page_title: Going-to-the-Sun Road
section_title: Design
hierarchical_section_title: Going-to-the-Sun Road / Design
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of the Going to the Sun Road, with details of bridges and culverts, designed to fit into the landscape. Within Glacier National Park, Montana. As designed in 1924 by Frank Kittredge. Map drawn for, and from, the HABS—Historic American Buildings Survey images of Montana.
context_page_description: Going-to-the-Sun Road is a scenic mountain road in the Rocky Mountains of the western United States, in Glacier National Park in Montana. The Sun Road, as it is sometimes abbreviated in National Park Service documents, is the only road that traverses the park, crossing the Continental Divide through Logan Pass at an elevation of 6,646 feet, which is the highest point on the road. Construction began in 1921 and was completed in 1932 with formal dedication in the following summer on July 15, 1933. The road is the first to have been registered in all of the following categories: National Historic Place, National Historic Landmark and Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. The road is approximately 50 miles long and spans the width of the park between the east and west entrance stations. The National Historic Landmark Nomination records a slightly shorter distance of 48.7 miles which is measured from the first main intersection just outside the park's west entrance to Divide Creek in St. Mary on the east side of the park.
  The road is one of the most difficult roads in North America to snowplow in the spring.
context_section_description: Going-to-the-Sun Road is notable as one of the first National Park Service projects specifically intended to accommodate the automobile-borne tourist.  The road was first conceived by superintendent George Goodwin in 1917, who became the chief engineer of the Park Service the following year.  As chief engineer, the new road became Goodwin's primary project, and construction began in 1921.
  As the project proceeded, Goodwin lost influence with National Park Service director Stephen Mather, who favored landscape architect Thomas Chalmers Vint's alternative routing of the upper portion of the road along the Garden Wall escarpment.  Vint's alignment reduced both switchbacks and the road's visual impact, at increased cost.  With Goodwin's resignation, Vint's proposal became the preferred alignment.  The entire project was finally opened from end to end in 1933, at a cost of $2.5 million.
caption: Road map (click map to enlarge)
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