Our first stop once leaving Canada was Montana. I’ve been fortunate enough to visit most National Parks in the west at least once… but not Glacier. It was very nice to strike that park off my list.

We spent our time at the Many Glacier Hotel, on the east side of the park, which is a part of the Historic Hotels of America. Normally that means it’s old, lacks basic services, and relies on way too many fireplaces. But, not so much with this hotel. It’s been updated beautifully, was very comfortable, and most importantly, had a killer view of Swiftcurrent Lake and Grinnel Point.

From the east side, we were able to do a ton of hiking. We took a guided hike to a waterfall with one of the park rangers, where learned how Aspen groves are all one connected organism under the soil and how best to avoid bears. Luckily, we managed to see a number of bear, including a baby grizzly. We also ran into some moose and some very friendly ground squirrels.

The most remarkable part of this visit was the weather. Our first day in the park, it decided to snow on us. And the following five days, Mother Nature couldn’t decide if she wanted to keep it in the mid 30’s, or upper 70’s. Snowing or raining. Sunny and/or incredibly windy. So we wore a lot of layers and just made the best of it. From a photographer’s perspective, however, I’ll take the moody weather anytime. Makes for far more interesting photos.

A sad part of the visit was learning how most of the glaciers we were looking at will most likely be gone in the next 10 years due to climate change. There were 150 glaciers in the 1850s, but there are only 25 glaciers left today, and they are shrinking quickly. One of the very cool things though was just how many calls to action the park and hotel were taking to try and be good stewards of the park and environment. Even the wine list the restaurant had was filled with vineyards that took an eco-friendly approach, and some planted trees for every bottle purchased… we justified most of our alcoholic purchases with this knowledge in mind.

Five days in the park is definitely not long enough. We made a quick visit to the west side of the park which is more lush and forest’y, kind of like Oregon. Thats also where Lake McDonald is, so it was necessary to pay a visit.

Glacier is an amazing park. Montana is a beautiful state. This will certainly be on my next list of places I’ll need to visit again soon.