Road Trip to Glacier National Park

Road Trip to Glacier National Park

As we packed up the airstream the excitement set in that the trip was finally here. We decided to take two weeks off and travel through Glacier National Park, to Banff, Jasper and back down through yellow stone and Grand Teton. Through these next few blogs I want to share some favorite places we went, traveling/hiking tips, and some videos of our travels.

We left Salt Lake City around 4:30, as we drove into the night we both became sleepy as we had had crazy busy work days before. After much conversation, it looked like a rest stop outside Butte Montana was our best bet for some shut eye. Continuing along to Missoula we had to grab breakfast and check out the cute college town, I use to spend a lot of time there so I wanted to relive some memories there. And then on to Glacier we went.

I had never explored Glacier before so I was unsure exactly what was worth checking out. Turns out everything is worth checking out this place is beautiful! We had a few things on our list from short hikes with tons of people to longs hikes where you see no one at all. When we arrived in Glacier we were tired from driving so we decided to go check out Hidden lake (5 miles RT), I had plans to jump in the lake and enjoy dinner out there, turns out after 1.5 miles they blocked it off because of bear activity. As I travel more I have learned not everything goes as planned, and you just have to go with the flow. The overlook at hidden lake was still gorgeous, and much worth the snow slip and slide!

glacier national park view

The following day we met up with a friend of mine to hike Mount Reynolds, a pretty tall peak around 9,000 ft. I was excited to finally hike something high up with insane views. It clocked in at about 7 miles’ total, some flat, some vertical, and then some scrambling. We lost the trail a couple times in our scramble but then luckily Chris found the way up, as we approached the summit, I was so excited to see these breathtaking views of Glacier. Turns out it was even more amazing than I had imagined, 360 views of so many peaks and parts of the park. This is a must do if you ever visit Glacier.

mountain goat glacier national park

Our final Hike was last night, Iceberg Lake, a total of 10 miles round trip. We heard this was a very common place for grizzly bears to hang out, as we hiked along the meadows and forest we didn’t see any wildlife. There are amazing peaks that surround this lake and we were stuck in a cloud covering everything….bummer. Then it started to rain, and then more rain, but we kept going determined to see the lake that has icebergs sitting in it. We finally reached the lake and it was extremely blue and beautiful. Even though I was unable to get all the photos I wanted we made do with the weather that was happening. On our way back down singing and laughing to try and keep bears away, we rounded a corner and there was a mamma grizzly and her cubs! This is my first bear encounter so I was excited yet terrified, we just gave them some room to scurry away and there they went. I am excited to return to this park one day I still have so much to explore and see!

overlooking glacier national park

Key things to bring on Glacier hikes:

Bear spray
Bug spray
Lots of water and snacks for hiking
Layers: your never know what the weather is going to do

glacier national park hike to happy
iceberg lake hike

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