Nothing quite prepares you for the moment you step onto the Highline Trail at Logan Pass for the first time and realise that the mountain does not care about your plans. Glacier National Park in northwest Montana operates on its own schedule. Snow closes the high trails into July. Grizzly bears can shut down a corridor on a Tuesday morning. The shuttle queue starts before 6 a.m. even in late summer. And the payoff for accepting all of that is some of the most geologically raw, emotionally overwhelming terrain in the entire United States.
- Highline Trail (with the Grinnell Glacier Overlook option)
- Grinnell Glacier Trail
- Iceberg Lake Trail
- Hidden Lake Overlook
- Avalanche Lake Trail
- Ptarmigan Tunnel Trail
- Piegan Pass Trail
- Gunsight Pass Trail
- Two Medicine Lake Loop
- Triple Divide Pass (the underrated tenth)
- 2026 logistics: permits, shuttles, and bear spray
- Underserved trails most visitors never find
- Frequently asked questions
Before I get into individual trails, one practical point about 2026 specifically. The National Park Service has discontinued the timed-entry vehicle reservation system for Going-to-the-Sun Road, which sounds like good news until you arrive at Logan Pass at 7 a.m. and find the lot already full. The three-hour parking limit at Logan Pass is strictly enforced. For any trail starting at that pass other than Hidden Lake Overlook, taking the park shuttle is not just convenient, it is functionally necessary unless you are willing to drive up before sunrise and wait. Shuttle tickets go on sale from May 2, 2026, on a rolling basis 60 days ahead of travel, with remaining tickets released at 7 p.m. MDT the night before travel through Recreation.gov.
Highline Trail, with the optional Grinnell Glacier Overlook
The first quarter mile of the Highline Trail is the reason some hikers turn around without completing it, and the reason others call it the best walk they have ever taken. The trail is carved directly into the face of the Garden Wall, a near-vertical cliff face that drops thousands of feet to Going-to-the-Sun Road below. The path is roughly four to six feet wide at this section. A metal cable is bolted into the rock wall, and I have seen people white-knuckling it on a calm July morning. I have also seen a group of elderly birdwatchers stroll through chatting about warblers without a second glance at the drop. Your relationship with exposure will determine how this opening mile feels, but it does get easier once the cliff section ends.
What follows that ledge is one of the longest sustained ridge traverses in the American Rockies. For roughly seven miles you walk along the Continental Divide, above treeline, with Montana opening up in every direction. The trail is non-technical and mostly gentle in gradient until Haystack Butte, where a short steep section tests the legs. The Granite Park Chalet appears at around 7.6 miles, a historic stone building constructed between 1914 and 1915 by the Great Northern Railway. You can buy a hot drink there if you reserved a bed, or use the composting toilet. Plan any chalet overnight twelve months ahead because reservations open eleven months in advance and fill within hours.
The optional Grinnell Glacier Overlook side trail departs the Highline at 6.9 miles and climbs 900 feet over less than a mile to a narrow arête called the Garden Wall. The overlook sits roughly 1,000 feet above Grinnell Glacier itself. In 1850 that glacier and its companion the Salamander measured 710 combined acres. By 2005 the two separated glaciers covered fewer than 200 acres. The rate of retreat is visible from the overlook in the exposed rock that was under ice within living memory. George Bird Grinnell, who discovered the glacier in 1885 and spent two decades campaigning for the park to be established, noted in his final 1926 diary entry that the glaciers were receding rapidly and would eventually disappear. He was correct, and standing at the overlook I found his words considerably less abstract than they read on a page.
The hike ends at The Loop, where the free park shuttle picks up. The final four miles from Granite Park Chalet down to The Loop are steep, knee-jarring, and pass through an old burn scar with minimal shade. Start this descent with full water bottles and take trekking poles seriously.
Grinnell Glacier Trail
The Many Glacier region is the part of Glacier National Park that most resembles the Alps in character: a wide glacially carved valley ringed by jagged peaks, with a historic hotel sitting at the shore of Swiftcurrent Lake. The Grinnell Glacier Trail is the centrepiece hike of this region, and the boat shuttle option changes the experience completely. Two shuttle boats cross Swiftcurrent Lake and then Lake Josephine in sequence, shaving 4.4 miles off the round trip and depositing you at the real base of the climb. The early morning express boat is worth prioritising.
