Glacier National Park is a hiker’s park. The trail system inside the park is vast much like the park itself and provides options for everything from handicap accessible trails to rough back country hiking. Given we were lugging four kids around we were limited to shorter hikes, however, because of the Going To The Sun Road you can get to some amazing places without having to hike long distances. In this post I’ll cover the four trails we hiked and share some pictures of the amazing sites along the way.
St Mary & Virginia Falls Trail
We spent time hiking the St. Mary and Virginia Falls trail. As you walk this trail it seems there is a waterfall at every turn. There are four distinct and amazing waterfalls in just 2 miles. These are some of the more spectacular waterfalls in the park and are grouped close together making for an easy walk for the family. The color of the water is a turquoise color that is something you just don’t see in Indiana. Very pretty hike and if you like waterfalls an absolute must-do. You initially walk down a nice trail through a forested area which had apparently been involved in a forest fire a few years back. The first waterfall you come to is St. Mary Falls which is a large cascading waterfall with three distinct tiers. The water here is really turquoise, even more so than the other falls along this hike. There is a bridge that takes you across just below the falls offering some great views of the falls.
As you continue down the trail you come to two other waterfalls that are really quite large and impressive but are unnamed. Anywhere else and they would surely have a name and be an attraction all by themselves but being sandwiched between St Mary and Virginia Falls is apparently not the best place to be if you are a waterfall and want to have a name. They were both really quite impressive and unique.
The hike ended at Virginia Falls which is also a cascading waterfall, but the largest tier is an impressive 50 foot waterfall. The way the land is around it you are able to walk right up to the base of the falls and get splattered with water as well as get an up close look at the impressive falls. There is also a pit toilet here which turned out to be a very good thing. We spent four hours hiking the 2 miles out and 2 miles back on this trail.
Hidden Lake Overlook Trail.
Another trail we got to do was the mostly snow covered Hidden Lake Overlook. It was closed earlier in the week due to bears in the area as a result of the fish spawning occurring at the lake but they opened it as far as the overlook later. The kids had a blast slipping and sliding and playing in the snow and we saw tons of mountain goats (including a baby) and some bighorn sheep along the way as well. This was a really pretty hike with some tremendous views of the mountains and for us it ended at a pretty alpine lake nestled in the mountains. While we weren’t able to go all the way to the lake we were able to go to the overlook and see the lake and mountain backdrop.
Sadly we didn’t see any bears on this hike or at all while we were at Glacier NP. That is something I was hoping would happen. My consolation is that we will continue to be in bear country for most of the rest of our trip and there will still be opportunity to see some. We heard several people talking about seeing bears while we were there (one was in the river with a guy while he was fishing) but we never saw any.
Highline Trail.
This is one I wish I could have done more of. It is one of the more well known trails not just in Glacier but in the hiking world in general and I can understand why. It’s a longer trail (7-12 miles one way depending on what you do once you reach the Chalet) and almost all of that trail wonders up high above the Going To The Sun Road on the edge of the mountain with panoramic views of one of the larger valleys and surrounding mountains. We really didn’t have time to do this trail, but the boys and I wanted to at least say we had set foot on it and hike as far as where it leaves the valley and gets out onto the edge of the mountain. So after hiking the Hidden Lake Overlook trail I took Jadon, Rylan, and Austin and we ran up there real quick to take in the view and snap a few pictures (also running into another mountain goat on the way).
Trail Of The Cedars
One of the days we stopped briefly at the Avalanche location and hike about half of the Trail Of The Cedars loop trail. It’s a handicap accessible trail with either boardwalk or paved trail that is only about a mile long. While a pretty trail with nice trees and a mountain stream, it’s not nearly as impressive as the other trails we did, so we cut it short after going about halfway so that we would have more time to spend in other locations. This trail is in the forest more with less impressive views.
We definitely enjoyed hiking around Glacier National Park and had some amazing experiences wondering the trails.