Sun Point overlook Saint Mary Valley
— — the valley the glaciers carved and left.
Not only on a wall.
“A short walk off the Going-to-the-Sun Road brings you to a rock shelf above the upper end of Saint Mary Lake. The peaks of the Lewis Range stand up on either side of a long glacial trough — Going-to-the-Sun Mountain to the north, Little Chief and Citadel to the south, water the colour of cold light below. Wild Goose Island floats near the middle. The wind off the lake is steady most afternoons and the view changes by the minute as cloud crosses the ridges. from the studio
Sun Point overlook Saint Mary Valley, 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.
Sun Point sits on the east side of Glacier National Park, on a rocky promontory above the upper end of Saint Mary Lake. The lake is about ten miles long and roughly 4,484 feet in elevation, carved by Pleistocene glaciers into the long trough between the Lewis Range walls. The overlook is reached by a short paved path from a signed pullout on the Going-to-the-Sun Road, the 50-mile route that crosses the park west to east over Logan Pass. The viewpoint looks west across the lake toward Going-to-the-Sun Mountain.
Saint Mary Lake reads as a deep cold blue rather than the milk-turquoise of glacier-fed Canadian lakes a short drive north. The colour shifts with light angle and wind, sometimes slate, sometimes sapphire, sometimes nearly black under cloud. Wild Goose Island, a small tree-topped islet near the middle, gives the view a foreground point and is one of the most photographed compositions in Glacier National Park. The lake outflows into the Saint Mary River, which runs east into Hudson Bay drainage through Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Sun Point is on the Going-to-the-Sun Road, about ten miles west of the Saint Mary entrance. The path from the parking area to the overlook is roughly a quarter mile, mostly flat, with a longer nature trail option continuing on to Baring Falls. Glacier National Park requires a timed-entry vehicle reservation for the Going-to-the-Sun corridor during peak summer months. The east-side road typically opens fully in late June or early July, depending on snow clearing at Logan Pass, and closes again with the first heavy storms in autumn.