My obsession with Glacier National Park began in 2013 when my brother-in-law suggested it as a post-bar exam trip. After some quick Googling, I was an easy “YES.” The park looked stunning. For reasons I’ve long forgotten that trip never happened, but my desire to see Glacier never faded.
In 2016, when I started running to help me deal with the mounting stress of a heated election cycle (voting rights attorney at a large law firm and all that) coupled with a recent break-up, I again focused on Glacier. This time I was training to run the annual half marathon that takes place at the park. One knee injury later though, another Glacier trip postponed.
You might be thinking “why didn’t you just plan a trip another time?” I have had that same thought throughout the years. But the truth is that I didn’t go to Glacier because I was scared.
I was afraid of experiencing Glacier alone, hiking in grizzly country alone, navigating the park system alone, camping alone, and the list goes on. As much as I wanted to see the park, I was too afraid to visit it on a solo trip. Instead, I waited. I waited for work to slow down enough for me to go off the grid. I waited for friends’ and significant others’ schedules to align with those brief moments of work reprieve. I waited for something that would make me less scared to travel to Glacier by myself. The result? Glacier remained on the “one day, someday” list.
Then I left my job. I know it doesn’t seem like leaving my job should have changed anything. Leaving your job and taking a solo trip are obviously different decisions with distinct consequences, but as I’m learning almost daily, my decision to leave has had a waterfall effect. Making that one hard (and even scary) decision has made it easier for me do other things I’ve been fearful of in the past. Like taking this solo cross-country road trip, and finally moving Glacier from the “one day, someday” list to the now list.
So, that’s how I found myself adding Glacier as a stop on my cross-country road trip, and I am grateful I did. The park was everything that I’d imagined it would be—breathtaking, wild, and, yes, full of bears.
The experience I had in Glacier was also better because I was alone. Making the trip to Glacier alone forced me to shake up the way I usually do things, seeking out experiences and opportunities to make me safer and to help me feel more comfortable, even though I was way out of my comfort zone. Those experiences paved the way for some of my most memorable moments in the park.
So, let me tell you about them and Glacier, while I’m at it.
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Getting to Glacier
It took two days to get from Theodore Roosevelt National Park (TRNP), where we last left off, to Glacier. While you can get from TRNP to Glacier in a long day’s drive (about 9 hours) via a few northern routes, I’d read that the more scenic route was to cut down and come into Glacier from the South, catching Highway 89 into the park. While that would have been enough for me to change course, my 11-hour drive to Chicago at the start of the road trip and the full day of post-drive recovery that I needed for my back once it was over had solidified that 9-hour drives are no longer for me. So, I broke up the drive, cutting down to Livingston, Montana to camp for the night an hour outside of Yellowstone at Pine Creek Campground.
Situated at the foothills of the Absaroka Mountains, the campground was filled with towering, dense spruce and fir trees that created hidden pockets for each campsite. It felt like it was just me, Princess, and the heavy smell of pine (or, as I kept thinking, Christmas) in the woods. Given what I’ve told you about TRNP, I’m sure you’re thinking I must have loved this. More moments in the wild that are all my own. And I wish, I wish I had loved it. But in all honesty, I was nervous. There were signs everywhere warning of recent bear activity, each of them making it clear that for all I felt alone in the wild, I was most certainly not. In response, I did what any sane person would do. Instead of unpacking Princess and setting up camp immediately, I turned right back around after arriving, driving 20 minutes down the hill to Albertson’s where I bought a can of bear spray. I then spent the rest of the evening practicing how to use it before setting up camp for the night, bear spray within arm’s reach.
I made it through the night just fine (as most people in grizzly country do), so feeling emboldened I took a short hike along the creek that ran behind the campsite before starting the trek north to Glacier. When I finally did hit the road, the mountains off in the distance and the Yellowstone River to the side of me made for a stunning drive as well as one hell of an intro to Montana. Nothing quite prepared me for my first view of the park when I hit Highway 89, though. Here you go. No filters. Welcome to Glacier.
Glacier National Park
Glacier has at least seven different entrances in the U.S. (part of the park is also in Canada). To the east: St. Mary, Many Glacier, and Two Medicine. To the west: West Glacier, Camas Creek, and Polebridge. There’s also another entrance, Cut Bank, but it’s not as well-known and is far less traveled than the others. I camped near the St. Mary’s entrance to the park.
