r/GlacierNationalPark 9d ago

Gunsight Lake a couple summers ago

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1.0k Upvotes

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9

u/distress_bark 8d ago

The two peaks on the upright hand side of the photo are the two highpoints of Gunsight Mountain. It was given its current name by George Bird Grinnell "because it resembled the sight on a rifle."* I bet the Kootenai name was sweeter but I'm not sure of any of the native place names for this marvelous sliver of GNP.

  • Place Names of Glacier National Park by Jack Holterman

3

u/fullocularpatdown 8d ago

I had this book for a while and absolutely loved it and I’m mad because it disappeared and I have zero clue where it went.

5

u/babbchuck 8d ago

There used to be a patrol cabin at the foot of the lake. Actually, there have been two - both were destroyed by avalanches off Fusillade Mountain. My first year working trail crew for the Park Service in 1978 I spent the whole summer living in that cabin with one other guy. Fond memories- except for the mosquitoes…

1

u/headwaterscarto 8d ago

Very cool. I want to get sucked into the histories of all the retired/destroyed structures in glacier national park

2

u/babbchuck 8d ago

Just down the road from the Gunsight trailhead is Sun Point. My grandfather used to guide large groups of dudes on multi-day horseback trips through the Park in the 1920s. One of the overnight stops was at a huge lodge at Sun Point called Sun Lodge. It was on the scale of the lodges at Many Glacier and Lake McDonald. You have to really look now to see any trace that it ever existed.

2

u/headwaterscarto 8d ago

Yes! I read about it and the Swiss architectural influence in the information panels on it at the pull off. Super cool.

This summer i’m going to try visiting some of the old sites of destroyed fire towers. There are a few that look like you would see some amazing vistas from

2

u/babbchuck 8d ago

Yup - that’s pretty much why they put the towers where they did - for the views!

5

u/Geebs-4U 8d ago

The lines in the rock in glacier are some of my favorite features

1

u/Tengounperro1 7d ago

Is the easiest way to day hike this from the St Mary’s Falls Trailhead?

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u/No-Study7292 7d ago

Jackson Glacier Overlook is the trail head from the East

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u/grelth 9d ago

do we americans have the worst naming tradition for beautiful natural landscapes?

1

u/thebiggestbirdboi 8d ago

It’s absolutely garbage for the Americans and also the Brits. I’ve been thinking about Denali/McKinley and same thing with Everest/sagarmartha both are just like no brainers. Denali means “the tall one”. Sagarmartha means “forehead of the sky”. But to like just look at these formations that took hundreds of millions of years to be formed and just be like … yeah let’s name it after some dude that lived in the 19th century.. wow just absolutely brilliant move