Grinnell Glacier Hike – Glacier National Park Montana

If you can only do one hike in Glacier National Park, Grinnell Glacier is the hike I’d suggest you do. It has everything that encompasses a trip to Glacier National Park – stunning mountain views, shimmering blue lakes, wildlife (we saw moose and bighorn sheep during our hike!), and of course, a glacier. This is what Glacier National Park is all about! In this guide to hiking Grinnell Glacier, I’ll give you the low-down on what the trail is like, what your options are for hiking this (boat shuttle or not?) and what you’ll encounter along the way.

Let’s get started!

Grinnell Glacier Hike Details:

Type: Out and Back
Length: 11.2 miles round trip (full hike from trailhead parking lot) or you can cut ~7 miles from the hike by taking the two boat shuttles across two lakes.
Elevation gain: 2,181 feet
Best time to hike: Mid-July to early September. Often the trail isn’t fully open until mid-July due to snow.
Gear needed: Proper hiking attire & footwear, snacks, water and bear spray. You MUST have bear spray!

Grinnell Glacier Trailhead Location:

Grinnell Glacier is located in the Many Glacier area of the park. When you plan a trip to Glacier National Park, it’s important to decide what you want to do within the park, so you know where to book your accommodations. For instance, many park visitors stay on the west side of Glacier National Park, either inside the park or in West Glacier, Montana, or even Kalispell or Whitefish. If you want to hike Grinnell Glacier, you have a 3 hour(!) drive to get to this trailhead! If you want to do any hiking in Many Glacier, I strongly suggest staying on the east side of Glacier National Park or in Many Glacier itself. For our hike, we stayed at the East Glacier KOA in St. Mary Montana.

The Many Glacier area is home to Glacier National Park’s best hikes! If you’re a hiker, stay on the east side of the park to complete these iconic hikes!

The parking lot at the trailhead is a decent size, but it fills very quickly. We arrived at about 6:20am and about half the spots were already filled. I suggest getting here before 7am to ensure you get a spot. You can park along the road but that, too, gets filled up quickly. Additionally, if you come to the Many Glacier too late in the morning or early afternoon, you may get turned away by a park ranger if there is no parking in the area available. This happens frequently during the summer so be an early bird if you want to hike here!

Hiking Options for Grinnell Glacier

You have two options for the Grinnell Glacier hike – you can hike the entire trail from the trailhead to the glacier for a total of 11.2 miles round trip. Or you can take two boat shuttles across Swiftcurrent Lake and Lake Josephine to shave off 7.2 miles (round trip) off your hike. If you’re interested in booking a boat ride, here is the concessionaire who operates these shuttles. Reservations are recommended and cost $35.25 round trip for one adult. One-way tickets are also available.

We did the full hike. The boat doesn’t start operating until until 8:30am. We like getting an early start – especially so that we are not hiking in the afternoon heat) so we skipped the shuttles to beat the crowds and get a head start on the trail — and we like exercise and physical challenges so the idea of hiking over 11 miles was appealing to us!

Hiking Grinnell Glacier – Trailhead to Lake Josephine

Our hike started out very quiet and relaxing – we were the only ones on the trail for several miles! It was almost too quiet and we were wondering where all the people were! It kind of spooked me – I was worried about bears around every bend.

This first section of the hike is what you’ll miss out on if you take the shuttle. And frankly, you’re not missing out on anything, as the best scenery starts where the shuttle drops you off. These first few miles are very flat and you’ll be able to knock them out quickly. You’ll pass two lakes – Swiftcurrent Lake and then Lake Josephine.

When we got to Lake Josephine, this is where we saw a moose swimming across the lake! We were pretty far away from her – I took out my zoom lens but it still wasn’t enough to get a good shot. This was the best I could do:

Grinnell Glacier Trail – Lake Josephine to Grinnell Glacier

This is where the trail meets up with the shuttle boat dock – and the real fun begins! As you climb higher and higher, the scenery just gets more beautiful. You’ll be stopping every few steps to get more pictures – it’s that amazing!

You’ll get the famous view of Grinnell Lake, which is absolutely gorgeous. I can’t stress enough how the scenery here is out-of-this-world beautiful. Unfortunately, due to the haze and heavy smoke in the air, my pictures look, well, not so great. All the more reason to come back another time and do this hike again!

The one sketchy part of the trail was hiking through the waterfall. It was actually much easier than it initially looked. The trail is wide and I never felt scared as I climbed up the steps. In fact, it was more fun than it was scary – and it felt refreshing! A few days before this, I had hiked Sky Pond in Rocky Mountain National Park, and on that trail, you actually climb straight up a waterfall, so this was nothing compared to that!

We saw lots of mountain goats and bighorn sheep along this part of the trail – they were all off in the distance, hanging out on a ridge or a cliff. I did lug my giant 100-400mm zoom lens with me, and I was able to get some decent shots (but man, my backpack weighed a ton!).

The last part of the trail is by far the most difficult. It’s a steep climb across boulder moraine – you’re climbing up large rock steps and it is tough! I consider myself to be in great shape but I was dragging at this point – every uphill step was a struggle – especially with the smoke in the air. I didn’t get any photos of this section of the hike because it took all my energy climbing up those big rocky steps.

And then, we finally reached the end of the trail with the view of Grinnell Glacier and Upper Grinnell Lake. This is an amazing spot for a picnic as there is a ton of space and room along the flat rocks near the shoreline. You can continue hiking all the way to the glacier if you want but there is no official trail, and park officials warn against hiking on the glacier itself as it is very dangerous.

When you’re done enjoying the view or your lunch, head back the way you came – either to the boat dock or to the parking. And I’ll be honest, by this time, I was wishing we had boat shuttle tickets. This was definitely a challenging hike! But it goes much faster going down, as you are hiking downhill and likely aren’t stopping so much to take pictures. The only thing that slowed us down were the massive crowds on their way up to Grinnell Glacier after being dropped off from the boat shuttle. Uphill hikers have the right-of-way, so we were constantly stepping off the trail to let the uphill hikers pass (the trail is very narrow in many spots).

Final Thoughts on the Grinnell Glacier Hike in Glacier National Park Montana

This is definitely one of the best hikes I’ve ever done and I highly recommend it to anyone if you’re up to the challenge.

Pros:

• One of the most beautiful hikes I’ve ever done
• It’s a great workout!
• The boat shuttle will shave a lot of the hike off for you
• You will see wildlife!

Cons:

• Boat shuttles can cause traffic jams on the trail after a large group of hikers are dropped off
• Grinnell Glacier trail has frequent closures due to either snow or bear activity.
• Boat shuttle tickets are (IMO) pricey – we would’ve paid nearly $80 for the two of us to do this. I’d rather get the exercise.
• Parking at the trailhead is tricky if you get here too late
• Smoke and wildfire season is definitely a thing in this area – especially in August! It will affect your views and your lungs, making the hike even more difficult.

Have you hiked to Grinnell Glacier before? What did you think? Or are you planning on hiking it this summer? Let me know in the comments!