Glacier National Park, MT – Several Hikes

We haven’t tallied the exact mileage of our hikes in Glacier yet, but we estimate it was ~35+ miles. It was so easy to hike in Glacier (ok not physically easy, because a lot of things were uphill…) but the scenery was so amazing, we wanted to get out and hike every day and explore.

Our first hike was the John’s Lake loop. Glacier was more green and lush than we expected. All of the snow and glacial melt-off make this area pretty green. That makes it even more heartbreaking to think that the glaciers are shrinking even more each year and the impact their disappearance will eventually have on this area. John’s Lake loop was especially lush, and K and I commented to each other that we could picture this being some fairy tale forest, or lords and ladies of medieval castles suddenly coming ’round the corner in their carriages. At one point, there was a deer that we passed on the side of the trail, no more than a few feet from us. It didn’t seem to care one bit.

We also hiked up to Snyder Lake. This was a decent distance, 8.8 miles out and back, but when a couple women asked us near the trailhead on our return if it was worth it, we had to tell them probably not. Apparently other hikers returning shortly before us had said the same thing. Near the end we got some good views, but the lake itself was not as spectacular as others in the park, and the distance was more than we thought worth it to see it. Still, we enjoyed ourselves.

Another day, we did a waterfall hike, down to the St. Mary waterfall and then on to Virginia Falls. This was a pretty short out and back hike, but really spectacular. The pictures will do it justice more than I could trying to describe it. I am glad we had our raincoats though, because the spray off of Virginia Falls was massive!!!

Here is also a picture of the lake at Paradise Point which we walked to and had lunch at one day in the Two Medicine area of the park. We also checked out Running Eagle Falls in this area.