Another family trip in the books! We went to Glacier National Park in Montana and spent a week both exploring and relaxing. The trip was planned by my MIL, so I can’t take any credit for finding the house or for any of it, really! Except packing up 2 small children and flying them across the country, which, TBH, is no small feat. But let’s get into our Glacier National Park Montana trip recap!
Where We Stayed
We flew from Asheville to Kalispell, which is the closest airport to Glacier. The house we stayed in was actually in Bigfork, MT, which is about 45 minutes to an hour away from the West Glacier entrance. Speaking of the house, I’m linking it right here for you since I got several DMs about it. It was super quiet and peaceful, and the river being right out the back yard was so nice. Craig & his bros fly fished easily and Emma loved playing in the very shallow water with her cousin. It was super helpful in keeping kiddos occupied!
What We Did in Glacier
So before I get into the things we did in Glacier, I want to say you need to buy passes ahead of time as they sell out. From 6 a.m. to 3 p.m., a vehicle reservation is required for four areas of the park: Going-to-the-Sun Road, the North Fork, Two Medicine, and Many Glacier. In addition to a vehicle reservation, a park pass is required to enter the park. A vehicle reservation does not include a park pass, and the park pass does not serve as a vehicle reservation. We booked ours back in April for our August trip and things were selling out. You can book your reservations on this website. I only did a couple hikes and there’s SO MUCH we didn’t get to see but here’s some of what we did.
Hidden Lake
The first hike we did was Hidden Lake. It’s an easy-moderate out & back short hike (little under 3 miles round trip) with pretty views and a lake at the end. We saw a mountain goat on this hike (which was our only major wildlife sighting) and sadly it was pretty smoky the day we went, but still had beautiful scenery. If you’re going to do this hike, you’ll park at Logan Pass parking lot. Plan to get there by 7am at the latest to ensure getting a parking spot. We were there by 7:30 and it was *insane*. We got lucky to find a spot but some people waited and looped for 30 minutes to an hour! Just do yourself a favor and avoid the stress, get there by 7am or earlier. This is the same parking lot you’ll use if you choose to do the Highline Trail, which I’ll come back to. You can also take the shuttles to these places, but we read the lines for the shuttles are long and they can take a while, so pick your poison I guess!
Trail of Cedars/Avalanche Lake
I loved this hike! It starts at the Trail of Cedars trailhead and then the Avalanche Lake Trailhead breaks off it of about 0.5 miles in. From there it’s about 2 miles to Avalanche Lake and overall it’s not too difficult of a trek. I’d still say it’s easy-moderate relative to all the other hikes I’ve done in my life. Everything is relative I guess 🙂 Emma even hiked a good bit of it herself. I carried Tegan in the backpack the entire time and was definitely tired by the end! It’s worth it to see Avalanche Lake, it is stunning.
After this, we went to the Apgar Village near Lake Macdonald to get lunch. There were beautiful lake & mountain views here! You can rent kayaks and go out on the lake, too.
Highline Trail
So I actually did not do the Highline Trail, wah! Craig & I had planned for months to do it, but since I had kind of hurt my back the first day we were in Montana, I thought maybe I shouldn’t do a 14 miler. I had majorrrrr FOMO from missing this but Craig did it with his brothers and our SIL. I’m glad he was able to talk them into doing it since I couldn’t go with him. Here are some epic pics. I’ll be honest, the one part I was relieved about is the narrow bit of trail (that drops off on one side) because I am scared of heights! There is a rope to hang on to, but I know that part would have been hard for me to get through mentally, lol. I would have done it but it would’ve caused some anxiety! They said it was amazing though, so add it to your list. Note: you don’t have to do the full 14 miles, you can turn around and go back whenever you want if you want to make it an out & back hike. The 14 mile option is if you hike from Logan Pass down to Loop Trail. If you do that, you can catch a shuttle back up to your car.
Other Things to Do
I know, it’s weird I only did 2 hikes on a weeklong trip out to Montana, but it gets hard when you have 2 babies and a back injury to get out much more than that, ha. I didn’t mind having some relaxation time at the house in front of the river, and one day we went into Whitefish, which is a little town about 45 minutes away from Bigfork. My cousin lives there, and so we went to meet her for lunch and we tooled around the town a little bit. Emma requested some ice cream, so of course we did that too! We went to Sweet Peaks and it was yummy.
Speaking of cute little towns, Whitefish gets a lot of press amongst the blogger crowds I’ve noticed, but downtown Bigfork is SO freaking cute. And, my cousin that lives in Whitefish said that Bigfork actually has better restaurants, so there’s that. We ate at a lakefront brewery one night before walking around the town a little bit.
If you’re into fly fishing, there are so many different places to go. Craig and his brothers fished almost every day either at the house or they drove somewhere else. I didn’t get details on that but if you need them just leave me a comment and I can track them down 🙂
In Closing
I think those were the highlights! Def worth a trip, and I think if you can do it before you have small children, even better!! Lol 🙂 but seriously, we made it work and I know Emma had an amazing time. Tegan won’t remember but we have some awesome pics to show her one day! On the topic of kids, we brought our own backpack carrier but since we only have one, we also rented one from Glacier Outfitters. You’re able to pick up and drop off at the airport which is very convenient. Hope that this Glacier National Park Montana Trip Recap post has been helpful!
If you enjoyed this post, you can also read my blog post from our trip to Utah/Zion National Park/Bryce National Park/Grand Canyon here!
xo,
Bess
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