From the boat dock the trail climbs through wildflower meadows and bighorn sheep habitat. On a recent visit I counted at least fifteen bighorn rams resting in the meadows just below the trail around the 2.2-mile mark. The path hugs a cliff face in a narrow ledge section where the drop-off is real but the pace is manageable. Above Grinnell Falls, at roughly 1.8 miles from the boat landing, you get your first view of the glacier itself, a grey and turquoise mass pressed against the headwall.
The final approach climbs a boulder-strewn moraine above a rest area with benches and a pit toilet. At the viewpoint you are standing at 3.6 miles from the boat dock, looking at a 152-acre glacier pressing against the base of 9,553-foot Mount Gould. Upper Grinnell Lake occupies the meltwater pool directly below the ice. The Garden Wall, which is the same arête you stand on during the Highline overlook detour, frames the left skyline. The two vantage points see the same glacier from opposite sides of the ridge, and both are worth the effort.
This is the trail most likely to close due to bear activity in Many Glacier. Check the NPS trail status page the evening before and the morning of your visit. The ranger-led guided hike version of this trail exists and is an excellent option if you are hiking solo or are genuinely nervous about bear encounters.
Iceberg Lake Trail
I have hiked to lakes across four continents. Iceberg Lake is in my top five. The thing that separates it from every other glacial lake I have walked to is what you see when you crest the final ridge and the bowl comes into view: chunks of ice the size of small cars floating in water so intensely turquoise it looks artificially coloured. In late July the icebergs are largest. By September most have melted. The lake sits in a cirque carved by glacial action, ringed on three sides by vertical walls that block direct sun for most of the day, which is why the ice persists so deep into summer.
The trail itself begins at the Swiftcurrent Motor Inn in Many Glacier and climbs through a mix of forest and open meadow. Wildflower density on this route between mid-July and early August is exceptional, with glacier lilies, Indian paintbrush, beargrass, and blue harebells stacking the hillsides. At 4.5 miles you reach the lake and the sense of arrival is genuine. I have eaten lunch sitting on a boulder at the shore with the cliff walls echoing every sound and three separate groups of mountain goats visible on the scree above. Bring warm layers regardless of the valley temperature, because that cirque creates its own cold draft.
Avalanche Lake Trail
Most trails in Glacier demand significant commitment before they deliver the payoff. Avalanche Lake is one of the few where the payoff arrives early and often. The trail begins in an old-growth western red cedar and western hemlock forest, the kind of cathedral stand where the bark is rust-red and the trunks are wide enough that three people linking hands cannot reach around them. The Trail of the Cedars portion near the start is a flat boardwalk loop that is accessible to wheelchairs and strollers, which tells you something useful about the opening grade.
The forest gives way to a creek canyon with waterfalls tumbling down the canyon walls before the lake appears at 2.3 miles. Avalanche Lake sits at the foot of a semicircle of peaks with snow lingering in the couloirs above the waterline well into August, and those snowfields feed a half-dozen thin waterfall threads that drop directly into the lake from the cliffs. The reflections on a calm morning are among the most photographed in the park for good reason.
One important note for 2026 specifically: Trail of the Cedars and Avalanche Lake will not be accessible by park shuttles this season. You need your own vehicle or must arrange a ride to the Avalanche Creek trailhead. Plan the parking accordingly.
Ptarmigan Tunnel Trail
There are not many day hikes in the United States that end with you walking through a tunnel blasted into a mountain by hand tools in the 1930s, stepping out on the other side onto a completely different face of the range, and looking at a landscape you could not see from any other angle. The Ptarmigan Tunnel does exactly that. The NPS constructed this 183-foot passage through the ridge to give access to the Belly River region on the park's north side. The heavy wooden doors at either end are closed during winter and typically re-opened in late summer once the seasonal snow around the entrance melts enough for safe passage.
