ADVENTURES IN GLACIER NATIONAL PARK

Joelle McDonald
Jul 16, 2024
14 min read

This summer we were at a cross roads of where to go for our sister trip. Southeast Asia maybe? Korea? Japan? Woah those all look way too hot. Alaska would be colder. Maybe Alaska and Canada? Hey we could drive to Canada! That’s a long ways, what would be a cool stop along the way?

That folks, is how Hannah and I found ourselves at Glacier National Park in Montana this week. For the record, we don’t know how hot Southeast Asia is right now, but Glacier is not nearly as cool as one would expect a glacier to be. Oh well.

The Drive: Boulder to West Glacier

Our journey begins with an 18.5 hour drive from home to our first campground. We gave ourselves two days to do it with plans to sleep in a Walmart parking lot between the days. Unfortunately we get a late 4 PM start, so we only get 5 hours down the road to Casper on day one. We did make a quick stop at the new Bucee’s location in Colorado because it was just too weird to drive by. For those who don’t know, Bucee’s is a Disneyland-like gas station that puts late-stage capitalism and America’s obsession with consumption on full display. Employees even chant while making sandwich meat as a crowd stands around them filming the “performance”. The bathrooms are great though. That leaves 13.5 hours on day two, but we have livened up the drive by choosing the scenic route over Beartooth Highway, which has been named the most scenic drive in America by some organization and was recommended to Hannah by a friend.

The drive through Wyoming is shockingly pretty. Beartooth Pass really is beautiful, and so is the scenic byway we take to get there through the Greater Yellowstone Area. We hop out at countless pullouts to get pictures. There is a deep and narrow canyon along the byway and a long traffic jam when a huge herd of cattle block the road until their horse-mounted cowboys can wrangle them all to one side. At the summit of Beartooth Pass, we stop for the best view of it all and ask a couple to take our picture. The wife asks if we are twins (we don’t see it, but we get it at least once a week when we travel together). When we say we are sisters, the husband correctly guesses that Hannah is oldest. He is the first person to guess right in at least a year and a half! Let’s all give him an air five.

Finally, 17.5 hours after we started driving, we pull into our campsite around 11 PM. Little stops along the road for pictures, gas, and wiping bug guts off the windshield really add up!

West Glacier: McDonald Lake

Yesterday we slept horribly between the perceived exposure of the Walmart parking lot, early start to driving, city sounds, and it being our first time sleeping in the car. This morning we couldn’t feel further from our haggard selves of yesterday. We slept soundly and long in the cool shelter of the tall trees surrounding our campsite.

We don’t have a pass to drive into the park today, so we leisurely make our way toward the shuttle parking lot. It is 1:00 PM and parking is limited, so we worry we may be foiled before we even begin. But, we seem to have timed it perfectly for all the early risers to be returning from their adventures.

We take the shuttle to McDonald Lodge after a short wait. We hardly looked into what to do today, but we obviously have to check out anything that shares our name. Plus, we vaguely know you can rent paddle boards on the lake. On the bus, I suddenly connect the dots that Lake McDonald is huge, and I didn’t actually check where on the lake the boat rental shop would be. Oops. There is no service to check our work, so we will just have to adapt. We get off at the first shuttle stop with no idea where the paddle boards may be, if indeed they are even here…

We walk into the general store to ask. It’s the closest building, and the person behind the counter tells us the rentals are all right back where we started. Ugh. That’s what I get for skimming company websites and filling in the details myself. Determined for our trip not to be a loss, we walk to Lake McDonald Lodge and circle to the former front entrance, along the lake because people had to come by boat when it was built. Immediately, we see the paddle boat rental booth. “Oh my gosh, I didn’t totally mess up!” I had unfairly gotten very down on my trip planning in the minutes since the general store.

We easily rent two boards and are off on the lake. Lake McDonald is a particularly special place, in part because the rocks along the shore are a candy-store like array of color—red and green pop brightly against blue and gray and yellow. On the east shore of the long, skinny lake, three mountains rise steeply in grand rocky cliffs, reflecting themselves on the relatively still lake. To the west, a crown of distant mountains appears as green-blue silhouettes. In the long North shore, we were told Bald Eagles are nesting. We make that our target.

