I visited Glacier national park in August of 2023. While I have been to a significant chunk of national parks in the US, Glacier easily takes one of the top spots due to its amazing scenery and outstanding hiking opportunities. However, you have to really plan ahead in order to fully enjoy the park.

The NPS has implemented a reservation system for vehicles in order to control the amount of visitors coming into the park. While that keeps the park from completely falling apart at the seams every summer, it is also frustrating to deal with. Last year, they expanded the system to not only include Going to the Sun Road, but other areas of the park like Many Glacier. They release the vehicle tickets 3 months before, but just like concert tickets, you have to be ready to get them as soon as they release. You can circumvent this by staying inside the park, which is what we did. We had to reserve our hotel almost a year in advance, but at that point we were desperate to get in. 

You can also get up extremely early to get past the road checkpoints before they are manned, but be warned that many other people have the exact same idea. We got up at 4am to drive to the trailhead for Grinnell Glacier, and the parking lot was full before the sun had a chance to rise! 

This leads me to another point, which is that the traditional advice of going on a hike early to avoid the crowds at national parks does not work in parks like Glacier. Unlike yellowstone or the smokies, Glacier attracts tons of hikers due to its reputation as a "hiker's park". You will be sharing the trails with many people, even at 5am. However, this is to be expected because the hiking here is incredible. 

The Highline trail and the Grinnell Glacier trail are both highlights of the park. The Highline trail is amazing and you feel as if you are floating above the valley below, especially if you start early in the morning. The trail was shrouded in fog for the first mile or so and it made for wonderful pictures when it started peeling away. The Grinnell Glacier trail was also amazing. As you continue up the incline, you get better and better views of the glacial lakes below. When you get to the top, you can get up close and personal with the glacier. Cracker lake was also a nice hike and relatively devoid of people when we went! 

We also visited the Canadian side as well but most of the attractions are located on the US side (sorry Canada). Although the Canadian visitor center bathrooms were miles ahead of the American bathrooms, they even had a sound machine playing birdsong and animal sounds. 

I also noticed that the park did a good job of integrating Native American history into the visitor experience. They had Native people from the Blackfoot tribe giving cultural presentations throughout the week, and they had an exhibit about how the government conned the Blackfeet and other tribes out the land that would eventually become Glacier. 

This is an amazing park and if you want to visit, just make sure you plan ahead.