Glacier National Park

queenbea77

Hi, DH & I are going to GNP for a few days in August. We are staying outside the West entrance - any suggestions of where to hike & what to see? We have 1 or 2 partial days and 1 full day by ourselves and then we are spending 1 full day with another couple that lives in the area. I don't know what they have planned or if they are hikers so I'd like some ideas. I've read the road to the sun drive is a must.

Oh, should we take our hiking boots and poles or are sneakers good enough? We hiked the Grand Canyon a couple years ago so we do have boots, poles & backpacks but after GNP we are headed to Vegas for a few days and don't want to carry more than we really need to.

NorthCascades

The first time I went through Glacier National Park, it was so beautiful I wanted to cry. I felt like I'd just found the place I had spent all my life searching for.

How much hiking do you do currently? I'd leave my boots behind for sure. I only hike in boots when I expect a lot of snow, otherwise my shoes have been fine for me, even on multi-day hikes with a heavy pack. Remember, a pound on your foot is going to feel like ten on your back. You won't find snow in August, it will be very hot.

queenbea77

Currently we aren't hiking just walking a lot. My husband doesn't want to take his boots or hiking poles. I didn't know what kind of incline/decline we would encounter so I wanted to get advice. When we hike at the Grand Canyon I was shocked at the number of people hiking in sandals, of course I wouldn't do that. My husband's friend said to bring long pants & sleeves just in case we hit a cool spell.

queenbea77

An update to our GNP trip. We went mid August for 4 days and wish we had stayed longer, lol. We did take our hiking boots and poles. I didn't take our backpacks because we didn't really plan on doing a lot of long hikes. In hind sight we should have taken them. We had those drawstring pouches that we wore which worked but they weren't very comfortable. We hiked to Iceberg Lake and it was amazing! We saw a moose on the way there and on the hike back the rangers had us stop on the trail for about 20 minutes because there was a bear on the trail. When we got to the trail head they had closed it. We went to Many Glacier hotel and one of the trails over there was also closed because of bear activity. The couple we visited have been to Yellowstone and they were interested in us either coming back to GNP or going to Yellowstone next fall. Hopefully that will work out for us.