The trail to the tunnel gains 2,300 feet from the Swiftcurrent Motor Inn trailhead, passing through Ptarmigan Lake, which sits in a glacially carved basin with a view of the surrounding peaks that stops most people for at least fifteen minutes. Ptarmigan birds, the small alpine grouse that give the trail its name, are spotted on the rocky slopes above treeline. Mountain goats are common near the tunnel entrance. The route is in the same Many Glacier bear zone as every other trail departing from that area, so the same bear spray and noise protocols apply throughout.
Piegan Pass Trail
Piegan Pass is the trail I point friends towards when they want the full alpine experience without the crowd density of the Logan Pass or Many Glacier corridors. The trailhead at Siyeh Bend is a shuttle stop on the Going-to-the-Sun Road, which means the logistics are clean without requiring the full Logan Pass parking exercise. The trail climbs through dense subalpine fir and into open rocky meadows with views of Mount Siyeh rising to the north and the Garden Wall ridge to the west.
At the pass itself, sitting at about 7,560 feet, you can look down into both the Many Glacier valley and the St. Mary valley simultaneously, which gives you a tangible sense of the Continental Divide you are standing on. Snowfields persist at the pass into mid-July most years, and the wildflower meadows below the snowline in the weeks immediately after snowmelt produce one of the densest and most varied wildflower displays in the park. Glacier lilies emerge directly from the snow edge, sometimes while patches of snow are still present a few feet away.
Gunsight Pass Trail
I want to be direct about Gunsight Pass: this is a trail to approach with genuine respect. At twenty miles point to point, with over 3,400 feet of elevation gain, multiple river crossings, high-exposure snowfield traversal in early season, and the need to arrange a vehicle shuttle between two trailheads, this is not a trail for a first visit to Glacier. It is the trail that rewards the person who has already hiked several of the others, knows their own pace, understands weather risk in alpine terrain, and wants the park's interior rather than its front door.
Done as an overnight with a backcountry permit, Gunsight Pass is among the finest wilderness experiences in the continental United States. The route passes Jackson Glacier from a viewpoint near the start, crosses Gunsight Lake on its north shore, climbs through a narrow rock-walled gorge to the pass at 7,050 feet, and then descends through the Lake Ellen Wilson basin, where the campsite at the lake shore is one of the most isolated and beautiful nights you can spend in Montana. The Sperry Glacier Overlook is accessible as a side detour from the upper basin.
For the snowfield sections approaching the pass, micro-spikes and trekking poles are recommended through at least mid-July in most years. The NPS trail status page reports actual conditions daily during the season, and snow can remain on the pass approach into early August in heavy snow years. Check it the day before you depart.
Two Medicine Lake Loop
Two Medicine is the part of Glacier most visitors skip, and that is their loss and your opportunity. The valley sits in the park's southeast corner, bordered on the east by the Blackfeet Reservation. The approach along Route 49 and then Two Medicine Road is scenic enough that the drive itself functions as a warm-up for the landscape ahead. The lake at the end of the road is fed by two rivers and sits below Rising Wolf Mountain, a 9,513-foot peak that reflects in the water on calm mornings in a way that makes it difficult to justify any ambition beyond sitting on the shore with coffee.
The lake loop itself is a flat 2.8-mile walk through forest and along the lakeshore with minimal elevation change. Adding the side trip to Rockwell Falls brings the distance to around 6.2 miles and introduces a waterfall fed by snowmelt from the slopes above. The falls are at their most powerful in June and early July. One access note for autumn 2026: utility and road construction will limit vehicle access to the Two Medicine developed area between September 9 and September 30. The Kootenai Lake wilderness campground in this region is scheduled to open July 1, 2026. Plan accordingly if autumn is your window.
Triple Divide Pass: the trail worth adding to every Glacier itinerary
Most Glacier itineraries are built around the Going-to-the-Sun Road corridor and the Many Glacier valley, which means most visitors are concentrating in two geographic zones while the rest of the park sits in relative quiet. Triple Divide Pass, reached from the Cut Bank trailhead southeast of St. Mary, sits at a hydrological point that has no equivalent anywhere else in the contiguous United States: water falling on this pass drains to three separate oceans. The Pacific receives water through the west drainage via the Flathead River. The Atlantic receives water through the east drainage via the Gulf of Mexico watershed. The Arctic receives water through the north drainage via Hudson Bay. The pass is where all three meet.
