The Smoky Mountain Hiking Blog: Glacier National Park

Steve Salis narrates this 15.3-mile classic trek in Glacier National Park. His route that takes him across the Highline Trail to Granite Park Chalet, over Swiftcurrent Pass, and then down to Redrock Falls before finishing at Many Glacier. This is truly an epic hike - one that offers the absolute best of all that Glacier has to offer:

Have any plans for visiting Glacier National Park this summer? Be sure to visit our accommodations page to help with all your lodging needs. We also offer a "Things To Do" page that provides links to outfitters that offer guided trips and tours in and around the park.

Jeff
HikingintheSmokys.com

Plowing the Going-to-the-Sun Road

Friday, May 25, 2012

Earlier this week Glacier National Park posted a video showing a plower in a front end loader making some serious progress on the Going-to-the-Sun Road near Triple Arches on the west side of the park.

If you've never been to Glacier the Going-to-the-Sun Road is a 50-mile engineering marvel that spans the interior of the park, and allows visitors to cross the Continental Divide in dramatic fashion. For a couple-mile stretch the road hugs the cliffs of the Garden Wall, making for an adrenaline-producing, white-knuckle drive.

Without a doubt, the guys plowing the Going-to-the-Sun Road have nerves of steel. There's no way I would ever want this job:

The Going-to-the-Sun Road is expected to open around mid-June this year. If you have any thoughts of traveling to Glacier, or if you know of anyone that might be interested, let our new sister website help with all your hiking plans. Just like our Smokies website, we offer one stop planning with our Accommodations page, and our Things To Do page where you can find guides, outfitters and tours for rafting, boating, hiking and horseback excursions.

Jeff
HikingintheSmokys.com

The Best Easy Hikes in Glacier National Park

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Last month I published a list of my Top 10 Hikes in Glacier National Park. After creating the list I realized that many of the trails were fairly long day hikes, which obviously won't appeal to everyone. So I decided to start from scratch and build a new list, based on the best of the easier hikes in the park. Hopefully you'll find this helpful as a starting point in trying to decide where to hike during your visit.

Hidden Lake Overlook – This extremely popular hike, starting from Logan Pass, visits the Hidden Lake Overlook where you’ll have outstanding panoramic views into the heart of Glacier.

Redrock Falls - An outstanding choice for an easy hike. In addition to the very impressive series of cascades and falls, you’ll also visit two picturesque sub-alpine lakes, and maybe even have a chance to see a moose along the way.

Virginia Falls - Dropping more than 50 feet off a sheer cliff face, Virginia Falls just might be one of the most beautiful falls I’ve ever seen. Additionally, waterfall aficionados will get a chance to see St. Mary Falls, and two other very impressive, but unnamed falls along the way.

Swiftcurrent Nature Trail – Take an easy stroll around Swiftcurrent Lake for some outstanding views of the Many Glacier Valley. As a bonus, hikers may even see a bear or a moose along the way.

Johns Lake Loop - Easy loop hike that visits a small woodland pond, Sacred Dancing Cascade, and McDonald Falls.

St. Mary Falls - If you’re looking for a very short hike to see an awesome waterfall, this should fit the bill.

Rocky Point - Stunning views of Lake McDonald, as well as the mountains in the Sperry Glacier vicinity.

Running Eagle Falls - “Trick Falls” is a must see in the Two Medicine Area. It’s a very easy, handicap accessible trail.

Forest and Fire Nature Trail – A great hike if you’re looking to get away from the crowds. Witness the re-growth of a brand new forest as it recovers from the 2001 Moose Fire.

Trail of the Cedars – This popular loop hike travels along a raised boardwalk as it passes though a forest of ancient western hemlocks and red cedars. You’ll also have outstanding views of the stunning Avalanche Gorge.

Jeff
HikingintheSmokys.com

Amtrak · Glacier National Park · National Train Day · See More On A Train

Win a Trip to Glacier thru See More On A Train Contest

Monday, April 30, 2012

Train passengers experience travel unlike any others; they get to see the vastness of the American landscape more intimately when traveling by rail, from cities big and small, to country vistas and everything in between. In honor of the fifth anniversary of National Train Day, Amtrak is inviting train fans to share what they see and experience on their train journeys and enter the See More On A Train online contest.

A celebration of train travel and the ways that trains touch the lives of people across America, National Train Day will take place at train stations in New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Los Angeles, as well as numerous other communities throughout the nation, on Saturday, May 12, 2012. Award-winning actress, writer and philanthropist, Rosario Dawson, will serve as spokesperson for the Fifth Annual National Train Day, sharing her love of train travel and how it allows her to be involved in the community in a more personal way with train fans.

