Where to fly to visit glacier national park
Watch before visiting Glacier National Park | 2020 updates
okay in this video gonna go over Glacier
National Park some things to know before
you visit there this here is a map of
Glacier National Park Glacier is located
in the very top part of the state of
Montana in fact you can even see here
this border is the Canadian border and
in fact part of the park really is kind
of an extension into Canada so if you
want to go over to the Canadian side
they call that Waterton Lakes National
Park you would need a passport to get
over there but when I went I didn't have
the time to go to the Canadian side so
I'm just going to talk about the
American side of Glacier National Park
here John Muir said that you could spend
a summer exploring Glacier National
Park's that you should spend a summer
exploring it
of course John Muir spent just about all
this time in the outdoors and was kind
of crazy enough to fight grizzly bears
and things like that so he was an
extremist but certainly you could spend
a long time exploring Glacier National
Park all the nooks and crannies all the
hikes all the lakes it looks like an
amazing place most people though will
not spend that long a lot of people will
just spend a day at Glacier and drive
this road right here right through the
middle of the park this is called the
going-to-the-sun road and it goes up to
this peak right here to get as ascends
up to that peak and then descends down
on the other side there so and then
another maybe the second most popular
road into the park is this many glacier
area right here and of course there's
roads all over the place you can go on
this inside North Fork Road
there's there's spots here these lakes
that you can come in and camp at
like right here right here so these are
a little off the beaten path of course
most people not gonna get to those and
we didn't get to him again we only had a
day in the park so I just want to share
a few things I know about the park I've
no glacier expert but maybe it can help
you plan your trip a little bit from
just average joe's perspective that
going-to-the-sun road is only open from
about mid-july to about mid-october the
opening and closing dates change every
year based on the weather but there's so
much snow up there it takes them about
two and a half months just to plow the
road clear so that people can go there
I'm doing this video in 2020 effect it's
July 11th and that road is scheduled to
open in two days July 13th it's a very
short season glacier and so for that
reason it's packed the National Park is
packed and this year in 2020 it's made a
little more difficult because the east
entrance over here as you can see is in
the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and the
Blackfeet tribe has decided due to
coronavirus that they are not letting
anybody onto the reservation meaning
they're not going to let anybody enter
Glacier National Park from the east side
so there's only one entrance now to
Glacier National Park which is west side
Apgar Apgar village park is really
struggling with how to handle this
they're thinking about doing a ticketing
system where you're going to have to get
reservations ahead of time in order to
get into the park so something the
National Park System has been really
dealing with from for many years anyway
in many of the popular national parks
like Zion and arches places where they
are narrower places like a lot of these
national parks have basically just one
main road kind of like Glacier does and
so they're really kind of struggling
with being overwhelmed by the number of
visitors that they have so let me just
go over a few things that we did when we
went there let me zoom in on this here
we came into the park and we stopped
right there at Apgar village right at
the very tip of Lake McDonald and you
know we travel with kids at the time we
had three kids and so it's hard to be a
hardcore hiker when you have three
little kids so we try to vary up our
activities that we do on these vacations
when we have kids and so you know to
keep it interesting for him so we're not
just hiking them to death and so here at
Lake McDonald we rented boat kind of
cruised around on the lake for a little
ways I think we came over here to Fish
Creek and hung out for a little bit and
threw some rocks and stuff it was a
really enjoyable activity I think
probably a lot of people don't do that
they just didn't hurry to get up to the
go into the Sun Road but that was really
enjoyable for us and then we now keep in
mind too you know we stayed at Kalispell
that night which is down here
Kalispell you know as close to the entry
but it still is about 45 minutes away so
it takes you a little bit of time just
to get to the park from Kalispell which
is I think the most popular place to
stay as a jumping-off point so it takes
you a little bit of time to get to the
park you know and then we did the boat
ride and then you know we started up on
this going to the Sun Road now you know
you're going through a valley here and
you're you know ascending up the
