Glacier National Park in a day+

Our road trip from Canmore, Canada to Glacier National Park started today! We enjoyed listening to 3 different podcasts along the way, two about Glacier National Park. One by “Dirt In My Shoes” and another by “Gaze In The National Parks” which provided some great insight on a few trails and how to navigate the park system. We also enjoyed another random one by “National Park After Dark” about Sequoia National Park where the three of us had been a few weeks earlier (NPAD also has a great one on Glacier and bears, if you haven’t listened to it yet, it’s horrifyingly good)! We arrived in Glacier, checked into the Belton Chalet and figured out our plan of attack for tomorrow.
Next next morning wiped the sleep from our eyes and we’re headed into Glacier by 6am. We had pre-reserved our vehicle pass for “Going To The Sun Road” months in advance. This is a must if you want to get into the park. There are ways around it, but we didn’t want to chance it, being so far away from home. You can also get into the park without a vehicle reservation before 6am (a huge line) or after 3pm. At 6:01am, there were zero cars in line.
The “Going To The Sun Road” spans 50 miles and crosses the Continental Divide at Logan Pass. During your traverse you will see impressive glaciers, beautiful valleys, cascading waterfalls, towering mountains and colorful wildflowers. Most visitors will also witness wildlife sightings on their trip across the Sun Road!
I drove in that morning because I can be a bit spooky if others are driving along the cliff edges and we had no idea what to expect. I love having friends who understand these things. It turned out to be quite easy and while the road is tight in some sections and the cliff edges are high, I felt completely safe.
We got to Logan’s Pass and they didn’t lie, the parking lot was nearly full. We got one of the few last parking spots left. We started our hike on the Highline Trail at 8am at an elevation of 6646 feet. There are no words to describe how beautiful the Highline trail is.
We saw so many wildflowers that we lost count of the varieties, and colors. I was most excited to finally see Beargrass! By the way, fun fact, Beargrass is not a grass and bears don’t eat it (but will use the leaves for den material).
The trail skims along side of the mountain with a rock wall to your right and a cliffs edge to your left. There is a small portion of the trail that has a cable that you can hold onto if needed; I needed it a couple of times, (I’m afraid of heights).
It is Grizzly Country so bring your bear spray.
We drove along to the East entrance of Glacier to Fishcap Lake to see if we could see a moose. Sadly, we did not see one, but we did enjoy the hike to the lake.
We had heard that huckleberries weren’t very tasty, so we had to know for ourselves. We did a blind taste test, each took a bite with no reaction and then shared what we thought. We all agreed, they were DELICIOUS!!!! And in my opinion, better than blueberries!
The next day was our trek back to Calgary. But first we had a few stops to make. Stop 1 was to Lake McDonald to take some photos of the rainbow rocks with the sun overhead. It was a beautiful way to start the morning, feet in the crisp lake water and saying hello to the sun.
We had learned from one of the podcasts about Huckleberry Stuffed French Toast on the East side of Glacier, so we made our way to The Whistle Stop Restaurant for breakfast. We highly recommend a stop in here for great eats and to support the restaurants and people on the East side of the park.
We visited Two Medicine Lake and took a short hike to Running Eagle Falls. Our first observation was that they had two information signs, one in English and one in the Pikuni language. ❤️
On our way out of East Glacier, we stopped at the Glacier Drip Espresso truck on the side of the road (in Babb, Montana). Make sure you stop here for a variety of yummy coffees, (I got the huckleberry milkshake, delish) and to support this local business.
Afterwards we headed towards Waterton Lakes National Park, which meant going back through border patrol and into Canada. Once in Waterton Lakes National Park we turned on our “car boyfriend” from GuideAlong to learn about the park. We drove to the Red Rock Canyon trailhead and enjoyed a small climb down into the river, where you can walk along the beautiful red and yellow rocks.
We then headed on out of the park and into the town of Waterton. We grabbed lunch at “Wieners” where I went vegetarian and got the falafel hotdog, yep, you heard that right. It was falafel but shaped like a hot dog, in a bun. It was perfection, served with sweet potato fries and your choice of sauces.
On our way out of Waterton we found a bison paddock, where you can drive in over a special grate in the road, and safely drive around the area. We came across the bison, and enjoyed watching them from the safety of our car. We then made the car journey back (about 3 hours) to Calgary.