From now through May 29, 2012, train fans can upload their original photos, videos and stories chronicling how they have been inspired by their train travel to NationalTrainDay.com for the chance to win great prizes. A Grand Prize winner in each of the three categories will have their choice of one of four provided Amtrak Vacations Tour Packages for two travelers.

In addition, train fans can visit facebook.com/NationalTrainDay to participate in the National Train Day sweepstakes for the chance to win an Amtrak Vacations Package to Glacier National Park and a full Samsonite luggage set.

To view the complete rules for the See More On A Train online contest and additional prizing information, or to learn more about National Train Day, please visit NationalTrainDay.com.

Jeff
HikingintheSmokys.com

Glacier National Park · Top 10 Hikes

The Top 10 Hikes in Glacier National Park

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Many people who are unfamiliar, or are making their very first visit to Glacier National Park, want to know what the best day hikes are in the park. Below are my personal top ten hikes in Glacier. Hopefully this will be a helpful starting point as you try to decide where you want to hike during your visit.

Highline Loop – This world famous hike should be on the bucket list of any self respecting hiker. The incredible views, the wildlife and the wildflowers, all combine to make this a hike you'll remember the rest of your life.

Piegan Pass – Just a notch below the Highline Trail on the“awesome meter”, but far less crowded.

Ptarmigan Tunnel – If you’re anywhere near Many Glacier, the hike to Ptarmigan Tunnel shouldn’t be passed up. The highlight of the hike is passing through a 240-foot tunnel that cuts a hole through the Ptarmigan Wall. It was built for horses and early park tours by the Civilian Conservation Corp in the 1930's. After hiking all day in the Many Glacier Valley, walking to the other side of the tunnel is like walking into another world.

Grinnell Glacier - Another extremely popular hike in the Many Glacier area. This one visits the famous 300-acre glacier that sits just below the Continental Divide.

Preston Park - One of my favorite areas in Glacier is Preston Park. It’s a large, incredibly beautiful alpine meadow, located in the valley between Mt. Siyeh and Matahpi Peak (near Logan Pass).

Iceberg Lake - One of the most popular hikes in Glacier. And for good reason. This is a great opportunity to see icebergs floating in a gorgeous alpine lake. You’ll also have commanding views of the Ptarmigan Wall, an arête, or thin ridge of rock separating two valleys that have been carved by glaciers.

Cracker Lake - Cracker Lake in the Many Glacier area has to be one of the most beautiful lakes in the world. The lake has the most magnificent turquoise color you’ll ever see. If you could ignore the magnificent scenery of the surrounding mountains, it would still be well worth the hike just to see the amazing color of the lake. If it weren’t for the walk through a long section of forest, I would’ve ranked this one a little higher.

Pitamakan Pass - Dawson Pass usually gets all the attention in Two Medicine. However, at least for me, I think the views from Pitamakan Pass are much more dramatic. From the knife-edge pass you can see five lakes on either side of you.

Scenic Point - The rock outcropping that sits above alpine tundra meadows offers stunning panoramic views of the Two Medicine Valley. On a clear day you can even see the Sweet Grass Hills rising above the Great Plains 90 miles away!

Dawson Pass - One of the most popular backcountry hikes in the Two Medicine area is the one up to Dawson Pass. The hike can be shortened to just 9.4 miles by taking the shuttle boat across Two Medicine Lake.

For more information on Glacier National Park, including details on most of the day hikes, accommodations, and other things to do, please visit our new Glacier hiking trail website.

Jeff
HikingintheSmokys.com

Bigkskycountry.com · Glacier National Park · Pick Your Park Sweepstakes · Yellowstone National Park

Win a Trip to Glacier or Yellowstone!

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Pick Your Park:

Starting today, Bigkskycountry.com is offering you a chance to enter a random drawing to win a trip for two to either Glacier National Park or Yellowstone National Park - your choice! The winner of the drawing will choose between a 3-day guided tour of Yellowstone, or a 3-day guided backpacking trip in Glacier.

And, in addition to the dream excursion into one of the premier parks in the world, winners will also take home a Mountain Hardwear Pack (up to a $229.90 value) and a pair of Montrail Badrock OutDry Boots (a $150.00 value).

No purchase is necessary. The Pick Your Park Sweepstakes ends at 11:59:59 P.M. (MT) on April 10, 2012.

For more information, and to enter, visit the Bigkskycountry.com website.

Jeff
HikingintheSmokys.com

Vacation Planning: Glacier National Park

Sunday, January 8, 2012

1 comment

"Give a month at least to this precious reserve. The time will not be taken from the sum of your life. Instead of shortening, it will indefinitely lengthen it and make you truly immortal. Nevermore will time seem short or long, and cares will never again fall heavily on you, but gently and kindly as gifts from heaven."

