Guide to Glacier National Park – All You Need to Know!

This guide to Glacier National Park is for anyone who is considering a trip to one of the most beautiful places on earth and for anyone who is brilliant and has already booked a trip. I will go through what you need to know and give you tips on the best things to do.

Get ready to adventure in one of the greatest places in the USA.

Guide to Glacier National Park jump to:

Why Glacier National Park?

I had Glacier near the top of my “wilderness destinations” list for a loooong time.

Okay, I don’t actually have one of those lists (I now think it’s a fantastic idea, though), but I had seen glimpses of Glacier National Park in Backpacker magazine and social media (ya know, where all good dreams begin). Glaciers? Mountains? Alpine lakes? All to be found in the United States? It stuck in my brain, and I was determined to make it there.

Glacier National Park is now my favorite United States National Park. It is beautiful beyond our comprehension. The lakes are blue hues that I’ve never seen before and crystal clear. One hike had views of 4 different, perfect lakes on one trail. FOUR. And the mountains. You’re surrounded by beauty that you can’t begin to understand. While you are out admiring this rugged beauty, you also get to spot wildlife and stare in awe at pure nature. The sunsets are real life paintings, the trees are abundant, and you can’t help but be grateful for the opportunity to see it all. Glacier National Park is amazing.

I spent a week there, driving and camping. I did so much research before the trip that my eyes glazed over while googling “best hiking trail in Glacier National Park” over and over. Have you ever had the must-see-the-best-of-everything complex? Yep, I had a bad case of it.

I’m hoping that my research and time in the park can help you to plan the best trip possible with this guide.

Things to Know about Glacier National Park

It is $35 per car to get into the park, and your pass is good for 7 days.

The park is split into 2 sides, East Glacier and West Glacier. East Glacier is more mountainous, there are more popular trails, and I would focus most of your time there. Plan for 70% of your trip in East and 30% of your trip in West.

Driving from one side of the park to the other takes a while! Plan for an hour or more.

The Going to the Sun Road is the historic, curvy, beautiful road that runs through the middle of the park. During busy season, this road can be very slow-moving. It typically does not open until late June or early July, and it also closes down often, for snow or wildfires. Route 2 is at the bottom of the park and can be a good option as well.

Make sure to fill up on gas before driving through the park.

This is the best map I found to orient myself to Glacier National Park and choose where I wanted to go.

Glacier National Park has a short season for visitors. It is open year-round, but many facilities are closed in the winter. If you’re looking for the summer luxuries and warm weather, you’ll want to visit late May through early September. If you’re willing to be quite cold and risk road closures, visit in an off-season. I went mid-September and found it to be very cold with many facilities already closed. But the leaves were starting to change, and there were fewer visitors.

Bears and Wildlife

Be prepared for bears. It is not common to be attacked by a bear, but it does happen. Always make noise while you’re hiking. Clap and sing. Let the bears know a human is coming; bear bells don’t cut it. Always have bear spray with you and keep it accessible. You can buy it, but you can’t fly with it. You can also rent it in the park; this was very easy to do.

It is not just your safety that I’m worried about. Keep your food away from bears! Always store food properly in bear lockers, your car, or hung up in the backcountry. Do not leave it accessible for even 2 minutes. Bears who learn they can get food from humans spend more time near humans, become a danger, and sometimes have to be killed. Please don’t contribute to this.

With bears and all wildlife, do not get close just to get a perfect photo. These are wild animals, and you are in THEIR habitat. Even the cute mountain goats can charge at humans. We were on the Grinnell Glacier trail when a bighorn sheep decided to use the human trail. We got off the trail as quickly as we could but were still way closer to it than I try to be.  Do your best to respect wildlife.

How to get to Glacier National Park

Depending on where you live, you can drive. The surrounding area is beautiful.

If you need to avoid a really long drive, you can fly. Glacier Park International Airport in Kalispell, MT is the most convenient. Alaska, United, and Delta fly into this airport, and it is about an hour from the park. You can also fly to Spokane, WA if it’s cheaper; Spokane is 5ish hours from the park. Keep in mind that you will change time zones. Flying into Missoula, MT would put you 2.5 hours away. We did Spokane because of our Southwest points, and it worked out great.

