Throw a stone and you’ll hit a beautiful place to hike, bike, swim, or boat

Amy Whitely is a writer, mother of three, and the publisher of Pitstops for Kids, a review blog about family friendly road trips, roadside attractions, restaurants, parks, motels, and airport play spaces.

Glacier is a large park in a large state, which can be challenging to families with young kids. With planning, there’s no reason for its size to limit how much you’ll see, but depending on where you stay, it may determine the order in which you see it.

The two main entrances to the park, West Glacier on the west and St. Mary on the east, are connected by the beautiful but slow-moving Going to the Sun Road. If you plan to stay at least several days in the area, consider entering the park on the opposite side of your accommodations. While this seems counter-productive, it will in fact allow you to visit first the side of the park you’ll be furthest from for the duration of your trip and avoid back-tracking. Given the length (50 miles) and intensity (steep and winding and not without its share of traffic closures) of the Going to the Sun Road, you may not want to navigate the length of the park with kids in the car too many times!

What not to miss

You could throw a stone anywhere in Glacier National Park (not that you would, of course!) and hit a beautiful place in which to hike, bike, swim, or boat. The following, however, made our kids’ top activities list.

1.  Going to the Sun Road:  As stated above, driving the Going to the Sun Road makes for a great overview of the park and affords such breathtaking scenery and sights (such as Weeping Wall and Triple Arches, just to name two), even your toddler won’t mind being in the car (for a while).

Plan on spending at least two hours navigating this narrow mountain pass (allowing for stops at the scenic outlooks). Keep on the lookout for wildlife: we saw a bear cub, mountain goats, and deer!

2.  Logan Pass: If your kids will get a kick out of seeing snow in the summer, hike from Logan Pass to Hidden Lake. If the 1.5 one-way trail is too strenuous (hiking in snow can be tough!), your kids will still have a blast climbing a few feet up and ‘sledding’ back down!

3.  Boat Cruise: When little feet get tired, try a Swiftcurrent or McDonald Lake Boat Cruise. Some are combined with ranger-led nature walks; we boated across both Swiftcurrent and Josephine Lakes on the east side of the park, then hiked with our guide across wooden bridges and boardwalks to Grinnell Lake, where we spotted moose munching on lake reeds.

What we skipped

1.  Red Bus Tour: You can’t drive far in Glacier without encountering one of the park’s famed historic Red Bus Tours. After speaking with several operators about the length of the tours (shortest offered during our stay was four hours) and noting the median age of bus tour enthusiasts (60+), we decided that this activity, while informative, was probably not the best use of our sightseeing time with kids.

2.  West Glacier: We didn’t linger at this western entrance. While it does offer a visitor’s center, we found the St. Mary Visitor’s Center on the east side to be less crowded and just as comprehensive (perhaps more so now with its newly opened exhibit on Native American history).

Where to stay

If you want to wake up with nothing obstructing your view except granite peaks and crystal clear lake water, stay at the Many Glacier Hotel on the east side of the park. Away from the high traffic West Glacier and Lake McDonald area, The Many Glacier sits practically in the lap of Swiftcurrent Lake and offers families a relaxed atmosphere perfect for canoeing expeditions, hiking, boating, or just sitting on the deck with an ice cream cone.

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August 12th, 2010 | by Amy Whitley 2 comments