Original subtitles

(wind whistling)

(reverent orchestral music)

- Our journey is an adventure

through America's Glacier National Park,

a spectacular wildness

with some of the world's most rugged scenery

and pristine wildlife.

We begin at the glacial Flathead River,

a favorite for whitewater rafting.

Continuing to Lake McDonald,

we discover the park's largest body of water

and most popular tourist destination.

Heading to the Going To The Sun Road,

the only route in the park that's paved,

and a triumph of engineering,

we continue to Chief Mountain,

a sacred place for First Nation people.

Dropping south, we find Logan Pass,

crossing America's Continental Divide.

Our journey takes us beyond the park

into the Bob Marshall Wilderness

and the dramatic Chinese Wall,

unseen to all but the most adventurous traveler.

(wind whistling)

Far away in Northwestern Montana,

hidden from view by clustering mountain peaks

lies an unmapped corner, the crown of the continent,

so said conservationist George Bird Grinnell,

founder of Glacier National Park, in 1901.

(reverent orchestral music)

It wasn't until 1910, after a decade of campaigning,

that it was finally established.

Today, Grinnell's work has stood the test of time.

The park has 41,000 square kilometers

of snow-capped mountains, rivers, and rolling green valleys.

Our journey will take us south

into the Bob Marshall Wilderness,

where no vehicle is allowed

and you have to enter either on foot or on horseback.

(reverent orchestral music continuing)

This is wild, untouched landscape in the truest sense

and home to grizzly bears, wolverines,

and the mountain goat, the symbol of this place.

Each year, roughly two million visitors

come to see the national park.

Most come by car or recreational vehicle

from across the continent.

But about 400,000 people arrive by air

at Glacier International Airport to the west.

It was built in 1942 as a small county airfield

and has since grown in size

to accommodate around 60,000 aircraft movements,

including a number of private jets.

For us, it's a chance to refuel before flying into the park.

This is the Flathead River,

which runs along much of the park's western border.

The river originates in the Canadian Rockies,

and Glacier shares more than just its water with Canada,

which borders to the north.

In 1932, Glacier and Canada's neighboring Waterton Park

were combined to form Glacier-Waterton,

the world's first international peace park.

Running alongside the Flathead River

is this stretch of the Great Northern Railway,

built in the late-19th century.

It runs through this magnificent natural reserve,

which was protected by one of the renowned

railroad industrialists of his day, Louis Hill.

He was driven both as a conservationist and a businessman,

believing that visitors would flock

to a national park in the region.

He was right, though today the trains mainly carry freight.

This is Lake McDonald, Glacier National Park's largest

and its most popular tourist destination.

(soft ethereal music)

16 kilometers long and 140 meters deep,

it's thought that the glacier that carved it out

was over 650 meters thick.

It's a favorite spot for fishing,

and the waters teem with trout, whitefish, and salmon.

Grizzly bears, black bears, moose, and mule deer

are found in many places near the lake,

but are most common on the north side, away from the road.

Surrounding the water is dense coniferous forest

dominated by various species of spruce, fir, and larch.

Around the shoreline are several popular hiking trails

of differing lengths,

including one that is wheelchair accessible.

The lake receives most of its water from McDonald Creek.

At its height during the spring runoff,

this becomes a raging torrent.

(water rushing)

It's fed by melting snow and glaciers,

making it incredibly cold.

But with such clear waters,

it's a perfect place for fly-fishing.

The creek's stream is the longest in the park,

and we follow it now as it moves higher into the mountains.

Much of this great landscape was carved out by glaciers,

which, of course, also gave the park its name.

When it was established in 1910, it had over 150 glaciers.

Today, climate change has reduced this to 25.

Many computer models predict that by 2030

there will be no glaciers left in the park.

However, this is open to some debate.

A more recent model predicts that the park's namesakes

will have melted away by the year 2020.

We continue now into the mountains, climbing higher still.

These are the Rockies, part of the Continental Divide,

the mountain range that stretches from Alaska in the north

to the southernmost tip of South America.

This breathtaking landscape is the watershed

between the Pacific and the Atlantic.

