West Glacier, MT - Glacier NP (8/9 - 8/19/24)

We finally made it up to northwest MT to visit another NP. Glacier NP is an epic National Park with lots of beauty and wildlife. Driving on the famous Going to the Sun Road is an amazing experience with incredible views.

This park is so popular, you need to make daily reservations to even enter the park. You will also want to strategize how you visit. Parking is difficult in the most popular areas, so be prepared to avoid busy times, wait, or use the shuttle service to get around. They also have tour buses with various options.

We stayed at the West Glacier KOA Resort in West Glacier. This is a real RV resort with pools, live entertainment daily, and many more amenities and close proximity to the west entrance of the park.

One of the most popular stops in the park is a Logan Pass. Here you will find a visitor center and trails to some very amazing views. Longer hikes will also take you closer to the glaciers. These pictures were taken on the hike to see Hidden Lake. Looking to the right side of this photo, you can see a temperature inversion that has trapped clouds below the pass elevation.

The trail isn't too strenuous and well worth the trek.

On the east side of the park in the Two Medicine area, we probably saw the most up-close wildlife. We were on a trail to see a waterfall and ran into the bighorn sheep taking the same trail the other direction.

That same day on another trail in Two Medicine, we ran into this bull moose feasting in the water.

Along the Going to the Sun Road, there is a tunnel and many switchbacks on the side of the mountains providing incredible views.

When not on the side of a mountain, most of the roads in this park follow water (rivers/lakes) that makes for scenic driving as well.

At the KOA, they spared no expense on extensive flowers throughout the park. This is the "Bear Garden", where there is a restaurant, a "Bearstream" bar trailer, ice cream shop, and plenty of lounge seating to watch the live entertainment perform.

We decided to rest our feet one day and take a river rafting trip on the Yellowstone river.

Scene after scene in this park made for great picture taking,

Yet another view of lakes with mountain backdrops.

Most of these great views were only viewable from the hikes, so be prepared to put on those hiking shoes.

We took one day away from the park to visit Whitefish Resort in Whitefish. You can take the lift to the top and hike/bike the many trails on the mountain. After Glacier, we head to Coeur d'Alene to ride some of the best HoF Rail Trails of the US in Idaho.