Glacier National Park
When I went:
September 2019
Itinerary:
Missoula —> Kalispell —> West Glacier —> East Glacier
How long:
7 days
How I got there:
My boyfriend, Abe and I, were meeting his dad and his partner in Missoula. From Los Angeles, we went to Portland then Missoula. Kalispell is closer to the park, but for whatever reason, going to Kalispell didn’t work out for them. If it works for you, I recommend doing that instead of Missoula.
Transportation:
From the Missoula airport, we rented a car and drove to Kalispell for the first night. Then stayed three nights in West Glacier and two nights in Browning.
There are some shuttles within the park like from Lake McDonald to Logan Pass. We had to wait 45 minutes for one, but during peak season they come every 15-30 minutes and an hour during less popular times. Going-to-the-sun road is a popular road through the park and a nice drive. If you go in the fall, you should look at when it’s supposed to close for the season or for maintenance. It’s closed during the winter though!
Accommodations:
We stayed at a few hotels during our stay. The first day we arrived, we stayed at Holiday Inn Express in Kalispell.
If you want to stay in the lodges during peak season, you better do it WELL in advance. Luckily Abe’s dad made reservations a year in advance so we were able to hop into the extra room they had. You can keep calling back to see if they have any cancellations, but they book up fast.
In West Glacier, we stayed at Lake McDonald Lodge. If you can't get a room there, try Apgar Village which is also in the park near the west entrance. If you are staying on the westside of the park but not IN the park, you can try West Glacier, Kalispell, or Whitefish, but it’ll be a longer drive into the park each time you visit.
The lodge was right on the lake and has a couple restaurants onsite. They aren’t great… but the selection in national parks is always okay. We had a room in a cabin, which seemed like most of them had 2-3 rooms per cabin. We had our own private bathroom though. The room was tiny and we had a double bed, but I can’t speak for the rooms inside the actual lodge.
We stayed at Many Glacier Hotel for two nights. I loved the atmosphere of this hotel. It was built in 1915 and modeled after a Swiss chalet. It’s right on Swiftcurrent Lake and has access to many trails nearby. Our room was in the main lodge overlooking the lobby and it was cute and quaint. There are a few dining options which I thought were better than Lake McDonald’s.
Activities/Sights To See:
If you like hiking, then Glacier National Park is the place for you! There are many hikes for all skill levels.
West Glacier National Park
Avalanche Lake Trail
Time: 2-2.5 hours
Distance: 4.5 miles/7.2 km RT
Difficulty: Easy
Take the Going-to-the-Sun Road about 6 miles from Lake McDonald Lodge and you will get to the parking area for the trail.
You’ll want to get on the Trail of The Cedars walk and go about 0.5 miles in. You will reach the entrance for the Avalanche Lake trail here.
You’ll pass Avalanche Creek and Gorge at the beginning of the hike. Almost all of the hike is under the trees which is really nice!
I remember feeling like it took forever to get to the lake! It was a pretty easy trail with some slight incline, but nothing crazy.
The halfway point is when you reach a break in the trees, and if it’s sunny, that’s one of the few times you’ll get direct sunlight until you reach the lake.
Once you get to the lake, there is a place you can stop before the very end of the lake. It’s probably only 0.2 miles to the end, however we just stopped at the first part. It’s a nice spot to enjoy a snack or lunch.
Trail Of The Cedars
Time: 15-30 minutes
Distance: 1 mile / 1.6 km round trip
Difficulty: Easy
Take the Going-to-the-Sun Road about 6 miles from Lake McDonald Lodge and you will get to the parking area for the trail.
This is an easy, wheelchair accessible trail loop. It’s on a well-maintained raised boardwalk. It’s very shady and will eventually lead to the Avalanche Lake Trailhead.
Johns Lake Loop Trail
Time: 15-25 minutes
Distance: 2 miles / 3.21 km round trip
Difficulty: Easy
Take the Going-to-the-Sun Road about 1.5 miles from Lake McDonald Lodge and you will get to the parking area for the trail.
It was a rainy day so we wanted something easy. This is a good trail to do on a rainy day since it’s mostly under trees and not too slippery.
Johns Lake is only 0.5 miles from the start of the trail. Once we got to the end, back at the Going-to-the-Sun Road, we cross it to look at McDonald Falls. We continued on the trail and crossed the bridge above the falls. Upper McDonald Creek trail is part of the loop, which I didn’t know until afterwards, but it’s an easy walk along the water.
Once you’re done, you’ll reach a road which is actually a private residential road. If you keep walking along it, you’ll see where the creek goes into Lake McDonald and then you’ll be back in the parking area.
