If you fly into the Kalispell airport, it will take about 2.5 hours to drive over to St. Mary.
In order to drive the Going To The Sun Road between the hours of 6am and 4pm you’ll need to get a Going To The Sun Road Pass. If you can get up and through the park gate before 6am, you can drive the road and say on it as long as you want though you will probably not be able to find another parking spot if you move your car along the road.
Once you get there and get your lodging, you’ll have about a 15 minute drive from the village of St. Mary up to the Wild Goose Island Overlook. There is a fairly big parking area at the Wild Goose Island Overlook but it is not huge. Generally at sunrise, it is not terribly crowded though it can fill up on some days. When you get there to photograph sunrise you’ll want to try to stake out a spot where someone else can’t easily stand in front of you to block or get in your photos.
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