We’ve already spotted the eagles—blurred and distant—through our dinky binoculars, but we approach the shore hoping for a better look. Just as we near it, wind kicks up with a vengeance and shoots us away from the nest toward a small beach. Okay, wind, be that way. We will just enjoy the beach. We stop there to pull our picnic lunch from the dry bag and plop down on some shady logs. We scan the beach around us for the most eye-catching pebbles and watch as the choppy lake forms tiny whitecaps in the wind. We mull over just how challenging a paddle it will be to return to the opposite shore until we can drag our lunch out no longer.

We take off with intention, knowing even ten seconds stopped will mean our board turning 90° from the dock. We paddle hard as we get rocked and splashed and redirected by relentless tiny waves. It is an hour before we are gratefully pulling our boards onto the beach with sore knees and satisfaction.

We pass another hour soaking our legs in the lake, skipping rocks, and admiring the view from a bench. The hotel lobby is grand and cozy and covered in hunting trophies. Pleased with ourselves for managing to have an adventure today despite our late start and limited planning, we read as we wait for a return shuttle.

We settle in for another night at our cozy campsite and cook our first camp meal. After our first dehydrated camping meal in Iceland two years ago was gross, foretelling a whole trip of unsatisfying dinners, a lot is at stake. Hannah is shocked when she takes her first bite and likes our Madras Lentils meal packet. Thankfully, our food doesn’t have to be dehydrated this time.

Mid-Glacier: Hidden Lake and Avalanche Gorge

Today we are ready to venture deeper into the park. We wake up early to try to catch the express shuttle to Logan Pass, the halfway point and summit of the main road through the park and somewhere with notoriously limited parking. The express bus only runs from 7-8 AM, after which you have to transfer shuttles halfway. We reach the line at 7:08 and already there are around 40 people in front of us. Eventually, we realize that each shuttle only seats 12 and there are only four express shuttles. Darn, it’s almost certain we will be in line until the regular shuttle service starts. We are even more dismayed when we realize the person in front of us is place holding for her family of five. They keep on tagging out which kid has to wait in line while the rest of the family enjoys relative freedom. Great for them, frustrating for us. On the bright side, they provide ample, entertaining people watching for the next hour as more family members trickle into the line. The early-teen kids fight and whine, and the mom makes a dozen runs to the car while the dad hypocriticizes her. Little did we know then, we would bump into that family three more times in the week to come, always with an air of chaos around them.

At last we get on a shuttle, managing to nose ahead of the place-holding family when the last of the express shuttles is one seat too short for all five of them. It feels like fair punishment for their place holding to have them wait an extra ten minutes for a normal shuttle.

Going-to-the-Sun road is a road famous for its stunning views as it winds its way up Logan Pass. We overheard a ranger say the best views are from the right of us, and as we see the valley drop away below us, we agree. We are lucky the remaining seats on the bus were on this side. We drive past the Weeping Wall, a cliff above the road that drops overflowing spring water straight onto the asphalt.

From the busy Logan Pass Visitor Center, we begin our hike to Hidden Lake Overlook. We read on AllTrails that a grizzly can be seen fishing there if you have binoculars. It seems everyone has gotten wind of this because the trail is teeming with people. Snow fields cover most of the hike and loose rocks cover much of the rest. The view over Hidden Lake is magnificent. We patiently scan the lake for bears to no avail, eventually giving up to look at a baby mountain goat and a handful of adults nearby. While we are eating our lunch, there is a commotion. The grizzly bear came out! Someone lets us peek through his far superior binoculars for a closer look.

On our way back down the mountain, we stop at Avalanche Gorge where a short mile-long walk through old forest gets us to a stunning gorge. It’s hard to describe how beautiful it is, though Hannah and I watch as countless people walk past with just a quick glance and photo.

We catch a return shuttle back to our car and, back at the campsite, make gnocchi for dinner. It is Hannah’s happiest meal when we are on the road.

East Glacier: St. Mary’s and Virginia Falls

Day three in Glacier and it is time to cross the continental divide and explore East Glacier. Overwhelmed by the prospect of researching everything to do in a day, we pick just one hike for the morning and the rest of the day will be what it may.

As we drive over Logan Pass on Going-to-the-Sun Road, the parking is completely full. It is only 8 AM and already people desperate for a spot are circling the lot like sharks, though it will likely be hours until anyone who has scored a prized spot will leave it. We drive down the other side of the pass, stopping at the viewpoint to a glacier and noticing how the trees are thinner on this side.

