When I was 16 I got my first job. Not that I hadn’t worked before — babysitting and light housecleaning had been standard since I was about 8 — but this was the first one that required a time sheet and a paycheck and Social Security contributions. I worked at a place called Belton Chalet Dining Room, at that time a dusty and rundown antique building that missed being overrun by hungry visitors by planting itself on the highway just past the main entrance to Glacier National Park. There was also the risk of food poisoning, but most tourists wouldn’t have known about that. (For liability’s sake: Belton Chalet is now run by completely different owners and is reportedly a fun place to hang out with excellent food.)

Waiting tables and microwaving “baked” potatoes, I worked alongside a 19-year-old girl who had come from out of nowhere and was unclear about what she was doing next. Three years my senior, Amy taught me how to smoke pot, drink tequila, and lived with a sort of fierce independence that kept me in awe of her. There are a lot of stories about that summer that possibly changed the course of my life in small ways, but one of the least important was a conversation that for no particular reason has always stuck with me.

Amy hadn’t planned on staying in Montana. She was on a road trip from her home in Oregon to the home of a friend on the East Coast, where she planned on staying for the summer before heading off to Africa to travel. She and her friend had been forced to stop driving on Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park because its tight curves and precipitous drops were too perilous to drive on a dark night in thick fog. They wedged the car into one of the scenic overlooks that I rarely park on because I’m scared my car will just tip over the edge, and in the morning they woke up to a clear sunrise and a view that, in ancient times, may have caused a person to fall on their knees and worship whatever gods roamed their imaginations. “When I saw that view,” Amy said, “I knew I had to stay.” I knew how she felt.

Going-to-the-Sun is the only road that cuts through Glacier National Park, from the domineering Rocky Mountains looming immediately overhead on the western side to where the Rockies’ foothills spill out onto the the prairie and the Two Medicine geological formation. Most people drive it with either a sense of thrill and abandonment (these people are known as nutcases, akin to taxi drivers whipping you down the corniches on the Cote d’Azur to see if they can give you a heart attack), or with white knuckles and short breath (that’s the rest of us).

The road was carved and blasted out of the mountainsides, an engineering feat few would consider today because the expense would never pay off. But in the 1930s men were desperate for work and grand civic projects were popular. Pictures can never do it justice; you have to drive it yourself. Barely over 16 feet wide, Going-to-the-Sun doesn’t exactly hug the plunging mountains: it’s more like seeing a rock climber inch up a sheer cliff face, handhold by foothold, wondering how on earth they stay put and waiting every moment for the miracle to collapse.

In other words, we drive this road only at the whim of the mountains and the weather.

Nearly a century has passed since three men died to give tenuous automobile access to a view of Glacier that finally explains its nickname “Crown of the Continent.” The low rock walls that station gangs painstakingly cemented together began slipping and crumbling years ago, bit by bit. They’re the only things keeping cars from careening spectacularly over the edge.

Over the past few years, the National Park Service has begun to repair it, also bit by bit and likely at enormous expense. Half-hour delays in traffic are common during daytime peak hours (four-hour delays at night) while earth movers and construction crews edge their way around a terrain you’d hardly want to revolve a bicycle in. There’s nowhere for impatient drivers to pass on an edge, or even to turn around in disgust. Some curves are so tight I wonder how large SUVs don’t scrape their sides. As it is, no vehicles over 21 feet long are allowed on the road, nor any over 8 feet wide (including mirrors), and those over 10 feet high are discouraged due to low rock overhangs.

I used to be terrified of heights, and only drove Going-to-the-Sun under duress, never moving my eyes an inch from the road, and refusing to drive it at night. That fear has abated somewhat, but keeping a bit around on this drive is, I think, healthy. When I took my husband up to Logan Pass (the highest point at 6646 feet) this week I marveled at the nonchalance of construction crews dangling their feet over the ledges during a lunch break, and remembered to take deep breaths. It’s worth it, every time, for access to some of the best hiking and mountain-climbing trails in the park, and for the view that grabs you by the throat.

Watching the construction, though, I wondered how long this road can continue. At some point rockslides and avalanches will shave enough inches off the edge that only small cars will be able to get through — whittling down to admit a Smart car, a horse, a donkey, and finally the path will be left only to the mountain goats and small creatures who always owned it in the first place. Unless, of course, the Park Service continues to invest in its upkeep. I am sure they will for many decades to come, but part of me wonders how quickly, if left alone, this paved intrusion will slip and crumble into its natural state. For now, it allows us access under proud sufferance.

(Watch a short video clip of driving down Going-to-the-Sun here.)