mountain there oh by the way we stopped
at the trail of the Cedars Nature Trail
this was kind of a short little hiked up
in up into the up into the mountains
there again you know when we travel with
little kids we have to kind of do some
shorter hikes that they're able to do so
that was a very nice little trail you
kind of got to go through some rivers
and climb on logs and throw some rocks
around do get a I've got boys they love
to throw rocks so that little trail of
the Cedars nature travel is a nice nice
little stop anyway then we went up the
road here and you kind of come through
the valley and you turn here
and then this called the loop here
you'll turn back up now this is the
highlight right here this is the very
most famous part of the road that going
to the Sun Road when you're heading up
to the Logan Pass visitor center which
is right at the very top of the mountain
because right here from the bottom of
the loop you can see kind of all the way
up to the top it's just an amazing the
most beautiful view you'll ever see my
wife says Glacier National Park was is
the most beautiful place she's been in
her whole life
and we love the national parks we've
been to all these places around the
Rocky Mountains glacier was stunning as
you're driving uphill
you'll drive past this weeping wall
which is just kind of a waterfall going
down and then you'll get to this Logan
Pass visitor center right here at the
top that is you'll just that's just kind
of a nice little stop and you can walk
out I mean it has this Hidden Lake
nature trail that goes out to Hidden
Lake he couldn't walk all the way up
there although when we were there we had
we were there in July so the road had
just opened which meant there's still a
lot of snow around and we did hike out
on that little Hidden Lake Nature Trail
but I don't think we're able to go all
the way to Hidden Lake because of the
snow it was still the trouble still
mostly covered in snow that area though
really cool because you can see mountain
goats there we saw a little Marmot
there's some cool little just wildlife
that you'll see that we haven't seen in
other places tell us the enormous impact
of this mix between mountain goat and
Iran well honestly three mountain goats
but one of
kind of ugly so your economy Haiti we
really really enjoyed it up on top a
very wonderful little very nice little
stop there and then we kept going down
the road all the way here to st. mary
lake at the bottom and again you can see
all these these little hiking trails
going off of this road you could stop
and explore I mean you could explore so
much they're glacier it's just it's just
crazy but the thing is you know if
you're staying at Kalispell for example
like you have to get all the way over
and then all the way back in one day and
you know we were able to do a boat ride
and basically two hikes and then we you
know of course when we got to st. mary
lake we just turned around and then
drove back on that going-to-the-sun road
all the way back so we were able to do a
boat ride two hikes and the drive and
that took a full day by the time we were
done and had left the park
you know we stopped just outside there
for dinner and there's a lot of
huckleberries that are grown around in
that area so you can get huckleberry pie
and just fresh huckleberries to eat just
about any little stand right around
there so we did that and it was it was
fantastic but that took a full day and
you know so if you were going to plan to
try to do other parts of the park of
course you know we could have spent a
second day kind of exploring some of
this area up in here but we didn't have
the time to do that if you're going to
go over to the canadian side maybe in 20
20 perhaps you need to go up here I'm
not quite sure about that
normally I guess you could go out this
side of the park and up that way but I
don't believe you can do that right now
in effect I'm not really sure I think
many glacier in 2020 I think many
glacier is pretty much closed because of
corona and I think they're doing
construction on that and I think it
might be closed
through much of 2021 as well so check on
that before you go but anyway that's
just kind of a little overview of
Glacier National Park definitely worth
it I would probably recommend you know I
wish we had done two days at Glacier at
least so I would definitely recommend
two days although I'm glad that we went
on the boat ride and and the hikes and
all that I would recommend a little more
time exploring some other places in the
park and there you go hope hope that
helps you understand Glacier just a
little bit it's really a fairly simple
park like a lot of the national parks
it's pretty much just one road out and
back is the main highlight and I
definitely recommend going to Glacier if
you can make it you should make it at
least once in your life okay if this
video was at all helpful for you or
instructive please consider subscribing
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suggestions for what to do at Glacier or
any suggestions for any other videos
please let me know in the comments
thanks
