A Late Summer Visit to Glacier National Park

Hiking in the Rain & Glacier Redemption

Late August 2023, we made our first visit to Glacier National Park. This was part of a larger trip, which would also bring us to Banff and Jasper up across the border. We experienced challenging weather the first 2 days, but we made the most of the time we had. The gorgeous sunny day on our trek up to Grinnell Glacier on the third day made up for whatever the previous two days lacked.

East Glacier Park Village

We didn’t start planning this trip till March of 2023 and all the options within Glacier National Park were already booked up (lodging bookings open a year prior and fill up quick). We began with looking outside the park.

Since we were mostly interested in hikes that would be closer to the east park entrances, we focused on options on that side. This basically left us with East Glacier Park Village.

This is a very small town, about 15 minutes west of Browning, MT, the closest town with full amenities (i.e. a grocery store, we recommend Glacier Family Foods). It does have a few restaurant options. We tried Serranos Mexican Restaurant. The food was decent, but their margs won’t put them on the map (too much sour mix). Right next door is a place called The Peak, which looked interesting but we never made it there.

Our Daily Logistics

Summer months require park entry reservations for arrivals between 6am & 3pm (which also fill up way in advance), so we planned to be entering the park prior to 6am each day

East Glacier Park Village put us approximately an hour from St Mary’s and Many Glacier entrances, which are popular in Glacier National Park

Our morning routines consisted of a 4am wake up, Corinne making breakfast while John gathered gear and loaded the car and then on the road by 4:30am (clothes laid out and gear prep before bed the previous night)

We are early starters as a rule and our roadtrips typically involve 3-4 hours on the road most days, so this wasn’t anything too out of the norm for us; if anything, coming back to the same home base each day was a plus

No cell service in the parks, download maps for offline use!! We did this with Googlemaps (which we use for driving directions), as well as All Trails for our hikes

Day 1: Iceberg Lake Hike

We had watched the storm come in the night before and based on the forecast we expected wet and windy conditions. That said, it would be hard to tell what the weather would be like on the trail.

This hike is accessed via the Many Glacier park entrance of Glacier National Park and the trailhead is located near the cabins behind the Swiftcurrent Motor Inn (which served as a dry and toasty bathroom stop before we hit the trail).

When we arrived at the trailhead close to 6am, it was pitch black with gusts of wind driving the fine rain sideways. We decided to nap till it got brighter.

We hit the trail about 7am and it was an overall easy hike, just shy of 10 miles and a nice steady incline. We never noticed the 1500 ft elevation gain and it made for a very speedy return trip. This was fortunate as our gear was starting to lose it’s weather resistance on the way back.

Iceberg lake has that bright blue color, which we would learn is the byproduct of all the rock flour produced by glaciers slow grinding the mountains. It also had a very noticeable chilling effect on local temperature. Given how damp we were, we couldn’t hang out for long.

Glacier National Park views from the Iceberg Lake trail…

The overcast skies can add a certain ethereal quality to the views

Corinne bringing her best ‘so excited to be here!’ pose

Day 2 (Part 1): Highline Trail

We were hoping for better weather for this hike, but hoping didn’t make it happen.

This hike is accessed via the St Mary’s park entrance of Glacier National Park, and the trailhead is located at the Logan Pass Visitor’s Center. Our original plan was to add on the extra stretch at the end to get to the shuttles at ‘The Loop‘ and take the shuttle back to our car.

With all the rain, there were heavy courses of water running down the cliff face alongside the road inside the park and some basketball sized rock debris in the road we had to navigate around!

Getting to Logan Pass shortly before 6am, the lot was empty but there was a steady flow of cars into the lot after us. We started off as soon as it got light enough, and trail was relatively busy from the get go.

With the low clouds we never had the views that one would look forward to on the Highline Trail. It got to the point where we were just doing it for the sake of doing it. Corinne was not a fan of just “exercise hiking” with no views.