There is only one road directly linking the East and West sides of Glacier. The Going-to-the-Sun-Road starts at St. Mary and takes you through the heart of the park to West Glacier. Not only does it shave anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour off of a trip between the two sides of the park, but it is stunning. Google it. Almost everything you’ll read dubs this as one of the most beautiful drives in the country. Unfortunately, I can only vouch for half of the road because the middle of it was closed during my trip. Late rains and high snow levels meant that the full road likely wouldn’t (won’t) open this year until at least July 13, so I could only drive it part way. Don’t feel sorry for me though. The roads around the park—Highways 89, 2, and 49 are all scenic—as are the parts of the Going-to-the-Sun-Road that I did get to drive.
To give you a taste, here are two of my favorite views from the road.
I wish that I could say that my decision to camp near the St. Mary entrance had been strategic, meant to place me closer to Many Glacier and Two Medicine while also giving me easy access to the Going-to-the-Sun Road. It wasn’t though. St. Mary was simply easier to get to from North Dakota. But luck was on my side anyway and staying at St. Mary was the right decision. As a ranger told me (and as I agree), there is a West side and then there is a best side of Glacier. Better to be on the best side.
You don’t have to take our words for it though, here are some pictures for you to compare.
St. Mary Entrance Images (East)
West Glacier Entrance Images
My “solo” trip through Glacier
In preparing for Glacier, everything I read advised against hiking alone, IN ALL CAPS, repeatedly. There is good reason for this. Solo hikers don’t make enough noise. This means they are far more likely to startle bears and a startled bear is, well, why you carry bear spray.
As a result, from the moment I stepped up to the front desk of the KOA where I camped, until the moment I left, I asked A LOT of questions. What were the most popular hikes? Which hikes were traveled by the most people? Did the KOA employees hike alone? What were their recommendations for hiking alone?
The list of suggested hikes I received in response was extensive. I also learned about www.hike734.com. If you are going to Glacier, this is the website for you. It outlines all 734 of Glacier’s hikes, making sure you know what you’ll see, how long you’ll be on the trail, and, most importantly for me, how alone you’re likely to be. The advice from the KOA staff didn’t stop at suggested hikes, either. I got suggestions on the best ways be louder on the trail, ways to connect with other hikers, and a nice set of bear bells (for the uninitiated, these are bells that you attach to your pack or person so that you sound like Santa’s sled when you’re hiking).
One of those suggestions was to take a guided ranger hike, so 5 minutes later I was off to the park visitor’s center to check the weekly ranger schedule. As it turns out, there were two guided hikes a day, ranger talks each night, and a very cool weekly Native American Speaks talk that Glacier has held for over 40 years in partnership with the local tribes. Basically, our national park system is awesome.
Armed with my maps, schedules, and advice, I decided to treat myself to the best chicken fried steak sandwich and huckleberry lemonade I’ve ever had at Johnson’s Café, a St. Mary’s institution. I then spent all of dinner like a kid at Christmas, sorting through my research materials and trying to wrap my head around my next five days in the park.
Those next five days went a little like this.
Guided hikes
On day one, I opted for a guided hikes with a ranger in St. Mary’s around Beaver Lake. If I had been traveling with someone, I probably would have opted against this hike (it’s easy). I definitely wouldn’t have done it with a guide. That would have been a mistake.
I learned about the park’s history. Established in 1903, Glacier was originally managed by Ranger Logan, ex-military. Logan helped find the route for the Going-to-the-Sun Road while crawling through the mountains with his wife and kids. This crawling was followed by threats from his wife to never bare male children for him again if they didn’t turn around. Apparently, they didn’t turn around, and his subsequent children were all girls. (I have not checked the veracity of any of this, but a ranger told it to me so it must be true).
I got a crash course in the park’s animals. Moose are unpredictable and for that reason scarier than bears. Should you ever encounter a moose that charges you, your best bet is to hide behind a tree. Moose have short attention spans and bad eyesight. Beavers are a keystone animal in the park’s ecosystem. Pine bark beetles are a real problem.
