With the shutdown of the country (USA) due to the pandemic, we like everyone else shut down our trips. We were in Las Vegas in mid-March when everything came to a screeching halt. We had a big trip planned to northern Arizona and southern Utah, but we canceled it all and hi-tailed it back home. During the lockdown we watched travel shows on PBS. We looked at travel videos on YouTube and Vimeo. And we made plans for our next trip. But to where? We could not leave the country and we didn’t want to fly. We wanted to avoid the hotspots. So we looked at the map for less populated areas.
We soon started to focus on Montana and Glacier National Park. Naomi had never been there and it was 1968 when I last visited. While patiently making plans, we waited for restrictions to ease up. One week after Labor Day seemed like the best time to travel since our research showed that summer months have been busy in Glacier National Park (GNP) the last few years.
Our plan included three days getting there and six days getting back with a three day layover in the Black Hills of South Dakota. We discovered that the National Park Service had shutdown the eastern one third of the park with the eastern entrances closed. GNP borders the Blackfoot Reservation on the east and travel in and out the reservation was restricted.
For this reason, we stayed in West Glacier and traveled into the park through the western entrance each day. To help with our planning, we bought a detailed trip itinerary from the “Dirt On My Shoes” blog (@dirtinmyshoes) These plans from the author, a former National Park Service ranger, were very helpful.
Glacier National Park – Day 1
On day 1, we entered the park around 8:30 a.m. and drove 30 minutes to the Avalanche Creek Trailhead. Following the GNP Twitter account, we knew that the Avalanche Creek parking lot filled up early. We cut it close but got one of the last few parking spots.
Day 1 Highlights:
- Trail of the Cedars Nature Trail – popular short (less than a mile) easy loop trail. Half of the trial is a boardwalk. It may get crowded, so it is best early or late in the day.
- Avalanche Lake trail – easy to moderate trail to Avalanche Lake. Beautiful scenery. At the lake take time to relax and enjoy what you are seeing. For us, however, because of the large scale fires on the west coast, the skies were smoky.
- Sacred Dancing Cascades and McDonald Falls – heading back towards McDonald Lake, along the road are pull-offs where you can view cascades and mini-falls on McDonald creek. It’s worth stopping.
- Apgar Visitor’s Center – was closed due to COVID-19. There were rangers outside to answer questions. Not being able to explore inside was disappointing.
- Polebridge and Mercantile Bakery – on the way to Bowman’s Lake, you exit the park, and head north to Polebridge along a mostly gravel road. Take time to stop at the Polebridge Mercantile and try their delicious and famous huckleberry bear claws.
- Bowman’s Lake – re-enter the park and drive the narrow 6 mile road to Bowman’s Lake. It is out of the way, but beautiful. We only spent an hour here, but you could spend at least half a day or more away from the crowds.
Glacier National Park – Day 2
This was to be our Logan Pass Day. We had been following the GNP tweets and knew that the parking lot fills up very early. After arriving at the gate, it takes approximately an hour to get to Logan Pass. We arrived at 8:45 am and the lot was already full. We turned around and drove 1/2 a mile back down the hill to a small lot and were fortunate enough to get one of the last spots. After walking back up to the closed Logan Pass Visitor Center we began our journey for the day.
Day 2 highlights:
- Hidden Lake Overlook trail – hiked the 3 mile round trip trail. Our paid itinerary said
it was moderate difficulty, but it proved more difficult for us. One third of the trail is a boardwalk with many steps. This and the change in elevation, made it was more difficult than expected. At the overlook, we found a nice place to rest and enjoy the scenery. Unfortunately, again smoke from the fires restricted our view. When we were there, the trail from the overlook down to Hidden Lake was closed due to bear activity.- Highland Trail – decided to postpone due to how tired we felt. Rain and fog over the next two days prevented us from being able to walk any of this popular trail.
- drove Going-to-the-Sun Road to Rising Sun – turned around at Rising Sun and headed back west since the road was closed at that point because of COVID-19 restrictions.
- overlook of St. Mary Lake at Sun Point – nice parking lot with a short walk to an overlook of St. Mary Lake. It’s a beautiful lake, but that day the smoke restricted the views of the mountains surrounding the lake.
- hike to Baring Falls – The 1.6 mile roundtrip hike to the falls from the Sun Point parking lot was well worth it. The trail from Sunrift Gorge to Baring Falls is a shorter route.
Glacier National Park – Day 3
The intent for this day was less hiking to allow our bodies to recover.
Day 3 highlights:
- shopped for souvenirs at West Glacier Village
- stopped at Apgar Village – drove through the area and walked along Lake McDonald.
- went to Sprague Creek Campground – all campgrounds were empty because of COVID-19 closures. Walked down to Lake McDonald. It’s a nice and quiet area.
- stopped at the Lake McDonald Lodge – checked out this resort. The lodge had guests. However, the lodge’s lobby was closed to non-guests and the restaurant only allowed takeout orders. We took advantage of that later in the day.
- drove down the Going-to-the-Sun road – stopped at pullouts and took photos of the
Bird Woman Falls, Haystack Creek, Triple Arches, and Siyeh Bend - short hikes at Lunch Creek and Sunrift Gorge – both creeks crossed under the main road and had small parking areas which allowed us to get out and explore up and down the creeks. These were some of our favorite areas with beautiful and peaceful scenery.
- drove along the McDonald Road which went around McDonald Lake
Glacier National Park – day 4
After a restful day, we were ready for more hiking. In the morning it was a dreary and drizzly day. However, it was not too cold and it cleared up later in the day.
Day 4 highlights:.
- parked at a pullout just short of the St. Mary Falls shuttle stop and walked to the trailhead. This was 1.6 miles roundtrip and well worth it.
- continued on to Virginia Falls. There were numerous beautiful smaller falls along the way. This made the entire trail more enjoyable.
- made it to Virginia Falls, which was another 1.6 miles roundtrip. Our decision to continue on proved rewarding.
Glacier National Park – Summary
If you enjoy hiking, waterfalls, and lakes, then this is a great park to visit. Glacier has a variety of trails; long, short, easy, moderate, and challenging. The trails not only take you to beautiful destinations, but the journey along the way is very scenic. GNP is a large park. It can be crowded, but it is possible to find remote areas away from the crowds.
However, on our trip, due to COVID-19, we missed out on a number of attractions. The iconic red shuttles were grounded making the parking lots more crowded. The eastern one third of the park was unavailable causing us to miss seeing the glaciers. The various visitor centers were closed as were the campgrounds.
We realized because of COVID-19 and the wildfire smoke, we missed several beautiful areas of the park. Since not all of GNP can been seen in four days anyway, we decided a return trip to GNP is necessary. Next time maybe we will make it over the Canadian border into Waterton Park and even up to Banff National Park. There are always so many more adventures awaiting!