Refreshed from our first glorious night’s sleep in the campground of our dreams, West Glacier KOA Resort, we were up and at ’em at the crack of dawn Tuesday morning, ready to take on Going to the Sun Road and the Hidden Lake Trail hike.
Disclaimer: there is nothing overly easy about National Park touring these days, ESPECIALLY in popular parks like Glacier. Due to snowfall throughout the winter, Going to the Sun Road didn’t even open for the season until June 22nd this year. Umm…we pulled into the West Glacier KOA on June 24th and were driving this (very important, pretty near imperative to a successful trip to Glacier National Park in my novice opinion) road on June 25th. Whew. #LuckyDucks.
But you don’t just drive on Going to the Sun Road. First, you need an admission pass to the National Park. Then, you need a reservation specific to the Going to the Sun Road. Reservations can be made 120 days (approximately 4 months) in advance. But if you miss that reservation deadline, you can make reservations the day before at 7 pm. We did not reserve 4 months in advance – and you better believe we set a timer (that went off during our West Glacier KOA bingo game) and logged on to reserve our pass at 7 pm sharp. (Spoiler alert: we succeeded in getting a pass at 7 pm for the next day on three consecutive evenings. Yay!).
We pulled out of our campground at 6:55 am that Tuesday morning, and were at the Going to the Sun Road checkpoint at 7:10. When we passed the first popular hike trailhead – Avalanche Lake – the parking spaces were nearly fully occupied. We made a mental note that if we’d like to hike Avalanche, we’d have to leave even earlier.
Tuesday was the only day of our stay in Glacier that was forecasted to be sunny. The weather was absolutely glorious, with bright blue skies full of large white puffy clouds. Every picture I took that day on Going to the Sun Road was postcard-worthy (like the featured photo in this post of Goose Lake on the eastern side of the park!). And yet not a single picture I took that day did justice to the stunning beauty of that corner of northwest Montana. Good grief, the beauty is breathtakingly indescribable. As a WVU alumna, I hold John Denver’s “Country Roads” close to my heart. But with all due respect to the beauty of Apalachia – I don’t think John Denver had driven the Going to the Sun Road when he penned the lyrics “almost heaven”. Or maybe he had, and knew well that he was, indeed, in heaven in Glacier National Park.
Hidden Lake Trail
We made it to the still snow-covered Logan Pass before 9 am, and we dressed in all of our layers to tackle Hidden Lake Trail. Early morning hikers coming back down offered us advice on trail conditions and let us know that the trail was closed past the overlook due to grizzly activity. I’m still unsure of how we “found” the trail – snow covered, and with no real markers, we just trusted those around us and those heading back toward us until about a half mile into the hike, the trail became more defined.
I know that half a mile doesn’t sound like much distance, but 1/2 mile uphill on snow pack with a 7 and 10-year-old felt pretty legit, ha! The boys were rock star hikers and cruised right up with no complaints. Once we found the trail, we also saw our first cluster of Columbian ground squirrels and a big, fat hoary marmot that we mistook for a possum at first.
At 1.2 miles into the hike, we came to the Hidden Lake overlook, and the lake was….still mostly frozen! But the views were gorgeous and the hike was one of my favorites in any National Park to date. We sat on rocks at the lookout for a bit and enjoyed a snack and the views of the mountains, lake, and critters running about.
On the way back down the trail, the boys decided they wanted to hike the ridge back. The climb up to the ridge is wildly steep (and snow-covered!), and the ridge ends in such a steep pitch, that the only rational way down was to sled ride on your butt or belly. The makings of a favorite hike of all time for our youngest for sure.
Two Medicine
After our Hidden Lake hike, we continued eastward on Going to the Sun Road and set our sights on Two Medicine on the southern side of East Glacier.
When we arrived at Two Medicine, we found an adorable general store and a boat ride terminal. There was a waiting list for the 3 pm boat ride across the lake that we put our name on, and we bided our time until boat boarding by window shopping in the general store.
At 2:50 pm we found at that the boat was full. A little disappointed, but undeterred, we took off on the Aster Falls hike. At a much lower elevation, this trail was NOT snow-covered, but instead mosquito-covered. Our Cutter Natural spray did not cut it and we were eaten alive. But I will swat away mosquitos the size of my thumb all day for a view like this of a moose!
The falls at the end of the trail were beautiful, and unsurprisingly our 7-year-old got right to the business of water fun. We should be counting the bodies of water he has been in this trip. Though it’s really not necessary because the answer is all of them. If we’ve been within spitting distance, he’s been waist-deep!
We opted to drive back to the West Glacier KOA via Route 20 as opposed to going back over Logan Pass on Going to the Sun Road. We were home for the day in time to enjoy a campfire, homemade dinner at our site, live music, ice cream, a magic show, and, of course, Gaga ball for the kids. Heading to bed was easy – we were exhausted and a second day of Glacier National Parks adventures awaited.