I also learned how to safely hike alone in grizzly country, with Dori (the ranger) talking me through each of my fears. For future reference, safe solo hiking involves a combination of bear spray, yelling “hikers coming through” when you come around bends and wooded areas (and, yes, using the plural form of “hikers” is important, this way the bear knows you’re not alone), singing to yourself, and making yourself nice and big if you do see a bear.
Just for fun, here’s a picture of Dori. She was not only awesome, but her enthusiasm about the park, its history, and the wildlife in it were infectious. I can only hope that one day, when I’m no longer on sabbatical, I will love what I do as much as Dori loves the park.
New friends and the best bear stories
More importantly, I met another Amanda on the guided hike. She’s living the van life while working remotely across the country. We shared laughs, stories, and tips on outfitting our vehicles during the hike. Later that week we met up at the Native American Speaks talk, and when it was over headed into the park to continue the conversation and watch the sunset over Wild Goose Island. When we got there, we met Sue who had formerly lived the Prius-around-the-country life and was newly living the van life. Sue absolutely made the evening, taking the cake for the most hilarious bear encounter story I heard in Glacier. This is saying a lot. Everyone in Glacier has a bear story to share. What they don’t have, however, are photos of the bear, taken, as Sue described it, while waving her hands, yelling, and making herself appear bigger than even the Prius she’d stepped out of. (Think, a bear head in one shot, a bear shoulder in another, and so on depending on where Sue was waving her hand to ward off the bear).
Trail crashing
Guided hikes weren’t the only way I did Glacier differently. I also trail crashed. Sticking mostly to well-traveled trails, I often waited at the trailhead for people to start hiking, and then I’d hike slightly behind them, bear bells ringing away. I know I sound like a creeper, crashing someone’s hike, but this is ranger recommended etiquette. Besides, I don’t think anyone minded. In fact, that’s how I met Jack and Jane from Indiana. They had come to Glacier on a whim after Jack happened to pass by it on a work trip. We hiked together through a downpour on July 3, which might sound miserable, but it was actually the perfect way to view St. Mary and Virginia Falls. Both waterfalls were gushing in the rain.
(Credit to Jane for the photo of me below. Proof that I got out and got moving.)
Boat rides
For Many Glacier, I opted for a boat ride across Swiftcurrent Lake and Lake Josephine, followed by a guided hike to Lower Grinnell Glacier Lake. While learning about the history of the Swiss-looking hotel that is the centerpiece of Many Glacier, the various fires that have afflicted the park, and beavers (yep, more lessons about beavers, they are that important), was nice, my favorite moment was chatting with the college kid guiding the group. We talked about his options for the next school year (he might leave and study a trade), his hopes for the future, and just what brought him to Glacier for the summer. Spoiler alert, it was a girl. It is always a girl. I couldn’t help but smile.
And when the guided hikes through Many Glacier wouldn’t take me everywhere I wanted to go, well, more trail crashing to hike the Grinnell Glacier and Apikuni Falls trails. The views to and from both were well worth the creeping, singing to myself in those moments when I found myself alone with the bells, and the grueling ascents to the tops.
West Glacier Escapes
While I spent most of my time on the east, I did make it out to West Glacier one afternoon. After my waterfall hike in the downpour, as lovely as it was, I was freezing and hoping to go somewhere dry. The mountains can be good for that. After a quick check, my weather app told me it would be dry at West Glacier right around the time I’d arrive if I drove over in the afternoon. So, I chased the sun to West Glacier and hiked the Trail of Cedars and then down to Avalanche Lake.
Final takes
After my week in Glacier, all I can say is that if you are thinking about going to Glacier, GO. GO now, go soon, go before the Glaciers melt (yes, they are melting), go alone and meet amazing people while you’re there, or go with someone (preferably four someones, there are no noted bear attacks for groups of four or more).
My only regret is that I didn’t go sooner. If I had, I’d have had even more opportunities to go back. Instead of checking Glacier off my travel list, it was so stunning I’ve decided to simply move it to the go-back-to list. Afterall, I still have 727 trails left to crash, and if I do it right, many more amazing people to meet along the way.
**Please excuse all typos, grammatical errors, and other weird punctuation. Sometimes the light in Princess isn’t the best for proofing. Since this isn’t a legal brief, I’m just going to let it go until I get to a place where I can fix it.**
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