Glacier National Park

Glacier National Park Visit 2018

“Around hidden lakes and through mountain peaks; during any walk among the nature offered, I gained more than what I was seeking.”

~Hannah Morris

@hmorris1997 freespiritedtraveler.travel.blog

July 1, 2018

About two years ago, I went on a family trip to Glacier National Park. This counted as a bucket list item for my entire family because we all wanted to see the park before it had no glaciers left in it. We stayed at a place called Lone Elk Lodge which was about a 20 minute drive from the East entrance of the national park! I would highly recommend staying here if you ever visit! It was beautiful and you literally had your own house there for as long as you stayed! The part we stayed in was called Rising Wolf and it had a kitchen, 2 fully furnished bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a living room with a TV, free WiFi, and even a back patio! So, definitely a very nice place to stay! 

Most of the time, consisted of hiking in the woods, but the hikes we did weren’t too hard and were quite beautiful! A fun thing about Glacier National Park is that there are so many different hikes! Even ones that are extremely challenging if you are really into hard hikes. One hike we went on that I recommend is called Red Rock Falls. This hike is about two miles in and two miles back. At the end is a gorgeous waterfall surrounded by red rocks and it flows right into a gorgeous lake with crystal clear, blue water! This is definitely an easy, beautiful, scenic hike and it is definitely worth it! 

Another day we were here, we went and did a half day horseback ride! This is definitely something fun to do if you really love horses and won’t mind being on one for half a day. Especially, if you want to explore deeper within Glacier National Park, where not many people are, so you can have higher chances of seeing wildlife such as bears, deer, elk, and if you are lucky, maybe even a moose! However, if you like horses but you don’t think you could stand being on a horse for half a day they also have 1 hour and 2 hour trail rides as well. They also offer a full day trail ride if you love being on one all day! 

One other thing we did here, that I highly recommend you do in Glacier is Going to the Sun Road. This is a road that goes through the entire park where you get to just sit in the car, admiring the scenery, looking for animals, and get to stop at many different points of interest that you could get out at to check out or do some other hikes if you aren’t worn out from hiking yet! Some of my favorite points of interest that we stopped at include, Logan’s Pass, also known as the Continental Divide, Birdwoman Falls, which is a huge, gorgeous waterfall, The Weeping Wall, which is an entire mountainside with waterfalls every few inches, and also Avalanche Creek, a raging river with stunning turquoise-blue water and beautiful scenery surrounding it! 

Those are only a few things we did that I loved the most! Of course, while you are here, especially if its during a time when there are still glaciers in the park, you have to do at least one hike to one of the famous glaciers. One I would recommend doing is Grinnell Glacier hike. This is perhaps the most famous glacier because it is in the heart of Glacier National Park. If you want to see glaciers in Glacier National Park, I recommend you go soon. I say this because as quoted by a park ranger we talked to named Emily, “108 years ago, when the park was first established, there were over 100 glaciers all over the park. But now, in those 108 years there are only about 26 glaciers left in all of Glacier National Park and they are estimating that in the next 30 years or sooner, all of the glaciers will be gone.” Unless changes are made to help control global warming, in 30 years or sooner, every glacier in Glacier National Park will be gone. Anyway, this was an amazing trip! I was so happy we went on it and still got to see glaciers and snow even though, it was during the middle of the summer!