Glacier National Park is also home to Triple Divide Peak,

from which water flows to not only those two great oceans

but also through the Hudson Bay

all the way to the Arctic Ocean.

Through the high peaks,

we begin to see the extraordinary Chief Mountain,

which lies on the eastern border of the park.

(soft orchestral music)

It's one of the most photographed places here,

as it seems to stand guard

over the Great Plains to the East.

The mountain is a good example of a thrust fault,

where the older rock sits on top,

forced upwards over millions of years by younger rock.

The surrounding material, which was softer,

has been eroded away, leaving behind this isolated block.

At 2,800 meters high,

Chief Mountain is not Glacier's tallest peak,

but it is its most distinctive.

It also stands in the Blackfeet Indian Reservation

and is a very sacred place.

(soft acoustic guitar music)

For these people, all land is sacred, but Chief Mountain,

or Ninaistako, as it's known,

holds a special place in their culture.

In the distant past, other tribes lived in the area

and they also had an oral legend

that as the end of the world approaches,

a great god will appear from the top of this mountain

and, upon his departure,

the rock will crumble into nothingness.

The only route for visitors driving through the park

is the extraordinary Going To The Sun Road.

It took 10 years to build and was completed in 1932.

In places, it carves its way through the rock,

like here at West Tunnel.

(soft orchestral music)

If you're a horror film fan,

then this road my appear eerily familiar

from the famous Stanley Kubrick movie "The Shining".

Ahead of us is the loop,

one of the many stopping places along the 53-kilometer route

allowing tourists the chance to take pictures

of the breathtaking vistas.

Before the road was built,

it took visitors three to four days to cross the park.

One of the most exciting ways to enjoy this dramatic road

is on a motorcycle.

Some of these bikers are riding

the all-American machine, Harley-Davidson.

Founded in Milwaukee in 1903,

they have become a national icon.

Once the favored ride of young outlaws,

they now attract a more comfortable,

mature, and affluent clientele.

(soaring orchestral music)

But they are still heavyweight motorcycles

perfect for highway cruising,

and here, they are in their element.

The two-lane road is quite narrow and winding,

which is perfect for two-wheelers,

but for long vehicles impossible,

so restriction of 6.4 meters is in place.

The Going To The Sun Road

was named after a nearby mountain of the same name.

According to the Blackfeet,

this is associated with a sun spirit

who came down to teach the tribe to hunt.

Before leaving, he cast his image on the mountain

to remind them of his lessons.

During the winter, the road is closed.

And in the spring, it is one of the most difficult routes

in North America to snowplow,

with up to 25 meters of snow covering some sections.

It takes up to 10 weeks to clear it all

for the road's opening in early-June.

On parts of the road, there are no guardrails,

as the late-winter avalanches

have repeatedly destroyed them.

This means careful driving round the bends is needed

to avoid a 1,500-meter drop into the valley below.

The highest point is just over 2,000 meters,

so that on some days drivers find themselves in the clouds,

making for even more difficult conditions.

For those not up to driving their own cars,

then a great way to see Glacier National Park

is in these Red Jammer buses.

The roll-top roofs allow visitors

to take in the full scale of the scenery.

Until 1989, these vehicles had unsynchronized transmissions,

making a loud noise

as they changed up and down through gears.

Tourists began calling their drivers gear-jammers,

which was shortened to Jammers.

Restored by the Ford Motor Company in 2000,

Glacier's 33 buses now run on propane gas

to lessen their environmental impact.

They have been in service since the 1930s,

making it the oldest touring fleet of its type in the world.

And the journey couldn't be more rewarding.

Glacial National Park is filled with dramatic views.

This is Mount Oberlin, the most-climbed peaked.

It's home to Bird Woman Falls,

one of the longest in the area and an icon of the park.

The water cascades down 170 meters

and is fed by the melting snow

and the remnant glacier high up on the mountain.

In the spring and summer,

it's clearly visible to drivers below,

though in the autumn it has been known

to cease flowing all together.

We now approach the highest point on the road, Logan Pass.

