Glacier Park. Which Season?

[Scott Peterson]

If you could trek the trails of Glacier National Park only once in your life, which month of the year would you choose? I guess it would be only a four potential answer question for me: July, August, Sept., or late Sept.

I would not be surprised to find some hearty soul offering a January answer here, but having spent a little time on the plains of Montana during the winter, I cannot contemplate living in that kind of cold at elevation.

[Jim Colten]

I haven’t been there but a coworker who takes all his annual vacation in Glacier’s backcountry (every year) leaves home (MN) on Labor Day and returns during the last week of September. His main objective is observing wildlife, especially bears.

[Scott Peterson]

Wow! That is quite a vacation! Must be a teacher?

I suppose you can’t go wrong with when to go. I was just hoping for a little insider knowledge if there were certain times to avoid…as a result of something that is not in the typical books on the subject.

[Jumble Jowls]

Jumble Jowls went to Glacier NP in late November a couple years ago, and loved it. It was chilly to cold (got down to 8 degrees one morning), good hiking weather. On one of my hikes it snowed. Very beautiful.

Also I didn’t have the bear worries that I would have had in September, when the bears are reportedly very edgy and more prone to attack. Although, some of the locals told me that many of the male bears were still out and foraging because the huckleberry crop had failed that year. Made for an interesting hike down from a mountain in the dark one evening … used my vocal cords quite often to let old grizz know I was around.

[Author]

Posts