Glacier National Park

Visited: August 2017

Duration: 4 days

Accomodations: AirBNB about 10 miles from the park. (Columbia Falls) Astrid Cabin

Glacier National Park, the mother of them all. I have heard so much about this park I couldn’t wait to get here.  There is so much to take in and so much to do here you could come every day for a month and still not get it all in.  We covered the basics knowing that this would be a park we will need to put on the revisit list.

I am going to try and pack 4 days into this post, but I will need to just cover our highlights. Just know this is not a park to miss!! It is one of the favorites.

1st stop Apgar Visitor Center, Junior Ranger book, magnets and our shopping musts all taken care of. Off to do a bit of hiking.  If only there was any parking?? Oh wait there was one spot at a pull off after Lake MacDonald.

We managed to find some after traveling an hour or so up the Going to the Sun road.  It was CRAZY BUSY!!  We pulled off by Weeping wall and got some amazing pictures just walking up the hill side and posing in the flowers. Boys enjoyed just walking around and enjoying the views, so many to choose from.

We drove up to Logan Pass Visitor Center and by this time in the day the parking lot was full and not letting any other cars in. We were getting hungry so we drove to Rising Sun did a little shopping and grabbed some lunch.

We drove back down the road a bit and did a boat tour on Saint Mary Lake.  This was a great time. We saw a bear and some moose swimming and playing in the lake. The gal that did our tour was top notch.  It was a great time and they had a stamp for us for our passport book. Bonus!! There was a stop off on the lake with a little hike to Baring Falls. There we took some great photos and saw a yellow bellied marmot snoozing on a rock.

We headed back up to Going to the sun road and popped off at a pullout we heard our boat captain tell us about.  It was the Triple divide (the only triple divide in the world). This was a cool stop, we like these types of pull offs.

A stop at the viewing for Goose Island and we are heading back to Logan Pass which is less busy now. Crowds are dying off.  It is busiest between 9-3 in this park so plan your day better. We know now 🙂

Its a new day and we are Glacier experienced. Today more hiking and get there early so we have parking 🙂 We started the day off with a hike starting at Jackson Glacier overlook and we hiked to St. Mary Falls and Victoria falls then up to Sun Point Nature trail bus stop to take us back to our car. GREAT HIKE!!!

Headed back down the road and found room in the parking area for trail of the cedars. This trail was a short and nice trail that is a must if you can find some parking. Get here really early (like before 8 am or later in the evening) we pulled in around dinner time. Great short hike with a water fall.

Couple more pull offs that were finally open and that ends our busy day.

Next day Gunnar and Grandma took a break and stayed at the cabin while Hunter and I hiked the Highline trail. This hike was magnificent. I highly recommend this if you came to Glacier to hike.  This hike goes above and beyond, literally.  You are up on the tops of the mountains looking down on the park. It was amazing how high up we were.  It took us about 7-8 hours to do the hike and we stopped for lunch at the haystacks and filled up on water at the Chalet.  What great memories Hunter and I made that day!! I don’t think you could take a bad picture at this park.

Well this took all day and I had to teach my child how to hitch hike through national parks because the bus system here can’t hold all of the guests that visit here. Keep that in mind when wanting to do the park by bus. We got to the bus stop at Apgar at 8 am and were told we wouldn’t get on a bus until 10:30 so we opted to hitch hike. We were picked up by a guy who works in the park (was off duty) and then by a mom with 3 kids heading up the road.  All great people just be aware if you are doing this.

Next day we stopped off to get our Junior Rangers badges and stopped off at the West Glacier Railroad depot to get some tshirts and stuff, stumbled upon ALL of the Glacier National Park Passport Stamps!!!  Woo hoo!!! If you can’t make it to all Visitor Centers stop in here.

This park is A MUST! Lots of things to do, awesome hiking and superior views. Could this be my new favorite national park??? It is in my top 5 for sure.  Have you been to Glacier, did you love it as much as us??  When we go back it will be in May, June or September. We spent a lot of time fighting crowds this trip and don’t want to waste a minute at this park.

We also want to visit Two Medicine and Many Glacier parts of the park.

Off to North Dakota.  Check back for those 3 parks we will visit.