Glacier National Park, Part I

One of our main summer destinations this year was Glacier National Park and it was perfect. When I was planning over 6 months ago, I was worried that we’d be dealing with haze and wildfire smoke that frequently occurs in the area. But we had beautiful clear days for the 3 weeks we were there. Ironically, a wildfire increased our time at the park from 2 to 3 weeks when one broke out at our next destination, Flathead Lake.

Our Alltrails app tells us that we paddled for 8.5 miles and hiked for 88 miles over 3 weeks (and Michael took nearly a week of vacation over that time). We did so much that I need separate blogs for the west and east sides of the park.

Coming from Idaho on US Route 2, we visited the west side first. One of the biggest differences between the two sides is that the west is close to Kalispell and Whitefish, so there are a lot more people and amenities (groceries, cell towers, etc).

While on the west side, we stayed at Whispering Pines RV Park in Columbia Falls for 10 days. Columbia Falls is the closest town to the park’s west entrance that has reliable cell service and we made our reservations before we got Dishy (satellite internet).

Polebridge and the North Fork

Our first Glacier experience was paddling at Bowman Lake in the remote northwest North Fork area of the park, where only 100 vehicles are allowed to enter per day by reservation. When I say remote, it took us over 1.5 hours to drive 35 miles from the West entrance of the park to Bowman. We don’t think the road is normally so bad, but when Yellowstone had catastrophic flooding earlier this year, this road in Glacier also experienced flooding. We ate the famous huckleberry bear claws we picked up in Polebridge and decided that Bowman Lake was 100% worth the drive.

We had such a great time at Bowman that we decided to go back to the North Fork and paddle Kintla Lake. It took a little longer to get to Kintla, but the road was much better. Our visits to the North Fork were some of our favorite days at Glacier because there were so few people. The only thing better than our national parks is having them to yourself.

West Entrance and Lake McDonald

The west entrance of the park is crowded because of all the nearby infrastructure and access to the Going to the Sun Road (vehicle reservations are required). Right inside is Lake McDonald, which is probably the most well-known lake in the park. It has colorful pebbles and boat rentals, as opposed to needing your own at the North Fork lakes.

The best hikes we could access from the west side were the Trail of the Cedars and Avalanche Lake and they were very crowded. We weren’t technically allowed to drive any further on the Sun Road because our truck is over 21ft long.

Going to the Sun Road and Logan Pass

We rented a car for the weekend so that we could drive and hike along the Sun Road, which had only opened the prior week (July 13) because of an unseasonably large snowpack. Most years it opens by early June. Driving the Sun Road is THE thing to do in Glacier. It is probably one of the most beautiful drives in the US.

On Saturday we drove straight to Logan Pass, where the Sun Road traverses the continental divide, to hike the Highline Trail to the Grinnell Glacier overlook. This hike was 15.8 miles and the longest hike we’ve done since we went to Yosemite over 10 years ago. While we hike frequently, the hikes are usually less than 5 miles during the week and on weekends, normally around 10 miles.

For several miles the Highline parallels the Sun Road. On the way out I didn’t take that many pictures because I was too concerned about whether or not I’d be able to do 15+ miles, considering I had a foot injury/surgery in 2019 and it still bothers me.

But we made it! I think this is the first glacier either one of us has seen.

The park’s current glaciers are small and receding from their peak sizes in the mid-1800s. Giant Pleistocene glaciers thousands of feet higher than the current glaciers melted 10,000 years ago, leaving numerous U-shaped valleys and cirques, which look like giant ice cream scoops carved them.

I took more photos on the way back. The views along this trail were constant, wildflowers were in bloom, we saw a lot of marmots, deer, bighorn sheep, and mountain goats.

The Highline is one of our favorite trails ever. It had only opened for the season the day before, so were lucky!

The next morning, we went back to Logan Pass to hike what we could of the Hidden Lake Trail. We could only go a short bit before the trail was closed due to bear activity. All the trails in Glacier seem to open and close frequently based on bear activity, which is a bit annoying until you remember, Thank God someone is opening and closing the trails based on bear activity!

We spent the rest of the day driving the 50-mile Sun Road and stopping at the pullouts.

Time to move over to the east side of Glacier, which turned out to be our favorite side.