Glacier National Park

Glacier National Park covers 1,012,837 acres of the Rocky Mountains in northwest Montana, on the border with Canada. It was established on 11 May 1910 as the tenth national park. Since 1932 it has formed the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park with Canada's Waterton Lakes. In 2025 it had 3,136,557 recreation visits, the tenth most of any national park. Of them, 83% came between June and September.

The park is one long road, Going-to-the-Sun, with separate valleys reached from outside it. We checked every figure below on 26 October 2026 on the park's own pages, its alerts, the lodge operators' sites and NOAA's normals.

Do you need a reservation to drive into Glacier?

In 2026 Glacier required no vehicle reservations anywhere, after piloting them every summer from 2021 to 2025. The park can still turn cars away at an entrance when an area is too crowded. People with a lodge, campground, boat or backcountry booking get in.

In their place the park ran a summer pilot at Logan Pass, which has 235 parking spaces and usually fills by sunrise. From 1 July to 7 September 2026, the park limited parking there to three hours, with a free timed permit from a kiosk. The Logan Pass shuttle needed a $1 ticket from Recreation.gov for everyone over two. It stopped only at The Loop and Logan Pass, from Apgar, Lake McDonald Lodge, St. Mary and Rising Sun.

The three-hour limit and the ticketed shuttle both ended on 7 September, and Logan Pass parking has had no time limit since. The park had not published its plan for 2027 by 26 October 2026.

What does a car pay at the gate, and when is it cheaper?

Glacier charges $35 per car for seven days in summer and $25 from 1 November to 30 April. A motorcycle pays $30 and a person on foot or bicycle $20, with lower winter rates for both. Children under 16 enter free.

The park is among the eleven with a $100 surcharge in 2026 for every non-resident aged 16 or over. Two adults from abroad in one car pay $235 in summer and $225 from November.

The $250 non-resident America the Beautiful pass covers the car and the surcharge, here and at every other national park for a year. The park takes no cash. When an entrance station is unstaffed, a self-service point sells the seven-day pass. Our guide to national park fees for international visitors explains how to buy it in advance.

When is Going-to-the-Sun Road open?

Going-to-the-Sun Road crosses the park for 50 miles, from West Glacier to St. Mary, over the Continental Divide at Logan Pass, 6,646 feet up. The drive takes about two hours without stops, and there is no fuel anywhere in the park.

The lower sections at each end are open all year. The alpine section usually opens fully by early July and stays open until the third Monday of October, 19 October in 2026. In 2026 the whole road opened on 22 June and closed twice for floods and rain in summer. It closed again from 9 October for snow and wind.

On 26 October 2026 the park's alert said the road was closed between Avalanche and Logan Pass, with the east side open from St. Mary to Logan Pass. The alert last changed on 2 November lists the road as closed for the season at Avalanche Creek on the west side and Jackson Glacier Overlook on the east. The Logan Pass Visitor Center closed for the season after 27 September.

The park bans vehicles over 21 feet long, bumpers included, or 8 feet wide, mirrors included, between Avalanche Creek and Rising Sun. Anything over 10 feet tall may struggle under the rock overhangs west of Logan Pass. The speed limit is 25 mph in the alpine section.

Which valleys lie off Going-to-the-Sun Road?

Several of Glacier's best areas are reached by separate roads from outside the park, not from Going-to-the-Sun. Each is a drive of an hour or more from the next.

• Lake McDonald and Apgar: the largest lake, 9.4 miles long and 464 feet deep, at the west end of the road. Apgar village has the visitor centre, boat and bike hire and the largest campground.
• Many Glacier: four valleys meeting at Swiftcurrent Lake, through a separate entrance west of Babb, with the Many Glacier Hotel and the trailheads for Grinnell Glacier and Iceberg Lake. A flood closed the valley on 29 June 2026 and evacuated the hotel, which reopened on 1 July. Its road usually closes on the third weekend of November.
• St. Mary and Rising Sun: the east end of the road, where the mountains meet the prairie, and the view of Wild Goose Island on St. Mary Lake.
• Two Medicine: a high lake near East Glacier Park. Its road has stayed shut at Highway 49 since September 2026 for rebuilding, due to finish in late 2027, and its campground stayed shut for all of 2026.
• North Fork and Polebridge: rough single-lane gravel to Bowman and Kintla Lakes, with no phone signal and no vehicles over 21 feet.