Take a train. Yes, I googled this extensively too. Amtrak has a train from Spokane to Glacier National Park. It really seems like a great, unique, inexpensive option. We didn’t choose this because we planned on driving ourselves to our destinations in the park.

Having your own car vs taking shuttles.

My vote is to have your own car, especially if you are traveling during off-season. The shuttles were very unreliable when we were there and would have kept us from doing things we wanted to do. If you really don’t want to rent a car, though, you might be able to make do with shuttles and tours.

Length of trip

Trip lengths can vary for this park. You could spend a month or longer exploring the trails, backpacking, etc. You could also spend a long weekend if you are short on time. It is a relatively inexpensive trip if you are camping, so I recommend spending as much time as you can exploring Glacier. Each extra day you have means extra hikes you get to do. And there is no shortage of those.

We had 5 full days in the park. With the cold weather, this was in ideal amount of time. We hiked some of the best trails but were ready to not have numb fingers by the end of it.

Where to stay

The amount of options seemed overwhelming at first. There are lodges, campgrounds, backcountry sites, motels, airbnbs, and hostels. Before you panic, think about the following:

1^st Question: What do you want out of your trip?

Do you want to spend more time in nature, sleep in a tent, risk rainy evenings, have campfires, and save money? Camping and backpacking are for you.

Do you want to have a safe haven in a warm hotel room at the end of the day and are willing to spend extra money? A motel, airbnb, or hostel might be for you.

Or maybe a little of both!

2^nd Question: In what areas of the park do you want to spend time?

If you realize that every hike you want to do (more on hiking options below) is in the Many Glacier area, you will want to stay around there. It is time consuming to drive to different areas of the park. While beautiful, it’s nice to have a home base near the things that are important to you.

Glacier National Park Camping

I wrote an entire post about all 13 Campgrounds in Glacier National Park.

For $10-23 you get a cheap, beautiful campsite right inside the park. You can reserve some spots ahead of time but most are first-come, first-served. Campgrounds are available on the East and West side of the park and options vary depending on what you’re looking for in a campsite.

 Winter Camping at Glacier National Park is only available at St. Mary and the picnic area of Apgar. It is primitive and free.

If you are even slightly interested in camping in the park, check out the full guide. It has everything you need to know.

Backpacking in Glacier National Park

Backcountry camping in the park is amazing. You say “see ya” to the crowds and escape off into the wilderness. Glacier is huge, so of course there are parts of the park that you can only see by hiking to them. I highly recommend doing this.

It’s $7 per person for each night of backpacking May 1 – October 31. You can obtain these permits at a backcountry office 24 hours ahead of time or reserve a spot online. 70% of the spots can be reserved and 30% are left for walk-ins. Glacier NP now uses Recreation.gov to book sites. If you have your heart set on a certain trek, I recommend reserving your sites ahead of time. If you decide to snag a spot the day before, get to a Backpacking Permit Location when they open.

You must pick up the permit either the day before or day of your itinerary start date at any wilderness permit issuing station in Glacier National Park. Permits not picked up by 4:30pm on their start date will be cancelled.

I used this map and figured out what backpacking trek I wanted to do.

We chose Cracker Lake because it was getting awfully cold, so we wanted to only do a 1 night trip. We were able to snag a spot the day before and were the only ones at the site. Perks of going in the off-season! It was incredible. I wrote a post about how you can backpack Cracker Lake too!

Make sure you have a way to store your food away from bears and keep bear spray handy at all times. Ask when you are in the backcountry office. Cracker lake had the poles to hang your food (we had to buy some rope, which was available at the office store), but it might vary at different backcountry areas.

Hotels, Motels, Lodges, and Hostels

There are 5 lodges in Glacier National Park. All are rather pricey, but I get why. They are in beautiful locations and are often fully booked. If you are looking to stay in one of these, head to this website to compare your 5 options. Cedar Creek is listed, but it is outside of the park.

This website shows some great options around the park. You’ll save a little money and can still be close to a park entrance. We stayed at Red Eagle Motel one night because we really needed showers and some warmth. It wasn’t the nicest motel I’ve ever experienced, but it was only $100/night. It was 5 minutes from the St. Mary entrance.