The trail climbs 2,400 feet over 7.2 miles through a valley that transitions from lodgepole pine to open subalpine terrain before the final push to the pass. The Cut Bank trailhead sees a fraction of the traffic that Logan Pass or Many Glacier handle on a comparable summer weekend. You are genuinely likely to have long sections of this trail to yourself, which in a park that receives over 3 million visitors per year is its own form of luxury. Carry water for the full distance because reliable water sources in the upper valley require treatment, and pack enough layers for conditions that can shift at the pass regardless of what the valley floor suggests in the morning.
2026 Logistics: permits, shuttles, and bear spray
Planning a Glacier trip in 2026 involves a few specific logistics changes that differ from prior years, and getting these wrong costs a full hiking day.
Vehicle access and parking
The timed-entry vehicle reservation system for Going-to-the-Sun Road has been discontinued by the NPS for 2026. This means you can drive the road without booking ahead, but the parking reality at Logan Pass means arriving before 7 a.m. on any summer weekend or holiday to find a space. A three-hour parking limit is in place at Logan Pass. The practical solution for the majority of Logan Pass hikes is the park shuttle.
Shuttle system 2026
Shuttles operate July through September 2026, weather permitting. Ticket booking opens on a rolling 60-day basis from May 2, 2026. Remaining tickets are released at 7 p.m. MDT the evening before travel for next-day purchase through Recreation.gov, or by calling 877-444-6777. Trail of the Cedars and Avalanche Lake are not served by the shuttle system in 2026. The shuttle system also does not accommodate overnight wilderness visitors this year, so backcountry permit holders need to arrange separate transport.
Backcountry permit timeline
Bear spray
Bear spray is not legally mandatory in Glacier but every park ranger I have spoken to over the years calls it non-negotiable. Glacier is prime grizzly bear habitat throughout the park. The Many Glacier valley has particularly high bear density and the Grinnell Glacier Trail closes more often for bear activity than any other major route. Carry spray in a holster on your hip where it can be drawn in under two seconds. Spray is available to rent at the Apgar Visitor Center if you are arriving by air. On the Highline Trail specifically, the 2024 incident near the Grinnell Glacier Overlook junction was resolved because the hiking party had spray within reach and deployed it effectively.
Entry fees for 2026
Glacier National Park charges an entrance fee. Annual America the Beautiful passes cover park entry for all passengers in a non-commercial vehicle. If you visit multiple national parks in a calendar year, the annual pass pays for itself quickly. The Blackfeet Tribal Conservation Permit is an additional fee of $20 per person for anyone crossing the reservation at the East Glacier end of certain trails, and that crossing is unavoidable on a few specific routes. Check the individual trail permit requirements on the NPS website before planning routes near the east entrance.
Underserved trails and longtail searches most visitors never find
Beyond the ten trails covered above, Glacier contains a network of routes that appear in almost no travel coverage but answer real questions from hikers who have done the obvious trails and want more. Here are the ones I think deserve more attention.
Autumn Creek Trail
This trail in the park's northeast corner near the Marias Pass area sees minimal summer traffic despite connecting through open meadows with consistent grizzly and moose sightings. It is a low-elevation trail with no significant alpine destination, which is exactly why it is quiet. For wildlife photographers who want extended morning light in open terrain, it is worth knowing about.
Apikuni Falls Trail
A 1.8-mile round trip from Many Glacier that gains 600 feet and ends at a pair of falls dropping off the cliffs above the Swiftcurrent valley. Families and those with limited time who are already based in Many Glacier can complete it in under two hours and still be back for the morning Grinnell boat. It almost never appears in recommended lists because it lacks the sweeping vistas that make for good photographs, but the falls in peak snowmelt are remarkable.