It straddles the Continental Divide,

which runs along the mountains from Alaska

to the tip of the South America,

where, on the west side, the water runs to the Pacific

and, on the east, to the Atlantic.

At 2,000 meters high, the pass has snow on it

almost year-round and is the most difficult

to clear in the spring.

It can also be very windy,

with a record gust of 139 miles per hour recorded in 2014.

At its summit is Logan Pass Visitor Center

and a popular starting point

for hiking and backpacking trips.

From this point, the Going To The Sun Road

starts to drop down to the east,

passing through the 123-meter East Side Tunnel,

built in 1932.

No power equipment could be brought to the site,

so it was excavated by hand.

The road winds down through fir forests,

providing magnificent views

for travelers on all types of transport.

In the 1930s, this was one of the first

National Park Service projects

specifically intended for visitors with their own cars.

It was built for $2.5 million,

which today would be roughly $140 million.

Since the 1980s, the road is slowly undergoing

a restoration program, as well as the annual repairs

caused be avalanches and rockfalls.

To let travelers pull over,

stretch their legs, and enjoy the view,

there are a number of stopping points.

From this one, a series of impressive waterfalls

can be seen, especially in the spring,

when the snow and glaciers melt.

These are the Virginia Falls.

To get close to them requires a long

but rewarding uphill trek through the woods.

At the eastern end of the road and of the park itself

is Saint Mary's Lake.

Named by a Catholic missionary,

it's 16 kilometers long and 90 meters deep,

making it the second largest in the park.

In this part of Glacier

on the eastern side of the Continental Divide,

the hills are barer and the land more arid.

(soaring orchestral music)

The region is protected by the Rockies

from the prevailing westerly winds off the Pacific,

and so this area is sheltered from rain and snowfall.

At an altitude of almost 1,400 meters,

the waters of the lake are incredibly cold.

It rarely rises above 10 degrees Celsius in the summer.

And in the winter, the lake freezes over completely

with ice up to 1.2 meters thick.

(soft orchestral music)

Our journey now continues south along the park's border.

The geology is extraordinary.

These hills are part of the Lewis Range,

named after the Lewis and Clark expedition

in the 18th century, which passed by near here.

In the mountains are some of the oldest

and best-preserved sedimentary rocks on Earth.

They contain tiny clues to the origins of the world,

including the impressions of raindrops

that fell over millions of years ago.

But, of course, it is glaciers

that give the park its distinctive look.

They carved out the landscape as we see it today

during the most recent Ice Age.

And over the last 12,000 years,

they have steadily retreated,

leaving behind this beautiful sculpted scenery.

To the south of Glacier Park

is the untouched nature of the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

(soaring orchestral music)

It was first protected in 1940

at the behest of Bob Marshall,

forester and wilderness campaigner.

The Bob, as it came to be known,

was recognized in the 1964 Wilderness Act.

The act says, "A wilderness in contrast with those areas

"where man and his own works dominate the landscape

"is hereby recognized as an area

"where the Earth and its community of life

"are untrammeled by man,

"where man himself is a visitor who does not remain."

With over 4,000 square kilometers of untouched nature

and a population of zero, this is true wilderness.

It's known as the crown jewel

of the American wilderness system.

Except in special circumstances,

there are no motorized vehicles here at all

and not a single paved road.

(light orchestral music)

Finally, we reach the extraordinary

and dramatic Chinese Wall.

300 meters in height and 35 kilometers long,

this is the most striking feature

of the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

Part of the Lewis Geological Overthrust,

it was formed 170 million years ago

when the entire length of what is now the state of Montana

split apart to form a physical fault line.

The east plate then slipped under, driving the west plate up

and forcing these rocks hundreds of meters skywards.

Today, it's home to mountain goats,

and eagles make this their home,

often gliding in the air currents.

The Chinese Wall is visible to the naked eye from space,

yet it's a sight that few people on Earth

will probably ever see because to get to it

will take days, even on horseback,

unless you see it from the air.

This remote place, with its extraordinary natural splendor,

within the greatest wilderness park on the planet

makes it the perfect place to end this journey.

(reverent orchestral music)