Which day hikes, from Trail of the Cedars to the Highline, are worth the climb?

The classic day hikes in Glacier start at Logan Pass, near Lake McDonald and in the Many Glacier valley. Most climb to a lake or a viewpoint. The distances below are the Park Service's, one way.

The Highline and Grinnell Glacier trails often stay closed for snow well into summer. The Park Service says Grinnell Glacier is not fully reachable until mid to late July. Water, not bears, is the leading cause of death in the park, so keep back from fast streams and wet rock.

How many named glaciers are left of the 80 counted in 1850?

Glacier National Park had about 80 glaciers around 1850. In 2015, 26 named glaciers were still larger than 0.1 square kilometres, about 25 acres, which is the size scientists use to count one. That was nine fewer than in 1966, and the Park Service says some of the 26 may already be too small.

All the park's named glaciers shrank between 1966 and 2015, some by more than 80%. The park has warmed at about twice the global rate. Jackson Glacier Overlook, on the east side of Going-to-the-Sun Road, is the best place to see one from a car. Grinnell Glacier, at the end of the trail from Many Glacier, is the one most hikers walk to.

When do Lake McDonald Lodge and the other park lodges open?

The lodges inside Glacier National Park open only from May to early October, and none were open on 26 October 2026. The 2026 seasons, from the operators' own pages:

For 2027, Lake McDonald Lodge lists 14 May to 30 September and Many Glacier Hotel 3 June to 20 September. The park has 13 campgrounds; eight take bookings on Recreation.gov, most sites six months ahead.

The historic Red Buses, open-topped 1930s coaches seating 16, run tours of the road in summer. In 2026 the three- to four-hour Western Alpine tour cost $90 an adult from West Glacier. The full-day Crown of the Continent tour cost $136, lunch not included.

How close may you get to a bear, and which spray does Canada accept?

Glacier prohibits coming within 100 yards of a bear or a wolf, and within 25 yards of any other animal. Nearly a thousand grizzly and black bears live in the park. The Park Service advises carrying bear spray within reach and says bear bells are not enough. It has no record of an attack on a group of four or more.

In 2026 a hiker was found dead off the Mt. Brown Trail in May, with injuries consistent with a surprise bear encounter. A grizzly charged and injured a hiker on the Grinnell Glacier Trail on 28 May. The park closed both trails, and we found no later release saying when the Grinnell Glacier Trail reopened. Canada admits bear spray only with USEPA printed on the canister.

When is Glacier warm enough to hike?

The high trails in Glacier are at their best from late July, when the Park Service says the high passes are typically snow free, to mid-September. The table gives NOAA's 1991 to 2020 normals for West Glacier, at 3,148 feet; Logan Pass is 10 to 15°F colder.

West Glacier averages 115 inches of snow a year, and snow can fall up high in any month. Wildfires are common every summer, and smoke can hide the views. In mid-October the western larches turn yellow, best seen along US-2 on the park's southern edge.

Can you cross into Waterton from Glacier?

Glacier connects to Canada's Waterton Lakes National Park, about 50 miles and an hour from St. Mary plus the border stop. A passport is needed for every border crossing.

The Chief Mountain crossing on the way is open only in summer: in 2026 it ran from 15 May to 30 September, from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. in high summer. The Park Service names two other crossings nearby: Piegan–Carway on US-89 north of Babb, and Roosville on US-93 north of Eureka. Boats also run down Waterton Lake from the Canadian town to Goat Haunt, inside the park; going beyond Goat Haunt needs a passport.

How do you get to Glacier?

Glacier Park International Airport, near Kalispell, is the closest, about 25 to 30 miles from the West Entrance. It has nonstop flights from cities including Denver, Seattle, Salt Lake City and Minneapolis. Amtrak's Empire Builder, from Chicago to Seattle and Portland, stops at West Glacier all year and at East Glacier Park in summer.

The figures for St. Mary and Many Glacier are the park's own; the rest are our own routing. The park is on Mountain Time. It is one of the stops in our guide to Montana, at the opposite end of the state from Yellowstone National Park.