Cobalt Lake via Two Medicine
A 12-mile round trip from Two Medicine that climbs through meadows and forest to a lake that sits in a bowl with better solitude than anything in the Logan Pass corridor. The lake itself is a striking colour in good light. The bridge at Two Medicine Creek is currently out for construction, which means hikers approaching from the south shore will need to ford the creek, and the NPS advises caution particularly after rain events. Verify current conditions before this route.
Questions this page answers that most Glacier content ignores
Based on what hikers actually search but rarely find answered in one place: whether pets are allowed on trails in Glacier (they are not permitted on trails or in the backcountry, only on paved roads and the Apgar Bike Path on a leash under six feet), which trails are accessible to wheelchairs (Trail of the Cedars, Running Eagle Falls Trail, and the Swiftcurrent Lake Nature Trail in Many Glacier), what to do if you encounter a bear on the trail rather than just how to avoid it, and whether the Highline Trail is safe in late September (yes, with the caveat that early snow can arrive at elevation by late September and conditions should be checked the day before any high route).
Frequently asked questions about hiking in Glacier National Park
Do you need a permit to hike in Glacier National Park in 2026?
Day hikes require no permit. Overnight backcountry trips require a wilderness permit year-round. The lottery for permits covering June 15 to September 30 opens on March 15 each year. Remaining permits go public from May 1 at 8 a.m. October backcountry permits are first-come, first-served in person only.
Is the Going-to-the-Sun Road vehicle reservation still required in 2026?
No. The timed-entry vehicle reservation system has been discontinued. However, the Logan Pass parking lot fills before 7 a.m. during peak summer, and a three-hour limit is enforced. Taking the shuttle is strongly recommended for all Logan Pass trailheads other than Hidden Lake Overlook.
When does the Glacier National Park shuttle operate in 2026?
July through September 2026, weather permitting. Tickets open on a 60-day rolling basis from May 2, and remaining tickets are released at 7 p.m. MDT the night before for next-day travel via Recreation.gov or by phone. Note that Trail of the Cedars and Avalanche Lake are not served by the shuttle in 2026.
Is bear spray required on Glacier National Park trails?
Not legally required, but strongly recommended by every ranger in the park. Grizzly bears are active on most trails spring through fall. Carry spray on a hip holster you can draw in under two seconds. It can be rented at the Apgar Visitor Center if you are flying in and cannot bring it in checked luggage.
What is the best time of year to hike in Glacier National Park?
Late July through mid-September. High-elevation trails including the Highline ledge section hold dangerous snowpack through mid-July. Park trail crews typically clear high routes between mid and late July. September brings quieter crowds but earlier snowfall at elevation. Check trail status daily on the NPS website regardless of when you visit.
Are pets allowed on Glacier National Park trails?
Pets are not permitted on trails or in the backcountry. They are allowed on roads open to vehicles and on the Apgar Bike Path connecting Apgar to West Glacier, on a leash no longer than six feet and under physical restraint at all times.
Which trails in Glacier National Park are wheelchair accessible?
Three trails are designated accessible: Trail of the Cedars near Lake McDonald, Running Eagle Falls Trail in the Two Medicine Valley, and the Swiftcurrent Lake Nature Trail in Many Glacier. All three can accommodate wheelchairs. Note that Trail of the Cedars is not accessible by park shuttle in 2026 and requires your own vehicle.
What are the least crowded hikes in Glacier National Park?
Piegan Pass, Triple Divide Pass via Cut Bank, Gunsight Pass, and the Two Medicine area trails see significantly fewer visitors than Logan Pass or Many Glacier routes. Going early in the morning on any trail also cuts crowd exposure substantially. Mid-week visits in late August represent the best balance of trail access and manageable crowds.
Can you hike Glacier National Park trails in September?
Yes, and many experienced hikers prefer September for the absence of crowds, the autumn light on the peaks, and the shift in foliage colour at treeline. The risks are early snowfall at elevation, shorter daylight hours, and the shuttle system potentially reducing services toward the end of the month. High routes like Gunsight Pass and Piegan Pass can accumulate snow in September. Check trail status reports actively the week before your planned dates.
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