Glacier National Park, Part 1: Many Glacier
Along with Zion, Glacier was on the top of our list for places to visit. We had actually booked a trip here several years ago and then had to cancel because I had hurt my knee.
The funny thing is that the Many Glacier area of the park wasn’t really on our radar at first. We knew as we made our way north from Idaho that we’d have some extra time before our reservations on the west side of the park, and we got lucky and were able to book a few nights in the Many Glacier campground. As it turns out, I think Many Glacier has the best hiking in the entire park, and I’m glad we were able to get in.
Apikuni Falls
Swiftcurrent Pass
Moose!
A few things I wanted to see in Glacier: Moose, black bear, grizzly bear. We spotted one grizzly from a safe distance on the hike to Iceberg Lake. I saw one black bear from pretty close on a hike around Swiftcurrent Lake, and almost hit a black bear with my bike while zooming around Apgar Campground. But the thing we saw the most was moose. So many! I saw moose up close on four separate occasions, and counted 8-9 distinct individuals:
One bull swimming and eating in Redrock Lake (he eventually got a little excited because he was trying to exit the lake but he kept walking up onto the hiking trail and encountering people).
Two bulls in the brush and swimming at Iceberg Lake (not a care for the people around, but everyone was behaving themselves).
An adult cow, a baby, and two bulls at Fishercap Lake (a very peaceful evening, not many people, everyone keeping a good distance).
Two cows at Fishercap Lake (one of which I think was the same cow from the night before).
Grinnel Glacier
I think this is the consensus pick for Best Hike of the trip so far, and we almost didn’t get to do it for several reasons. The first is that there was still snow on part of the trail when we were there in mid-July, and because a lot of the trail is cut into the side of a rock wall, this made it impassible. Luckily some enterprising individual went out there and cleared it off a few days before we got there. The second reason is that wildfire smoke from Canada started to pile in the night before we planned to do this hike, and the air quality was getting pretty bad. The forecast called for it to clear out over the next day, and thankfully that is what happened. The beginning of the hike was still pretty hazy, but that actually made for some interesting photos, and everything was mostly cleared up by the time we got to the top.
The reason this hike is great is because you have amazing views of Lake Josephine, Grinnell Lake, and the surrounding mountains for almost the entire climb, and then when you get to the top there’s a massive shelf containing a beautiful glacial lake to sit by (or jump in if you’re brave enough), with views of several glaciers, and then if you can navigate across a few waterfalls, you can actually walk on Grinnell Glacier. It’s a bittersweet experience, the entire lake up there used to be Grinnell Glacier, and now it’s just tucked away in one corner of the shelf.