Highline Trail + The Loop
Time: 5-6 hours
Distance: 11.6 or 15.2 miles / 18.6 or 24.4 km RT
Difficulty: Moderate
Take the Going-to-the-Sun Road and park at Logan Pass Visitor Center. It was about 45 minutes away from Lake McDonald Lodge.
Various blogs and people in the park told us to get there before 8 am. I would suggest this during peak season because we got there at 8am and it was almost full. You could also take a shuttle from Lake McDonald Lodge too, but there will be other stops.
At Logan Pass, you can go to the Hidden Lake Trail or Highline Trail. Sadly we didn't have time for Hidden Lake cause we went on quite the adventure on the Highline Trail.
Cross the road to get to the Highline Trail. I’m going to lay out a few different options cause I wasn’t actually quite sure until we reached the end of the trail.
Option 1 - hike to the Granite Peak Chalet and turn around (15.2 miles RT)
Option 2 - hike to Grinnell Lake Overlook (heard this part was strenuous) and turn back (15.2 miles RT).
Option 3 - hike to Granite Peak Chalet and take The Loop trail down (11.6 miles RT)
Of course you can turn back at any point in the trail, but we decided early on that we would go the whole way. However, I misread a blog and didn’t know The Loop was an additional 4 miles…whoops.
The trail is pretty easy most of the way and follows the Going-to-the-Sun road. The trail is mostly flat, but you will encounter some ups and downs. There is one particular uphill climb around halfway through the trip. Once we got passed that, we saw some goats and big horn sheep! We also saw some marmots later on in the trail. There’s also some nice flora and fauna on the trail.
Towards the end of the trail, you will reach a fork in the road. You can go to the Granite Peak Chalet, Grinnell Glacier Overlook, or turn back. We decided to go to Granite Peak Chalet and then go on The Loop. You can actually stay at the chalet and there are some restrooms.
The Loop is a good option because there is a shuttle stop at the end and you can take it eastbound back to Logan Pass. It’s also shorter and less repetitive than taking the Highline Trail back.
The trail goes downhill the entire time from the chalet. It honestly felt like we were on the trail forever! Towards the end we saw a sign that made it seem like the shuttle stop was right around the corner, but it was probably bout 0.5 miles away.
We encountered an odd situation with the shuttle. When we got down, we saw one pass. Then we got to the stop, one came, but only had 6 seats and we were at the end of the line. On the sign it said that shuttles would come every 15-30 minutes, but we waited over 45 minutes for one to come. If you don’t want to wait, you can hitchhike, which we saw a decent amount of people do.
It’s important to note that sometimes they will only have a certain amount of spots. We were at the beginning of the line for the shuttle after we missed the initial one, but by that time there were around 20+ people in line behind us.
The Highline Trail was nice, but 12-15 miles can be a lot if you’re not used to it!
Apgar Village
We had a rainy day so we explored Apgar Village near the beginning of the west Glacier National Park entrance. If you park at the Apgar Visitor Center, there is a nice paved road to Apgar Village. It’s also a bike trail.
Apgar Village was an easy 10 minute walk from the visitor center. There are some shops and food, including some delicious huckleberry ice cream. Apgar is at the southern part of Lake McDonald so you can walk to it from the village.
East Glacier National Park
Grinnell Glacier Trail
Time: 5-6 hours
Distance: 7.6 miles / 12.2 km or 11.3 miles / 18.2 km RT
Difficulty: Strenuous
I was really looking forward to this trail, but we just did the 12 mile Highline and Loop Trail the previous day and our bodies were really tired. It was also cloudy and rain was looming. I wanted to see the overlook of the lake so we went 1-1.5 miles into the Grinnell Glacier Trail until we got sight of the lake.
Afterwards, we turned back around and did the North Shore Lake Josephine Trail. At the point of the trail, we were 2.5 miles away from Many Glacier Hotel.
If you want to get to Grinnell Glacier, you can either walk along Swiftcurrent Lake and Lake Josephine from the hotel or you can also drive to a trailhead.
Another option is to take the boat shuttle across Swiftcurrent Lake and Lake Josephine, which will shave off 3.4 miles of the overall hike. You can book through the Glacier Park Boat Company and it’s $27.50 per adult. This is located right outside of Many Glacier Hotel.
After you get across Swiftcurrent Lake, there is a 0.2 mile walk to the next boat on Lake Josephine. You have the option of staying on the boat or getting off at the dock. Many Glacier Hotel is 2.2 miles away from that point, Grinnell Lake is 0.9 miles, and Grinnell Glacier is 3.8 miles.
I heard the trail is great, so definitely worth it if you have the time, weather, and energy!
