The lodge is the old hotel on the lake, built in 1913 and 1914 as a Swiss-chalet-meets-hunting-lodge confection of cedar logs, with antlers on the walls and a big stone fireplace in the lobby. Great Northern Railway took it over in the 1930s as part of its drive to bring wealthy easterners west by train. The hotel faces Lake McDonald, the largest lake in Glacier National Park, about ten miles long and more than 450 feet deep, ringed by forested ridges. Its shoreline is paved with small stones in red, green and purple, polished by the water, and so clear that it looks like a mosaic.
The road here is the western end of Going-to-the-Sun Road, one of the great engineering projects of American motoring, opened in 1933 after more than a decade of work, much of it by hand on cliffs. On the lake shore it is easy: a calm, tree-lined road with gentle curves and cool air. This is where you regain your bearings before the climb. The speed limit is low, and rightly so, as deer and tourists are plentiful. The road is generally open all the way to Logan Pass only from late June or early July until mid-October, and recent summers have sometimes needed vehicle reservations, so check the park's current rules before you set out. Vehicles longer than about twenty feet are banned on the high part, which cuts out most big motorhomes.
The lodge is a good place for coffee on the veranda, and a meal in the dining room, though it can be busy in summer. On a still morning the lake is a flat sheet with the peaks upside down in it, and you can walk to the shore in a minute. Boat tours leave from the dock. In the evening the sun slides behind the western ridges, and the whole valley goes blue and cool.
Fuel is the sort of thing you must plan for. West Glacier and Apgar, at the park entrance about eighteen kilometres west, have small shops and some petrol, and Columbia Falls, about thirty-five kilometres away, has proper stations, supermarkets and motels. Bear spray is sold locally, and bears are a real presence, so keep food locked away.