Saint Mary Falls
— — a turquoise river over a red rock step.
Not only on a wall.
“A three-tier waterfall on the Saint Mary River, on the east side of Glacier National Park. The river runs an improbable turquoise from glacial flour, and the bedrock beneath the falls is the deep rust red of the Grinnell Formation. The trailhead is a short pull-off on Going-to-the-Sun Road. Most visitors walk down in the morning and forget to leave.
Saint Mary Falls, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Saint Mary Falls drops in three short tiers on the Saint Mary River, in the east-side Saint Mary Valley of Glacier National Park. The combined drop is about 35 feet. The river carries fine glacial silt from the high cirques above Logan Pass, which gives the plunge pool a striking pale turquoise. The bedrock is mudstone of the Grinnell Formation, deposited more than a billion years ago and now exposed in deep red beds along the river. The trailhead sits on Going-to-the-Sun Road, 9.7 miles west of Saint Mary village.
The colour is the point. The Saint Mary River drains a chain of cirques and lakes fed by the remnants of the Blackfoot and Jackson glaciers, so the water carries suspended rock flour year-round. Shorter wavelengths of sunlight scatter on the particles and the river reads pale turquoise against the iron-red mudstone of the streambed. The same scattering effect colours Lago di Sorapis in the Dolomites and Lake Pukaki in New Zealand. The falls run hardest in June with snowmelt and stay steady through August before easing in September.
The east side of Glacier opens with Going-to-the-Sun Road, which usually clears Logan Pass between late June and early July and closes after the first heavy October snow. The Saint Mary Falls trailhead is a free park shuttle stop, which helps with summer parking. Smoke from western Montana wildfires can flatten light through August. Late September brings cottonwood gold along the river and far fewer visitors. Bear activity is high along the river corridor, and a properly worn can of bear spray is standard equipment.