Admin’s Trip Reports

Amazing hike back to Grinnell Glacier for the first time in 9 years (for me). This hike is one of my favorite hikes in the US and for good reason -- you generally get views the entire way and it leads up to the ancient, but shrinking, Grinnell Glacier with views of Salamander and Gem glaciers that sit in the hanging valleys above Upper Grinnell Lake. We started this hike around 6:30AM after driving out from West Glacier with a 4AM rise-time. Since the Many Glacier Hotel officially closed for the season on this day, the parking lot was still very full from visitors staying at the hotel the night before. Additionally, the construction nearby (Sept 2024 thru May 2026) caused the parking lot to fill-up and overflow super fast that morning. We hiked out via the Swiftcurrent Lake Trail to reach the North Shore Lake Josephine Trail and then hiked up to Grinnell via the Grinnell Glacier Trail. On the way back, we hiked around Lake Josephine to return back to the trailhead. At Grinnell, we did not hike out to the glacier's edge as I did in the previous hike in 2015, but rather enjoyed the scenery from nearby. Grinnell appears to have calved off since I last visited and the before/after pictures clearly show that the glacier is in fact shrinking. The hike up was awesome -- we had the trail to "ourselves" with just a handful of other hikers heading to Grinnell. The hike down was annoying at times -- we passed hundreds of hikers within the 6 miles out and many of them did not care to pause or move over during skinny trail sections -- please do not be those people. The crowds of hikers was a different experience from my secluded hike here on Sept 30, 2015 when we saw less than 20 other hikers the entire time. Despite the lack of seclusion, this hike is still one of my top favorites.