Glacier National Park — Mountains as far as the eye can see

It's safe to say that Nathaniel Hawthorne wasn't thinking of the peaks in northern Montana when he wrote that "mountains are the Earth's undecaying monuments." Hawthorne died in 1865, before few more than native tribes, fur trappers and a lone railroad surveyor who crossed Cut Bank Pass in 1853, had even heard of this section of the West.

But as you stand at one of the first photo-op pullouts along the famous Going-to-the-Sun Road that bisects Glacier National Park, you can't help but think that he got it right. These are not the tallest mountains you have seen. The highest top out at just over 10,000 feet in elevation, so there are taller mountains back home in Utah. But there's something about them — the steepness, the amazingly etched surfaces, the rest of the surroundings — that gives them presence, that makes them feel majestic, that turns them monumental.

George Bird Grinnell definitely was thinking of these mountains, when in 1901 he wrote an essay for Century magazine in which he called them "The Crown of the Continent." As you drive further along Going-to-the-Sun Road, you soon realize that Grinnell also got it right. These tiara-shaped ranges and ridges, and the lands around them are, indeed, a gem set upon the landscape — a crowning achievement of the work of wind and water and other natural forces.

Drive on, and you will begin to look at mountains in different ways. You will take delight in the fact that Glacier National Park provides so many ways to view them: from the bottom up, from the top down, even from the inside-out.

From afar, you can see breathtaking views of snow-capped peaks, and you can relate to the words of poet Thomas Campbell: "'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view/And robes the mountain in its azure hue."

You can also get up-close-and-personal with the Glacier mountains. More than 700 miles of hiking trails give you all sorts of chances to wander in, around and among them — with distances varying from several-tenths of a mile to several miles and more. You can take a half-hour walk — or walk for days. Take a few of these hikes, and you may soon be identifying with Friedrich Nietzsche: "In the mountains, the shortest way is from peak to peak, but for that you have to have long legs."

Whether you hike or whether you drive, it will not take long for you to begin to understand and appreciate the geology. You see the twists and turns of rocky layers that speak of intense orogeny — of the spectacular thrusts and careless movements that go into mountain-building.