- John Muir on his visit to Glacier in the early 1890s

It's that time of year again when many of you are starting to think about summer vacations. Maybe you're undecided. Maybe you're looking for a new adventure. Have you ever considered Glacier National Park in Montana? Even if you've been to the park at some point in the past, did you get a chance to explore the spectacular backcountry?

Just like the Smokies, Glacier National Park is a hikers paradise. The park offers more than 740 miles of trails that lead to hundreds of lakes, streams, waterfalls, alpine meadows, mountain passes and glaciers.

To help choose which places you wanted to visit and which trails to tackle, I wanted to invite you to check out our brand new sister website for Glacier hiking trails. In addition to covering more than 60 hikes thoughout Glacier Park, our site also provides important travel information to help assist with your planning.

Jeff
HikingintheSmokys.com

New Trail Website for Glacier National Park

Thursday, November 10, 2011

As many regular readers are already aware, my wife and I spent more than five weeks in Glacier National Park back in August and early September. Since returning I’ve posted several blogs about our hiking adventures. What I didn’t mention was the reason why we spent so much time out there.

Today we’re proud to announce the launch of our brand new hiking website: HikinginGlacier.com.

During our time in Glacier we hiked to most of the destinations that hikers would cover in a day hike. In

doing so, we logged about 250 miles. The result of all that hiking is a website that covers more than 60 hikes in Glacier. Similar to Hikinginthe Smokys.com, our new website provides directories that make finding a trail much easier. We include directories of trails by location within the park, trail feature, difficulty rating, and by alphabetical listing.

Along with all of the most popular hikes, such as Iceberg Lake, Grinnell Glacier, Hidden Lake Overlook and the Highline Trail, we discovered some new favorites, such as Piegan Pass, Preston Park, Gunsight Lake, Virginia Falls, Pitamakan Pass, Ptarmigan Tunnel, and the absolutely incredible Cracker Lake.

In addition to being a great source for trail information, we designed the site to be an excellent tool for vacation planning as well. We’ve included a lot of travel information that will be helpful to vacationers.

Even if you have no plans on traveling to Glacier, I hope that maybe you’ll enjoy some of the photographs on the site.

If you know of anyone planning a trip to Glacier, or any hikers in general that may be interested, please feel free to forward the website onto them.

Thanks again for all of your support, and would love to hear any feedback you might have: HikinginGlacier.com

Jeff
HikingintheSmokys.com

Glacier National Park · wildflowers

Glacier National Park Wildflowers

Thursday, October 6, 2011

5 comments

Over the last couple of weeks I've been sharing photos and stories from my trip to Glacier National Park. This will be the last posting on that subject. I thought I'd end this series with a few wildflower photos.

Although the ice and sheer cliffs at Iceberg Lake get all the attention, the wildflowers in the alpine meadows just before reaching the lake are quite amazing:

Indian Paintbrush:

A Glacier Lily peaking out of the snow near Cobalt Lake:

The next three photos are from the Highline Trail:

This photo was taken in a meadow next to a small lake just below Iceberg Lake:

More beargrass:

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Jeff
HikingintheSmokys.com

The Best Of: Glacier's Waterfalls and Lakes

Monday, October 3, 2011

3 comments

With roughly 200 waterfalls, and 762 lakes - 131 of which are named, including "No Name Lake" - many of the hikes in Glacier National Park end at a lake or waterfall. Below are a few of my favorites.

Redrock Falls is an outstanding choice for an easy hike in the Many Glacier Valley. You'll have great opportunities for seeing wildlife, it passes two picturesque lakes, and ends at one of the most scenic series of waterfalls in the park. Although the lower falls are far more interesting, the upper falls had this beautiful mountain backdrop:

Running Eagle Falls, also known as "Trick Falls", is located in Two Medicine area. The waterfall receives its nickname due to there being two separate waterfalls in the same location. During the spring run-off water rushes over the upper falls for a 40-foot drop, while obscuring the lower falls. By late summer the upper falls dries up. However, water continues to rush over the lower 20-foot falls, while seeming to flow out of the rock wall, as you see in this photo:

Okay, this isn't a lake or waterfall, but there is a lake below those mountains. This is a meadow that hikers walk through on their way to Medicine Grizzly Lake:

Below is the 50-foot Virginia Falls, perhaps one of the most beautiful waterfalls I've ever seen. And to top it off, there are three other incredibly beautiful cascades and falls you'll pass on your way up to this set:

Cracker Lake in the Many Glacier area has to be one of the most beautiful lakes in the world. Prior to reaching the lake, about a mile from the trailhead, hikers will have this view of Cracker Flats. The mountains across the upper reaches of Lake Sherburne create this magnificent scene during the morning hours:

Five miles later hikers finally reach Cracker Lake. The best vantage point is from an outcropping of rocks where you’ll stand about a hundred feet above the lake. Directly across the lake is 9376-foot Allen Mountain. Towering above the south end of the lake is 10,014-foot Mt. Siyeh, and sitting like a gem more than 4000 feet below is Cracker Lake:

The lake is the most beautiful turquoise color you’ll ever see. If you could ignore the magnificent scenery of the surrounding mountains, it would still be well worth the hike just to see the amazing color of this lake. The deep turquoise color is a result of light refraction through its suspended load of glacial silt:

Jeff
HikingintheSmokys.com

avalanches · Glacier National Park · snow · winter

Glacier’s Historic Winter

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

The winter of 2010/2011 was an historic one for Glacier National Park. A park press release at the end of April reported that USGS snow surveys measured 106 inches of snow on the ground at the 5,900 foot level near Siyeh Bend on the Going-to-the-Sun Road. A whopping 166 inches were recorded at the 7,000 foot level!

All that snow resulted in the latest opening date ever for the Going-to-the-Sun Road. The road, which tops out at Logan Pass at an elevation of 6646 feet, didn’t open until July 13th this year. The prior record for the latest opening date was set in 1953 when the road didn’t open until June 24th.

Here are two NPS photos showing the massive plowing project on the Going-to-the-Sun Road this past spring. Would you want this job?

All that snow resulted in a couple of historic avalanches.

One avalanche that received quite a bit of notoriety delivered a serious blow to the historic Sperry Chalet. The backcountry hotel, accessed only by a 6-mile hike, sustained a fair amount of damage, and resulted in a truncated tourist season this summer.

The avalanche slid off Lincoln Peak sometime during midwinter and plowed into the south end of the stone dormitory building. Snow and debris damaged the roof, broke a door, took off some shutters, and blew open windows. Four rooms on the interior were completely filled with snow. The damage delayed the opening, and forced an early summer closure as crews worked to complete repairs before another winter set in.

Here's what the chalet looked like in April in this NPS photo:

Here's what it looked like during our visit in mid-August:

Just a hundred feet up slope from the chalet the remains of the avalanche were still on display. Notice how most of the trees are still bent or were snapped off:

Another significant avalanche occurred on the other side of Gunsight Pass, not far from Sperry. The avalanche, just below Gunsight Lake, resulted in hundreds of trees being snapped off only a couple feet above the ground. We hiked this trail in September and had to bushwhack through a section of trail, more than a tenth of a mile long, that was choked with dead trees and crushed willows. Underneath the debris, still at this late date, were several feet of packed snow and ice.

While climbing through the debris I noticed this ice bridge:

I’m not sure how long it will take the park to clear the obstruction, but it’s likely to be there for awhile. As a result of heavy lingering snow, the trail over Gunsight Pass was not even expected to open in 2011.

Jeff
HikingintheSmokys.com

Majestic Many Glacier

Sunday, September 25, 2011

I think most people would likely agree that Many Glacier is the most snenic area in Glacier National Park. Several of the most memorable hikes in the park begin from this valley.

Many people experience the grandeur of Many Glacier for the first time from the parking lot above the historic Many Glacier Hotel:

From there you can take an easy stroll around Swiftcurrent Lake. It's quite common to see bears and moose in this area:

Iceberg Lake is one of the most popular hikes in Glacier. Below is Kathy as we approach the Ptarmigan Wall, an arête, or thin ridge of rock separating two valleys that have been carved by glaciers:

Of course you can't name a lake "Iceberg Lake" if you don't have any icebergs floating around. Compared to our visits in 1998 and 2004, this was by far the most ice we've seen in the lake (all three visits occurred in early September):

The other extremely popular hike in Many Glacier is the one to Grinnell Glacier. The 300-acre glacier sits below Mt. Gould and the Continental Divide:

Due to the glacier retreating in recent decades, the melting ice has created a new lake next to the glacier:

Although not quite as popular as Iceberg and Grinnell Glacier, the hike to Ptarmigan Tunnel is one that should not be passed up. The highlight of the hike is passing through the 240-foot tunnel, which cuts a hole through the Ptarmigan Wall. The tunnel was built for horses and early park tours by the Civilian Conservation Corp in the 1930's, so that visitors could pass over into the remote Belly River area.

After hiking all day in the Many Glacier Valley, walking to the other side of the tunnel is like walking into another world. Just beyond the tunnel the trail hugs the red rock cliffs below Crowfeet Mountain:

The views from the other side are simply stunning. You can see Old Sun Glacier on the slopes of Mt. Merritt, Natoas Peak, and the Belly River as it flows into Elizabeth Lake more than 2300 feet below you:

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Jeff
HikingintheSmokys.com

Glacier's High Country

Thursday, September 22, 2011