We had some flight vouchers from a cancelled trip that we had to use and my wife and I happened to both have time off in the summer, and of course our 7-year old son was out of school. Summers in western Washington are great, so where could be fly to that was at least as good but wouldn't exceed the cost of our vouchers? We decided on Glacier National Park, as it's only fully open during the summer. This is a trip report. Most of the pictures are of animals since after I switched to telephoto lens, I usually did not switch back to something that could take landscapes.
Prep
Since none of our family are avid hikers, we did a series of training hikes near where we lived that I thought were very important to prepare us, especially for Grinnell Glacier.
- Rattlesnake Ledge
- Mashel Falls
- Mt. Pilchuck
- Little Bandera
I would say that I thought that Mt. Pilchuck and Little Bandera would normally be more technically challenging than Grinnell, though shorter, but as you'll see later in Day 4, nature decided to up the challenge.
Downloading offline maps for Google Maps and the official NPS app proved very handy for navigating.
Day 1 - Sunday, August 25 - Travel Day
We found out that SeaTac airport was under some sort of cyberattack. When we checked in at home online, we were advised that checked bags may not make it to the destination. We had planned to check a bag because hiking poles are not officially allowed on flights. However, we had read online that often TSA lets them through if they are fully disassembled, so we decided to risk bringing them in carry-on.
Security did let us through with hiking poles.
A second hiccup was that the rental car agency, Alamo, did not have any compact SUVs available, which was the option we had booked. We had to decide between a full size car, a pickup, or a minivan. There was some concern about the conditions of the roads which had made us prefer a compact SUV, but after doing some research on the phone, we found that the roads were either fully paved or pretty well-kept gravel that anything other than a sports car would be able to handle and that the bigger risk was that large vehicles would find parking and going through the narrow parts of Going-to-the-Sun Road more challenging. So we went with the car for the best fuel efficiency.
We messaged our AirBnB hostess whether or not they had bear spray we could borrow at the place in Whitefish, and she let us know that some previous guests had left some. They had also left bug spray. We bought food for breakfasts and lunches and sunscreen that we were originally planning to bring in the checked bag.
Day 2 - Monday, August 26 - Hidden Lake
We had heard that parking was dicey at Logan Pass unless you got there before 6:30 AM and we didn't really want to get up early enough to try that. So, instead we aimed for getting the express shuttles at Apgar visitor center. We got in line at 7:35 AM and got on the fourth shuttle at 8:25 AM. It was technically not "express", because it made stops along the way, but still one of the smaller shuttles that went all the way to Logan Pass without a need for a transfer.
Hidden Lake was my wife's favorite hike. Beautiful peaks, meadows, trees, and of course, the lake. We saw a good amount of wildlife. The descent to the lake and the climb back up was pretty steep, but nothing like Bandera in Washington state that our family had done before.
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| Bighorn sheep |
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| Golden-mantled squirrel |
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| Blue Copper butterfly? |
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| Mormon "Cricket" |
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| Hoary Marmot |
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| Columbian Ground Squirrel. Video of one chirping. |
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| American Pipit |
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| Townsend's Warbler |
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| Rocky Mountain Parnassian |
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| Mountain Chickadee |
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| Pine Siskin |
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| Western White butterfly |
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| Mountain Goat |
Day 3 - Tuesday, August 27 - Lake Bullhead
My wife was not enthusiastic about the plan to drive from Whitefish to Many Glacier early in the morning to do Grinnell Glacier on Wednesday, so she checked for cancellations at Many Glacier hotel or Swiftcurrent Motor Inn and found one! So, on this day we drove the Going-to-the-Sun Road over to the east side of the park and entered Many Glacier to hike to Lake Bullhead.
We saw much less wildlife this day. While some people reported seeing a bull moose near Lake Bullhead, we ended up not seeing any. We stopped by Fishercap Lake and ate lunch at Red Rock Falls on the way. Our son enjoyed tossing rocks into each of the lakes. We did see a few things, though.
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| Green Comma butterfly |
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| Paddle-tailed Darner |
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| White-spotted Sawyer |
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| Canada Jay |
Day 4 - Wednesday, August 28 - Grinnell Glacier
So, while the previous days had highs of 60s and 70s, today had a high of 40F with rain and snow! We bought gloves and my wife bought a beanie from the gift shops in previous days in anticipation of this, and they definitely came in handy. We double-socked and brought a bunch of layers. The normal Grinnell Glacier trailhead was closed for repairs, so we parked at Many Glacier hotel around 6:25 AM (because we were worried about parking) and enjoyed breakfast inside the hotel before heading out.
I was looking forward to trying to spot some elk or moose at Swiftcurrent Lake or Lake Josephine, but sadly did not see any. Our back-up plan was to just hike to Lake Grinnell if things seemed too miserable, but we ended up deciding to stick with the glacier by the time the trail forked.