We get to the trailhead for St. Mary and Virginia Falls and dawdle in the car for a bit. I am eating a bar laying half way across our shortened bed in the back of the car when I see a small commotion outside. Someone is excited and taking a picture. I look a second longer and see a bear five feet outside our window walking the shrubby hillside along the road. My brain short circuits “Hannah. Bear. Bear. Bear. BEar. BEAr. BEAR!” Hannah doesn’t know what to do. We can’t find the phone for a picture fast enough. Finally, I feel it in my pocket, and Hannah gets out to capture the moment. It is headed right toward our hiking trail.

“How badly do we want to do this hike?” I ask Hannah, half teasing half serious as we strap bear spray and a pocket knife to our backpacks. We think it’s a black bear and lots of people are getting ready to hike the trail, so we rationalize the risk.

A family is just behind us as we take off. We intentionally wait until they are ready to go to start, so we will have more people making noise around us, alerting the bear—who we have lost track of—to our presence. It takes about two minutes before we see a pair of hikers on the trail ahead stop abruptly. The bear is just off the trail a few meters in front of us. We—Hannah and I, the family, and the pair—all stand and watch in awe as the bear makes its way onto the trail, then down it in front of us. We give it a healthy lead before continuing on our way, abuzz with chatter of our close encounter. It doesn’t take long for the bear to return to our line of sight—way ahead of us—still walking on the trail, right toward a group of hikers who are too focused on a distant moose to see the bear meandering straight toward them. “BEAR ON TRAIL!” The family’s mom shouts over and over until finally someone in the group ahead turns. We hear a distant but clear “AH! AH!” Their whole group turns. My heart is pounding for them. Seeing a bear walk along the trail from behind is one thing, but straight toward you, “I think I’d be pooping my pants” I say to our little group to agreement and laughter. The group ahead of us on the trail has nowhere to go. It looks like one considers running, a big no, until they all put their hands up, waving them, while yelling “HEY BEAR! HEYYY BEARRR!!” It is a textbook bear encounter response and we breathe in relief for them when the bear disinterestedly climbs the steep hill off the trail and disappears above. Phew. When we cross paths with that group, I give one of them a sigh, to which she responded “Um yeah, everything is still shaking.” They thank us for the shouted warning. It’s good to know HEY BEAR works.

We stick with the family we started the hike with for almost the entire hike, keeping conversation loud to ward off any bear returns. St. Mary’s falls is particularly beautiful and Virginia Falls’ cool mist is a welcome relief from the trail’s heat. We see a marmot enjoying the view along the trail just like us.

On the return, we decide to hang out at St. Mary’s waterfall, separating from the family, to eat lunch, watch the myriad of butterflies flit around an alcove, and dip our legs in the refreshingly/painfully cold water. We watch as dads and their kids jump off a cliff into the freezing, swift current. It makes us nervous knowing how the shock of cold water submersion can shut down the brain for long enough for the current to take you too far. Everyone seems to manage it okay, though some are certainly better swimmers than others.

Alone, the two of us begin the hike back to the car. We have to work hard now to keep conversation constant and loud to avoid bears, so we resort to asking random questions. Through this, we decide if we were spices Hannah would be Smoked Paprika and I would be Pepper and choose the sports moments in our lives that felt most impactful but did not participate in ourselves (2008 Beijing Gymnastics for me and 2021 Tokyo Gymnastics for Hannah).

We spend the rest of the day popping into whatever scenic points the signs along the road direct us toward. We see Sunrift Gorge, then Sun Point Lookout. The latter is the former site of a hotel that didn’t make it through the WWII economy. We do the 0.3 mile hike to it in slides and without bear spray, a stark change in preparedness from our morning hike. Later, we see the Wild Goose Island Lookout (which is absolutely packed with four red shuttle, guided tours there at once) before stopping at the Rising Sun Boat Dock. Here, we find a nice shady nook in the woods along the river, set up our camp chairs, and read for two hours with an awe striking view anytime we look up from our page. St. Mary’s lake laps lightly on our rock beach as dramatic mountains catch the light of the hot sun shining above.

We end our day at the St. Mary Visitor Center (a ranger confirmed that our bear picture looked like a black bear) before heading onto the Blackfoot Reservation for Divide Creek Campground. A river runs prettily along the campsite, and we eat a truly disgusting dinner of refried beans and rice with pop corner chips. We go to bed quickly and grateful to only have brought one dinner worth of the refried beans.