Now, whether it was due to the rain or a normal feature of the trail, what stood out immediately was how many small waterfalls we essentially had to walk through on the trail. Ultimately, near the 5 mile point, we hit one we nope’d out on as it just didn’t seem safe from a footing perspective. We wondered if we ran in to a worse one, would we have to come back across it? So, we opted to turn around.

We weren’t alone to make that call. The fact that we weren’t blessed with dramatic views just made the decision to turn around a lot easier, though still disappointing.

One of the many, many waterfalls we had to cross on the trail

Glacier National Park views from the Highline trail…

This was where we turned back at; the path was just awash

Day 2 (Part 2): Going to the Sun

We made the trek back to East Glacier Park Village after our aborted Highline Trail hike, getting back around noon.

The question in front of us was if the weather would cooperate to make it worthwhile to make the drive back to do the Glacier National Park through drive on the Going to the Sun Rd.

Well, there was actually another question as to whether we would be able to stay alert during an over 4 hour drive (~1hr to get back to the St Mary’s entrance + ~2hrs drive through the park + ~1hr drive back via Rt 2, south of the park). We were feeling those 4am wake-ups!

Suffice to say, we decided to make a go of it. We were treated to some great views, and we were energized by the whole thing (so no nodding off at the wheel…which was nice).

We stopped at Two Medicine Lake on the way back, which was just 20 minutes from our AirBnB, hoping to catch some sunset views. Didn’t get the color we were hoping for, but it was still beautiful and very peaceful as there weren’t many people there.

Glacier National Park views from the Going to the Sun Road…

Lake McDonald, at the western end of the GTSR

Day 3: Grinnell Glacier

This hike made the whole trip, which was great because we would be leaving the park for Canada immediately after completing this hike.

We had clear skies this day and we were greeted with some beautiful sunrise views at the start of our hike, as well as being able to see the rising sun light up the peaks of the mountains ahead of us.

Not the hardest hike we’ve done, but it definitely made you work for it at the end. We enjoyed a snack by the glacial lake, listening to the occasional booming noises from the glacier as ice broke off from the glacier to add to the lake.

The trip down, we were amazed at how many people started the hike later in the day. The trail is very exposed. Even at only 70 degrees (F), in the full sun, it felt much warmer. We were repeatedly asked “Is it worth it?”, which we of course said “yes!” The descent did take a toll on John’s knees though!

When we got to Swiftcurrent Lake again, they had closed the trail back to the trailhead for maintenance, so we were forced to walk all the way around Swiftcurrent Lake (counterclockwise) in order to get back to our car. This did mean we could stop at the Ptarmigan Dining room at the Many Glacier Lodge for a delicious lunch and a beverage.

Another positive of early morning starts, is you increase your chances of seeing wildlife.

Very early in the hike, while near Josephine Lake, Corinne paused to re-tie her boot, and these two emerged from the trail ahead of us.

Closer than we’d normally want to be, we opted to simply stay put and wait for them to move on, which they did without seeming to pay us any mind at all.

Glacier National Park views from the Grinnell Glacier Hike…

Ptarmigan Dining Room view, and post hike cocktail

Glacier National Park is a gorgeous park, and it was a fantastic experience despite the weather. The only thing on our agenda that we missed was a visit to Hidden Lake. We had planned to visit it after the Highline Trail, or at least going to the overlook, as it’s also accessed from Logan Pass. Given the cloud cover, we skipped it – which is unfortunate as it looks to be gorgeous on a clearer day.

Some takeaways…

The volume of traffic in this park cannot be understated; if you aren’t up to early starts, you’ll need to anticipate heavy crowds, and trying to use your own vehicle could be an extreme liability with limited parking

We found Many Glacier to not be as jam packed compared to Going to the Sun Road (St Mary’s <-> Lake McDonald)

We feel like staying outside the park , on the eastern side and traveling in daily actually helped facilitate wider access to more of the park

Our personal preferences obviously inform our approach; early starts, leveraging our own vehicle and not minding a decent amount of time in the car each day – staying in the park and willingness to use the shuttle could make for a different approach