The cold rain turned to snow as we headed further up. We sort of had views, but obscured by fog and snow. The hike itself had nice varied terrain and interesting water features. My wife spotted a bighorn sheep sleeping in a field below:
About 1.2 miles from the top, my wife and son decided to turn back due to the snow sticking to the ground. My son didn't have any hiking poles and it was getting pretty slick at spots. I pressed on. But here's what it looked like at the top:
There were some pine siskin foraging in the snow.
At some point, I realized that my hands had gone from warm to wet and painfully cold. I also then noticed that water had made it past my waterproof boots and that my socks were soaked. I had two layers of wool socks on, so my feet never got too cold, but I had to keep on flexing my fingers to keep them from going numb.
I'm normally a pretty slow hiker, slower than my wife and son, but I half jogged on the way back down just to generate heat. I did spot the bighorn sheep still in the field, now awake and eating. But it was extremely difficult for me to get any shots through the snow with my cold hands and this ended up being the best of the lot:
After making it back down to Lake Josephine, I headed to the boat dock hoping to skip the last 2 miles back to Many Glacier Hotel. I had originally bought a boat tour to gain entry into Many Glacier before my wife managed to snag reservations at Swiftcurrent Motor Inn. But the next boat wasn't for another 20 minutes and there were already so many people waiting that the operator said I was likely to have to wait for the one after that, another 45 minutes after the first boat. So, I decided to walk the last 2 miles back.
When I got back to Swiftcurrent Lake, the paved part of the trail, the people a couple dozen of feet in front of me started backing up and talking loudly about bears! There were two cubs and a parent sort of strolling on the path towards us and we had to back up quite a bit before they decided to cut across the plants and then cross the bridge across Swiftcurrent. As there were people in front of me with bear spray in hand, I took the opportunity to take some photos.
The way back after that was uneventful and I re-united with my family at the lobby of Many Glacier Hotel and drove back to Whitefish.
While the weather and lack of views were unfortunate, I felt like the hike through the snow was quite the adventure and the bear encounter was exciting.
Day 5 - Thursday, August 29 - Avalanche Lake
We decided to end with Avalanche Lake and to take the shuttles again. Logan Pass was closed in the morning due to snow, so we figured everyone who wanted to go there would probably end up parking at Avalanche instead. Plus, we didn't want to get up super-early after the grueling experience yesterday and figured with the larger shuttles running to Avalanche compared to the small ones that go to Logan Pass that we wouldn't have to wait as long as we did last time.
We got to shuttle line around 9:20 AM and discovered that so many people were parking at Avalanche that many of them had improperly parked in the over-sized vehicle turn around loop and thus, they couldn't actually run the larger shuttles. Apparently, there's no tow trucks and it didn't sound like they even fine people who are improperly parked. Plus the reservation check line for Going-to-the-Sun was 20 minutes since they had to explain to everyone that Logan Pass was closed due to snow. We didn't get to Avalanche until 12:20 PM or so. But that still left plenty of time to do Trail of Cedars and Avalanche Lake to cap off our trip.
I didn't find the Trail of Cedars to be as wondrous as any of the previous hikes, but I appreciate there being a very accessible hike.
The Avalanche Lake hike was very nice. A lot of cool water features, woods, some views, and Avalanche Lake itself was very pretty.
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| Creek |
On the way to the lake, we noticed a lot of people stopped looking into the woods, so we stopped to ask what was going on. Bears.
After waiting 10 minutes or so, the bears decided they wanted to cross the trail. The crowd of people parted ways like the Red Sea and backed up. It was a cub and a parent.
At the lake itself, we mostly saw birds. Our son played with rocks at the lake and we relaxed for a while before we headed back.
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| Stellar Jay |
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| American Dipper |
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| ? were flying low and fast across the lake |
Day 6 - Friday, August 30 - Whitefish and return home
Since we had a flight in the afternoon, we took the time to relax in the indoor pool and hot tub of the community building the AirBnB belonged to and then walk around the Whitefish shops and eat lunch at Buffalo Cafe before taking our flight home. We accidentally navigated to the Kalispell airport before going to the correct one, but we had plenty of time to fix that. Our hiking poles also made it through as carry-on and our trip home was pleasantly uneventful.
Photography notes
Pictures were taken with a Sony a6400. All of the animal shots were taken with the Sony 70-350mm G, with shutter priority set to either 1/1000 or 1/1250. I also used a Cascade Mountain Tech trekking pole as a monopod, fitted with a Ulanzi U-80l mount. I carried the camera on a Peak Design clip attached to my backpack.
Both the Sony A6400 and Sony 80-350mm G are weather sealed and I took advantage of that in the Grinnell Glacier hike with all the snow and rain. So, it went through hours of rain and snow and did not seem any worse for the wear. I would not have managed to get pictures of the bears on the bridge if the camera were not readily accessible. However, when the hotshoe contacts got wet, I'd get annoying messages about incompatible accessories and would have to remove the hotshoe cover and dry it off a bit with my gloves. Luckily, this didn't happen when I chanced across the bears. I hear a piece of electric tape does pretty well to prevent this.
