Up to the Sky

Travel adventures. The places I have been and things others should do.

Glacier National Park

Description:

Glacier National Park, Montana, is a breathtaking natural wonder. With over 1 million visitors per year, spanning over 1,000,000 acres, featuring glaciers, lakes, waterfalls, and mountains. Wildlife enthusiasts will be excited when they spot grizzly bears, mountain goats, and bighorn sheep. Don’t forget to bring your camera to capture the stunning scenery!

I have been to many national parks and this is by far my FAVORITE. We were able to explore the park over two days but I wish I had more time. There is just so much to see and explore within the park.

How to get into the Park:

  • There are 7 different entrances into the park but only three of them are connected to the Going-To -The- Sun Road, which is the main road that travel from the west to east along the continental divide. These three entrances are: West Glacier Entrance, Saint Mary Entrance, and Camas Creek Entrance.
  • Please do your research when heading to Glacier. Depending on when you plan on going into the park, if it is between May 26th-September 10th, you will need a reservation for entrance to Going-to-the-Sun road. You can find this at recreation.gov. You need to do this as early as possible. If you are unable to get a pass when the reservations open, you can normally try to get them the day before you enter the park. That is how I was able to get the reservation tickets. The extra reservations normally open very early in the morning so log in as soon as they open to make sure you get a ticket.
    • The reservation is only $2 and it is not the same as a ticket into the park.
    • You will still have to pay for park entrance which is $35 per car. If you have a national park pass you will be able to get in for free.

Itinerary:

  • Day 1: When we first arrived to the park we entered through the West Glacier Entrance. We enjoyed driving through the gorgeous park seeing all the mountains and lakes.
  • We hiked the Piegan Pass Trail. It was a very long hike but worth all the miles and elevation.
  • After the hike we continued down the road and found the Sun point Nature trail.
  • Then after we hiked over 15 miles for the day we went back to our campsite.
  • Day2: We got up early and headed back to the park. When getting to the park, the earlier, the better! The hike that we wanted to do for the day was Avalanche Lake.
    • If you only do one hike this whole trip it needs to be this one!!
    • Once we were done, we had to head back to Big Sky, Montana.

Where to Stay:

  • There are different hotels and cabins you are able to stay in around the park. We decided to camp. There are many options to camp inside the park that you can reserve but you need to do it early. There are also first come first serve spots you can try.
  • I found a camp spot that was 30 minutes outside of Glacier. It was called Emery Bay Campground. This has been one of my favorite spots I have camped so far. It was located right on a lake. Keep in mind this camp spot does not have cell service.
  • Bears in this area are a real thing that you may see. So make sure you keep all your food locked away.
  • Recreation.gov is the site to use to find different camp spots in and out of the park.

Hikes:

  • Piegan Pass Trail: This trail is amazing you will just be in awe the full trek. I normally recommend the all trail app for any hike but all trails did lie about the length on of this hike. It said 12.7 miles but we made it to mile 6 and we weren’t even close to halfway there. This trail is one of the more difficult trails I have done. It was pretty steep at parts and a lot of the trail you were hiking on the side of a steep mountain, and some areas still had snow. Before entering the trail there is warning signs about entering bear country. So be prepared with bear spray and a bear bell.
  • Avalanche lake: Amazing Hike!!! If you can only do one hike during your trip, this is the best one to do and one of the more popular ones in the park. It took us about 5 miles there and back. It had about 755ft of elevation but you hike to a lake with waterfalls all around. This hike is very busy so you need to get there early to find a place to park. It feels very safe since there is so many people around the whole hike.
  • Sun Point Nature Trail: This is the easiest hike that we did. It is only a 2 mile hike but you can extend the hike for multiple miles; we did a total of 4 miles. It is a flatter trail compared to the ones above. We did see a moose on this trail. Moose are not animals to be messed with.

Things to Know:

  • We rented a car for our whole trip and I highly recommend doing that if your budget allows; it makes it easier to explore the whole park.
  • When you are at the park or camp sites’ the cell service can be poor so keep that in mind when planning your trip.
  • Wild life is out there so keep an eye out and never get to close to any of these animals, you never know what they will do.

Skylar Vanfossen

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