Many Glacier

For those who don’t know Glacier’s driving restriction, many of the most popular roads in the park require permits to drive past the entrance between the hours of 6 AM and 3 PM. So far, we have had the permits we need, but the permits for the Many Glacier part of the park are ridiculously hard to get. They are only two dollars, but when they are released, it is a Taylor Swift-Ticket Master type event. I hit three strikes trying to get a pass for Many Glacier road today, but after hearing so many trail buddies rave about it the past few days, we are resolved to go, just before 6 AM.

Our alarm goes off at 4 AM. Just setting an alarm that early is a big deal for me, so let’s all be proud of me. With that said, we did snooze it until 4:50… Finally, we roll out of bed, quickly retract it so we can drive with foot room, and get on the road. We will brush our teeth and make breakfast once we get there, a benefit of living out of the car. The sky lightens as we catch onto the back of a line of cars with the same idea as us. We breeze into the park around 5:40. Even then, we drive past one of the most popular trailheads, and the parking lot is already full. A pass to get in may actually make you lose out on parking. Silver lining.

We stop to see the sun peak over the mountains, a fiery gold, just across from the famous Many Glacier hotel. It lights up the mountain across the lake in a dash of pink.

We drive further into the park to the Swiftcurrent Motor Inn, the parking lot for the trailhead we are hiking and an adorable accommodation, decorated for Christmas in July. We stop in for the bathroom, passing though a gift shop with cute t-shirts and a lobby with cushy chairs on the way. It is so cozy that we suddenly have a hard time forcing ourselves to leave for our hike. Now the image of returning to the lovely inn will power us through our 10.5 mile hike.

We had hoped we would be hiking among a lot of people this morning. This area of the park has the highest density of bears of anywhere in the US and we were hoping to avoid an encounter through the power of numbers. Unfortunately, it is just us on the trail for ages, everyone else either far ahead or behind. We try to make the noise of a group through long winded explanations of the plots of the books we are each reading (I highly recommend reading The Song of Achilles) and singing much like Buddy the Elf would.

Our hike today is to Iceberg Lake. We got the suggestion from women we met on our hike to Hidden Lake earlier this week. They said the lake had the most ice they had ever seen in it, and it was a must do, so do we must. It is a relatively easy hike, though long, with a small and steady incline for five miles, much of which is through tree cover. People we meet on the trail say they saw a grizzly here this morning, but we seem to have missed it by about half an hour. When we get to the lake, sure enough, there are icebergs. A hazard of being the travelers we are is that we have visited some of the world’s most epic places, and it is hard for others to compare. The lake is cool, but nothing compared to the Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon we visited two years ago in Iceland (link to that blog here).

After feeling just how freezing the water is (some of the naturally coldest we have encountered), we find a nook to eat our lunches. As we sit, an iceberg dramatically breaks in two and flips. The sound is the most stunning part.

The walk back is less comfortable than the walk in was. Despite being over ten miles, this is one of the easiest hikes we have done. Unfortunately, the day’s heat has picked up now, and my Achilles is burning. It hurt before we even started, but now, I can’t help limping. I absolutely rave about my hiking boots, a graduation gift from one of my grandmas before our Albanian hiking last summer, so the pain is unexpected. I painfully hobble back to the trailhead, grateful to change into my slides so nothing touches my Achilles. Eventually we would come to realize, the pain isn’t from my beloved boots, but a huge bug bite on the back of my foot. Little stinkers. We head into the Inn for a few hours of snacking, postcard writing, and getting t-shirts (we packed for way colder weather and are desperate for another short sleeved shirt). While we are here, we meet a guy who has been living out of his car and traveling for the last four years while working remotely during the days. Talking to him is fun but we both agree that long-term car camping is not for us.

We round off our day with a short walk to Fishercap Lake, a known hang spot for local moose. A grizzly has also been hanging out in the woods nearby. For the moose, there is one adult male across the lake, and a mom and baby in the lake. A deer also quietly hangs along the lake’s edge and shallows. A handful of others are there, taking endless pictures. In that moment, we wished we had a camera better than our phones. It is a peaceful and majestic way to end our time in Glacier (though technically we do stop inside the Many Glacier Hotel on the way out and it is a pure tourism magnet). Off to Canada we go.

ADVENTURES IN GLACIER NATIONAL PARK

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