Glacier National Park: A Few Hikes You Can Do Year Round

Current Ranking: #1

If you have been to a few National Parks before you may have found out that the time of year can dramatically effect your ability to enjoy yourself! One huge reason Glacier ranks so high is because we still had so many opportunities to enjoy hiking even though the main road was closed! I am sure you have seen beautiful summer photos from High-line Trail and the going to the sun road at Glacier and I am sure they are GORGEOUS to see in person. However, both of our trips here were during the fall/winter season. In 2022 going to the sun road was only open for about 2 months of the year due to extra snowfall. With a little extra driving, there are SO many amazing trails and places to go any time of the year. Starting off, this park is HUGE. We have been to the four main entrances and even in the winter they can be accessed (weather depending) pretty far in without the hassle of crowds that the summer can add. You will definitely need have layers though. The most notable and iconic side is the West Entrances.

The west entrance starts with this beautiful lake McDonald. Although it's not a hike, spending a bit of time here is worth your while! This lake is known for it's beautiful and colorful pebbles. Photos cannot really show how colorful and diverse the pebbles are. Definitely take a trip here to see it for yourself! You will also be driving a hot minute around this lake to get further into the park to visit some of the unique hikes that you can still do most of the year. *side note: this is as far as we could go in 2022 due to construction. Hopefully your visit will not be affected by this but we were able to go in 2021*

After you pass Lake McDonald, find Upper McDonald Creek trail and see the Creek (more like river) that feeds the Lake! We didn't even finish the trail but going to the falls is a must! The photo to the right here is the main falls and it is just breath taking. It's an easy trail (the full trip is about 5.6 out and back) but it takes only a mile or so to see the falls. Use caution, but obviously you can walk all the way up to the water. We spent a hot minute just watching and listening to this beauty. Not far from this spot is our next recommendation: Avalanche Lake! Yes there is a LOT of water at Glacier National Park and one of the reasons I love it!

Avalanche Lake is wild cause it gives you some PNW vibes near the beginning with a waterfall like this one to the left here <--- then gives more teton and rocky vibes later on with a elevation lake in a mountainous valley at the top! Avalanche Lake is a more moderate hike since it has elevation at about 6 miles out and back. We went around quite a bit of the lake so we most likely hiked for longer.

Photo of deer in forested area about 2 miles in -->

This was definitely a highlight of our 2021 trip and comes to the most beautiful panoramic view of Glacial Mountains around Avalanche Lake. Those are the hikes that are open year Round on the West Side.

The next major location is the St Mary entrance on the mid-eastern side of the park. This is the other side of the going to the sun road and even though the full stretch is closed the majority of the year, you can still access both sides. I would like to note that in the months of November-January you may experience temporary closures closer to the entrance as we did in our 2022 visit. This is due safety concerns with the major snowfall we experienced while we were there. You can still go further than the sign but hiking is limited. If they have plowed the snow, you can usually make it up to at least three falls trail.

Three Falls Trail is appropriately named for the three major waterfalls that you see hiking it. I consider this a heavy and difficult trail, mostly due to it being over 10 miles to complete. Most of the hike is relatively flat, some steep parts but it's mostly the amount that makes it difficult. Spending time at the falls definitely makes it worth the effort. The ending point shown above is Virginia falls, the tallest one of the three. We always joke about it now since it's all said and done but I was SURE that Graham was going to propose here. This would have been the absolute perfect place. So if your girl is a hiking type and you are looking for a place to propose I highly recommend this spot ;)

<-- St Mary Falls

I cannot believe that this is not most people's #1 hike here at Glacier but that must mean some of the others are that much more beautiful.

Even with some inability to drive, we could still do some walking on the roads in our 2022 trip and went to a viewpoint. It is amazing how many little places you can turn off and just start hiking. Even though it was cold and closed off we still had beautiful views and experienced my favorite siting: Moose! See if you can spot the bull in the picture below! We do plan on revisiting at some point during warmer weather but it will be for the more inaccessible hikes plus a few in the less traveled entrances.

In my opinion the least popular but still beautiful portion of Glacier is the East Glacier Entrance (also know as the two medicines entrance). There are only a few spots to go here but they are still worth a visit. We also saw sheep here just grazing around; that was a wonderful addition to our 2021 trip!

If you can or if you have extra time I recommend spend about an hour here, enjoying Eagle falls. In my opinion, I think this would be better in the fall, spring when the falls are only going through the bottom portion. It's probably one of the most photographic waterfalls with the glacial mountains in the back drop.

This one is only about a half a mile to visit and you can scramble on the rocks during low tide portions of the season like fall and winter to get a closer view too!

Out of the 4 entrances that we have been to, I would say this is the one I would not go to if you are pressed for time but I still believe this waterfall was my favorite out of the bunch! It is on the way over to the St Mary and Many Glaciers entrances so maybe put in for an hour detour to enjoy the Eagle River Falls for a minute for lunch or something.

The last entrance and trails I wanted to talk about were in the Many Glaciers portion of the park. Unfortunately, I didn't even know about this entrance in 2021 and in 2022 we had gotten there JUST in time for it to shut down due to weather. This area is for the true adventure seekers! Highly recommend doing the iceberg lake trail if you are able to.

Unfortunately, we were only able to go to about the sign. We did walk a while on the road but that is all. I cannot emphasize enough how HUGE this park is. Just to get to the trailhead here we would have had to walk on the road for about 7 miles. The photo above was just a recon visit to see if it was open. It was just breath taking from a distance. Photo below is literally 12 hours later when we decided to walk some of it. What a difference!

As I have mentioned in my ranking post, we are extremely biased to this park due to it being the place we got engaged AND married at but there was still plenty for us to do even though the park was limited. As long as your expectations aren't focused on going to the sun road peak trails, you can have an incredible trip to this park year round. You just have to do a little extra driving and know where to look!