Lakefront property

...that belongs to all of us.

Mountain lakes are major elements in the fantastic scenery one finds in the Rockies. And we got to see several stunning specimens.

The first lake we saw wasn't in Montana or Wyoming, but Utah, and the scenery surrounding it was a little different than the others.

We changed planes in Salt Lake City and this is their eponymous Lake, although it looks like the level is down pretty severely. I thought the dry lakebed and surrounding landscape was very striking and almost alien-looking.

Most of the lakes I want to show you, though, while being other-worldly-beautiful, don't look like they were transplanted from another planet. And most are in Glacier, so I'll start off with the two that are not.

Beartooth Lake (we think) in northern Wyoming

Yellowstone Lake, source of the gorgeous Yellowstone River

Glacier is simply awash in gorgeous lakes. The first one we visited was Two Medicine Lake, in the southeast corner of the Park.

Two Medicine Lake and Mt. Sinopah

the view from Paradise Point...aptly named!

Two Medicine Lake and Mt. Helen (I think)

A bit further north is St. Mary Lake, which is a very long finger of water in an incomparable setting...

looking upstream

looking back downstream

yes, the water really looks that green!

awesome, no?

Over on the west side of the Park we hiked up to Avalanche Lake, another stunner, on a, perhaps, more intimate scale. The lake itself, at least, is much smaller...

Avalanche Lake from the end of the trail

We spent a long time sitting on some logs by the lakeshore and just taking in this amazing scenery...

Another westside lake that's even easier to see is Lake McDonald; Going-to-the-Sun Highway drives right along its edge for several miles...

Gorgeous as these lakes are, though, the prize has to go to Swiftcurrent Lake, which provides the unbelievable scenic front porch for the Many Glacier Hotel, where we spent our last night.

Here's the lake view that greeted us upon our arrival...

wish we'd had time for some lake kayaking...next time!

handsome Mt. Gould presides over one end of Swiftcurrent Lake

It's really hard to convey the majesty of this scenery in a still shot. I took this video from the Hotel's deck to give you a 180+° look.

As fabulous as the lake looked in the afternoon and evening, in the early morning light it was even more stupendous...

Grinnell Point, Swiftcurrent Mt., and Mt. Wilbur, very early

Mt. Wilber, with the sun a little higher

As you can see the lake was almost like glass. What amazing reflections! There was a little ripple to the water, though, and I thought it was so lovely that I took a video of that, too.

Pretty as the lakes are, though, they honestly wouldn't be very impressive without the mountains, the real stars of the show in Big Sky Country. Next time I'll finish off my posts with views of these finest examples of geology's art.