There are a couple hostels as well.

And airbnb is always worth a look!

Things to Do – Guide to Glacier National Park

Go hiking.

I almost laugh as I type this. I feel like everyone who goes to Glacier National Park plans to go hiking, even if it’s the small, more accessible routes. It’s a hiking wonderland. There are over 700 miles of trails. It can seem overwhelming to pick which ones you can fit in on your trip. This website is by far the greatest resource for hiking in the park. They list trails by areas of the park, by difficulty, and by features.

After reading up on all the trails and hiking some of them, here are my recommendations:

Grinnell Glacier Hike

Grinnell Glacier was one of the best hikes I’ve ever done. The prettiest lakes framed by mountains lead you up to Grinnell Glacier, which is stunning. If there is 1 hike to do in the park, it’s this one. It’s 11 miles roundtrip (out and back) and strenuous. In the summer, you can take a boat and shave 3.6 miles off the hike.

Highline Trail

The Highline Trail is one of the iconic hikes in Glacier. You get expansive views of the park, the continental divide, mountain goats, and mountains. The best way to do this is to park at The Loop, take the shuttle to Logan Pass, and hike from Logan Pass back to your car. You can do it the opposite way, but then your hike will be all uphill instead of down 🙂

Lake Hikes

Cracker Lake is an aquamarine lake, see photo above. It’s absurdly beautiful and not easy to get to. It’s around 13-14 miles roundtrip; it can be done as a 1 night trip or a long day hike. If you can snag backpacking permits, it’s definitely worth a night next to this perfect lake.

If you don’t want to do Cracker Lake, I had Avalanche Lake, Hidden Lake, and Iceberg Lake as my other options for “pretty lake” hikes. Just Go Travel Studios has a great post about the Iceberg Lake hike, and it looks beautiful.

Virginia Falls Trail

St. Mary and Virginia Falls Trail is 3.6 miles roundtrip and one of the most popular waterfall trails. You get a big payoff for such a short hike. There are many cascading falls between St. Mary Falls and Virginia Falls, and the hike through the woods is also pretty.

You can’t go wrong with a hike here. The entire park is so beautiful and you never know when you’ll catch a glimpse of some wildlife.

Eat Huckleberry Everything.

Apparently, huckleberries are a huge thing in Montana. They have huckleberry milkshakes, huckleberry pie, huckleberry jam. You name it, they’ve got it. Embrace it and eat it all.

Go kayaking or canoeing.

Some of the amazing lakes in the park offer water activities. Unfortunately, we were there when it was SO cold, so we didn’t experience this. To rent for Lake McDonald, click here.  To rent for Many Glacier’s Swiftcurrent Lake, click here. For Two Medicine Lake, click here.

Drive Going to the Sun Road.

This 50 mile road is beautiful, and it feels crazy that it can even be there. It weaves around mountains, through tunnels, and makes you ponder how it was built like this. It offers great pull-offs with stunning views and many trailheads. Plan to spend at least half a day driving this epic road, pulling off at the overlooks, and taking your time. Pick up a map at the park entrance that will show the important stops.

Take a bus tour.

Red Bus Tours not only shuttle you around on Going to the Sun Road, but they offer history and a tour while you ride. Led by seasoned park veterans, this is a great option to relax and see the park. Prices vary depending on what tour you choose. It’s around $100 if you do a full tour of Going to the Sun Road. Tours often sell out, so be sure to book ahead of time.

Nursing Advice

Be safe. Follow the bear precautions. Tell someone your itinerary before you go. Bring a first aid kit with you. And don’t do any hikes that you are incapable of doing. There are so many hikes to choose from in this park. If you know your body and know you shouldn’t attempt a strenuous hike.. don’t. Pick an easier one from the list. 

Guide to Glacier National Park Final Thoughts

Glacier National Park is a dream destination for those who love the outdoors. The wildlife, stunning hikes, and time in nature will fulfill your dreams and more. I hope this guide has helped you plan a perfect trip. If you have any questions or recommendations, comment below!

Happy Adventuring!

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