Rex Trulove
I’ve shared the spectacular view from Apgar Mountain, overlooking Lake McDonald, in Glacier National Park in Montana. In fact, I’ve shared many pictures of the view. Before sharing a more recent picture of the glorious view, I decided that it might be interesting to change the perspective a little.
I’m aware that many people don’t have a clear mental image of where Glacier National Park is, much less the viewpoints inside of the park. Sure, people can look it up on a map or Google it and they can find that Glacier is in the northwest section of Montana, right up to the Canadian border. If they’ve read what I’ve written, they will also know that the park is located in the Rocky Mountains. Of course, there are also pictures that I’ve shared. However, that still doesn’t give a very good idea of the area.
To get a clearer idea of the area I continue to share in images, I decided to get a little help from Google Earth. First, I’ll show an image I’ve shared before of the view from Apgar Mountain. Then I’ll use satellite images from Google to give a better idea of exactly where the image(s) come from. Finally, I’ll share a more recent view from Apgar Mountain.
This might be interesting.
Apgar Mountain view on March 22
After giving a different perspective of where the webcam is located, this was the view on March 22, 2019. If there is any doubt regarding how much snow is actually on the ground, notice that the little fir tree that could be seen in the first image of this set is totally buried. It isn't visible at all, even as a bump in the snow. In fact, the ski tracks go almost exactly over the location of the tree. As a guess, I'd say that there are about six and a half feet to eight feet of snow on the ground and possibly more.
The mountains in the distance are quite beautiful, though, especially against the backdrop of the blue sky and light clouds. In this image, it is difficult to even see that McDonald Lake is frozen over.
It is my hope that with the addition of the satellite images in this set, people might have a better notion of where this camera is and might be able to have an even better appreciation of what is being shown here.
Apgar Mountain view on January 20
This was the view from January 20, 2019. It is beautiful, even with storm clouds rolling in. Or maybe, it is beautiful because of the storm clouds. At any rate, there are only a couple of feet of snow on the ground. Notice the little fir tree to the right of center that is laden down with snow. Quite a bit of that tree is still above the snow and it is still recognizably a tree.
When you get to the last image, you'll probably want to refer back to this one.
The first satellite view
The red arrow points to the approximate location of the national park webcam that is responsible for the images over Lake McDonald that I've been sharing. It is pretty easy to see that although Apgar Mountain towers over the lake, it isn't especially high in altitude as compared to the other mountains in the area. In fact, it is difficult to even see the lake from this altitude.
This is an actual satellite image, so the white that can be seen is snow on the mountains. The dark green is trees; mostly pines, firs, and similar evergreens.
A closer sat view of Apgar Mountain
If we zoom in a little, the terrain is clearer and Lake McDonald is a lot easier to make out. From the altitude of this image, though, the lake looks tiny. It isn't huge, but it really isn't tiny, either. The image is a little deceptive in another way, too. There is a great deal of snow on the ground in all the areas shown in this image, though the satellite doesn't make it out very well.
Part of that, only a small part, is that this image was captured before the sun was fully up. Again, the arrow is pointing to the location of the webcam.
Apgar Mountain from above
Here is a much closer view from probably only a few thousand feet. This should give a notion of where the camera is located and the sort of land that is around it. It is actually far more forested than the picture leads a person to think and there is a great deal more snow on the ground than is shown.
I don't know how often Google Earth updates their satellite images, either, and that could have a bearing on how little snow is shown in the image.
soo lovely nice photo…..
I love the shadows and the sun here.
Even the shadows change the perspective a little.
Simply stunning isn’t it?
Yes, it absolutely is. It is no wonder that this is my fav Montana view.