Almanac Travel: 24 photos from four days in West Glacier

 

Stop number three on our journey to Montreal was West Glacier National Park, a World Heritage-listed gem in Montana. It’s a big park, 150km x 50km and contains over 80 hikes. We narrowed it down to what we could do in a day as we don’t do the camping thing any more. We stayed in a room within a chalet that had a nice view.

 

 

 

 

We came across West Glacier purely by accident. It’s not as popular as some of the other parks in the US, maybe because it’s fairly isolated: approximately fifteen miles from the Canadian border. They reckon there’s about 2,000 people a day hiking the park which is nothing when you take in the scale of the place. It certainly felt uncluttered even during a school holiday period.

 

It’s a truly stunning park to hike, but you will need to hire a car as the bus services are very limited. Idiot me didn’t plan for this and we almost got stuck at the accomodation if it wasn’t for the kindness of two women Jen and Shawna who offered to sort out a hire car for us.

 

These are photos from a few of the hikes we covered.

 

Avalanche Lake:

 

 

High Line: The High Line is 18km long and rated in the top 5 of the best hikes in the US by most forums. One of the best things we’ve ever done. Exhausting and at times terrifying for someone like me who doesn’t like heights.

 

 

Swift Current Pass: For movie lovers you will recognise this as the opening scene of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. This spot is approximately 30km north of the park entry and getting closer to Canada. We were able to find a mother and baby moose eating lunch in a lake nearby before father moose spotted us and made it clear we weren’t welcome.

 

 

The US has a plethora of beautiful parks to visit, and this is no exception. There are bears present so you do get warnings to make plenty of noise whilst hiking in risky areas. Ironically I was so tired climbing the first 6km of the High Line, my noise efforts diminished to the point that I was hoping a bear would just take me!

 

 

 

 

It was an experience we will never forget and highly recommended. Next stop Minneapolis.

 

 

 

 

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