July 2018 Montana Part 2 - Glacier National Park

My second week in Montana, I drove to Kalispell, Montana from Helena, Montana and had a great place to stay in a house in Kalispell.  It was less than 1 hour to Glacier National Park (West Glacier entrance) from Kalispell.  There are over 700 miles of hiking trails so I did not play golf while I was near Glacier National Park.  I went on many hikes in Glacier during the week.  Glacier National Park has 4 main areas to explore: West Glacier, East Glacier, Two Medicine (on the Southeast corner) and Many Glacier.  I went hiking in 3 of the 4 areas (I did not make it to Two Medicine).  I drove the main road through Glacier Park (Going to the Sun road – about 50 miles long) all the way through the park on the way to the Many Glacier area.  The other hiking days in Glacier Park I took the shuttle bus.  I saw a lot of wild animals in Glacier Park during the week.  Altogether, I saw 2 grizzlies, 2 grizzlie cubs, bighorn sheep, mountain goats, elk, deer, marmots, and ground squirrels.  Here are some pictures:

Apgar Village area – Lake MacDonald

Going to the Sun Road – West Glacier area

Heavens Peak (8987 ft.)

Many Glacier entrance (Lake Sherburne)

My first hike in Glacier is now in my top 5 hikes of all time.  I drove to Many Glacier (all the way through the park on Going to the Sun road (about 50 miles of slow going), and back into the park at the Many Glacier entrance in the Northeast part of the park.  It was definitely worth the drive as I hiked the Iceberg Lake trail and saw a Momma Grizzly and her two cubs.  They almost crossed the path right in front of me, about 30 yards ahead.  One of the cubs went into the path and I got a picture of it:

I was able to get past them safely when they went back into the woods a bit.  The rest of the hike was gorgeous with scenery and a beautiful lake at the end (5 miles in and 5 miles back).

Iceberg Lake (there are still chunks of ice in the lake in July!)

After having lunch at the lake, I headed back to the parking lot.

The next day I hiked to St. Mary Falls, Virginia Falls, and Baring Falls.  This was a shorter hike and all 3 falls were magnificent.

St. Mary Falls

Here is a video of the St. Mary waterfalls:

Virginia Falls

Here is a video of the Virginia Falls:

Saint Mary Lake

Baring Falls

Sunrift Gorge

More from Glacier National Park coming up in the next post....