Glacier National Park, Montana

This labor day (Sep 2012), we (Kunal Haria, Sweta Nagda, Bhanik Shah, Trishla Gosar, Mayank Dedhia, Alloki Bhatt, Siddharth Shah, Amrish Savla) visited the Glacier National Park . It is one of the biggest national parks situated in Northwest America. Lot of people and friends asked me before the labor day about my plans and not a lot of people knew about this beautiful place in Montana. One person even thought that the park was in Alaska. When people heard Montana, they asked Are you driving ?? Isn’t it too far ?. When i answered that i am taking a flight to the Glacier National Park International Airport in Kalispell, they asked isn’t it too expensive to fly to a small airport ? The flight cost us less than 200 dollars round trip (even on the labor day weekend).  Let me give you some basic information about the park summarized from my experience and also some information which you will not find on any travel sites.

1. As the name suggests, the park is full of Glaciers and Glacial Lakes.
2. The best time to go to the park is mid June to late July, mainly because the snow has just started to melt and is also a good time to see wildlife.
3. The main highlight of the park is the Going to the Sun Road which connects the West and East entrances of the park.
4. Many Glacier Region, which is the area that has majority of glaciers and wildlife viewing opportunities is outside of the main area of the park.
5. There are two beautiful hikes that are a must do, first is the Iceberg Lake trail and the second is Grinnel Glacier Hike.
6. The end of the Iceberg lake trail is a lake full of fallen Icebergs, the loop is a 9 mile trail with 1200 ft in elevation.
7. The end of the Grinnell Glacier trail is the glacier itself where you have an opportunity to walk on a glacier. The loop is a 11 mile trail by foot, in Summer you can cut 4 miles of the trail by taking a boat tour (Details here)
8. The park has a lot of grizzly bears and if you do any of the above mentioned trails, your chances of bear sightings do increase.

Now the part which you don’t find in any travel sites

1. Find a campsite or hotel on the east side of the entrance, if you choose the west entrance, you should expect at least 2 to 2.5 hours of driving one way to reach the East side. Remember majority of the attractions are on the east side.
2. On the west side, the best place to capture a Sunset is Lake McDonald
3. On the east side, the best place to capture a sunrise is St Mary’s lake
4. The best spot to spot a bear is Lake Sherburne. This is a very quite spot in the Many Glacier area, where if you are patient, you will see bears looking for drinking water. Best times for wildlife is before 9 am and after 5 pm when the air is cooler
5. A handful of airlines go to Glacier National Park International Airport, including Delta and United. The best option from SF Bay area is Allegiant Air ( a low cost airline like Spirit Air) which flies from Oakland. Allegiant Air offers direct service where as Delta and United have layovers in Salt Lake City.
6. The airport has counters for all major car rental companies.
7. You can find Pizza Hut, Subway in Whitefish on the west side of the park. There is a Safeway too in Whitefish. In Kalispell, you can find a Walmart and a Qdoba (similar to Chipottle)
8. On the east side, there are a lot of local restaurants which have vegetarian options.

To sum up, Glacier National Park is a very good long weekend option especially from the bay area. The park is known for its hiking trails and there are a lot of them. If you have a DSLR, its full of opportunities to capture amazing pictures.

The park does justice to what George Bird Grinnell himself said,

“Far away in Montana, hidden from view by clustering mountain-peaks, lies an unmapped northwestern corner- the Crown of the Continent”