Lake Josephine Trail
Time: 5-6 hours
Distance: 5.8 miles / 9.3 km
Difficulty: Easy
I mentioned this trail above, but I’ll go through it again just in case you didn’t read it ;)
We got to this trail from the Grinnell Glacier Trail, but you can take this from Many Glacier Hotel or Grinnell Glacier Trailhead near the Many Glacier Picnic Area. It follows the lake and you have a nice higher viewpoint.
If you are going back to the hotel, after you pass Lake Josephine, you will veer right to go on the right side of Swiftcurrent Lake.
Redrock Falls Trail
Time: 1.5-2 hours
Distance: 3.6 miles / 5.8 km RT
Difficulty: Easy
Go past Many Glacier Hotel and keep going until you get to the Swiftcurrent Motor Inn. There’s a gift shop, restaurant, and restrooms there too.
Look for the Swiftcurrent Pass Trail sign. We also stopped by Fishercap Lake which was 0.7 miles into the trail. We heard this was a good place to see moose. It was raining so unfortunately we didn’t see any moose. I have no idea if moose care about the rain, but I’ll just blame it on that.
It’s a little over 1 mile until you reach Redrock Lake and Falls. The trail is mostly flat and not too dangerous even in wet conditions.
Another fun fact is right around 5:30-6:30pm, is apparently prime wildlife time on the mountain behind Swiftcurrent Motor Inn. I don’t know how often this happens, but a park ranger was there with a telescope so we could see some wildlife action. We could see that there was a black bear on the mountain.
Food
This will be a mix of food we ate while in Montana!
Kalispell
Desoto Grill - Abe and I got the BBQ platter with ribs, elk sausage, pulled pork, smoky Mac n cheese, and slaw. It was a lot of food, but it’s a good amount if you’re hungry! We also got a smoked peach and huckleberry cobbler with ice cream, which was also good.
Colter Coffee - located on the main stretch of shops and restaurants in Kalispell. I actually had a chai latte here and it was delicious. Brought a bag of coffee beans home to try!
Glacier National Park
Just outside Glacier National Park:
Glacier Coffee House - this is right outside of the west entrance in West Glacier. It’s a small little hut, but the drinks were good. It’s right next to an outdoor center that has lodging, a store, and restrooms.
The Huckleberry Patch - we stopped at the one in Hungry Horse. This is a very unassuming good place to get food! The restaurant doesn’t look like much, but the sandwiches were really good. We got a couple of sandwiches, one with huckleberry BBQ sauce and the other with an au jus. It’s also connected to a store with huckleberry everything and a restroom.
Inside Glacier National Park:
Eddies Cafe & Gifts - this is in Apgar Village which is the first stop after the West Glacier entrance. We got some huckleberry ice cream and it was delicious!
Lake McDonald Lodge
Russell’s Fireside Dining Room - This is the main dining room. If you’ve been to a national park before, you know food is not really what they're known for… So keep your expectations a little low…
They have breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Breakfast can be from their buffet or a la carte menu. During busier months, put your name down for dinner ahead of time unless you want to eat really early or later (5pm or 9pm).
Lucke’s Lounge - This is next to the main dining room. There is also a wait here during peak times. There is a small bar and one TV in there. The burgers here were pretty good.
Jammer Joe’s Grill & Pizzeria - This is a short 5 minute walk from the lobby. The interior is kind of bland compared to the lodge. The pizza was fine, but nothing to write home about.
Many Glacier Hotel
The Ptarmigan Dining Room - this is the main dining room and it’s beautiful. Again, the food isn’t anything to write home about. It has breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Breakfast can be from the buffet or a la carte.
Swiss Lounge - It’s right next to the main dining room and has a bar area with a TV. I liked the food here better than at Ptarmigan. The burger I had was pretty tasty and so was the huckleberry cobbler.
Missoula
Top Hat Restaurant & Bar - the only place we ate in Missoula. We asked a local on the street what he recommended and he said this. They have a selection of burgers, salads, fusion dishes, and a good amount of healthier options. I got a sausage spaghetti squash dish which was really tasty. For dessert we shared an apple strudel with caramel and vanilla ice cream.
Enough time?
A week was not enough time! We had a couple of rainy days, but we still wouldn’t have done everything regardless.
The great thing about Glacier National Park is that it’s a nature and hiker lover’s paradise. We didn’t have time for all the hikes I bookmarked, but I heard these were great:
Hidden Lake Trail & Overlook
Grinnell Glacier Trail
Iceberg Lake
Cracker Lake
St. Mary Falls/Lake
Two Medicine Lake
