Mountains, Glaciers, and Alpine Slides: A Fun Glacier National Park Adventure

When you visit this place: "Cares will never again fall heavily on you, but gently and kindly as gifts from heaven." ~ John Muir

We've been wanting to visit Banff and Glacier National Park for some time now and this summer was the perfect opportunity as we were looking for a closer-to-home international trip and one that was a little on the "simpler" side. I was certainly wrong about this trip being "simple," and it ended up actually being quite complex and expensive, but it was so worth it!!

We flew from Sacramento to Calgary, drove to Banff, drove to Glacier National Park/Whitefish, Montana, drove back to Calgary, flew to Vancouver, then flew back home. I'm going to break this blog into 3 parts: Banff, Whitefish/Glacier, and Vancouver. Each was magical in its own way and deserves some special attention.

Day 1 in Glacier (Day 5 of our trip):

We drove from Banff and made it to Whitefish, Montana at about 1800. It was a beautiful drive.

We went to dinner in town at Craggy Range. We really liked this place, great ambiance, service, food and drinks and the kids loved the food!

Then to the hotel pool for a late night swim.

Initial thoughts on Whitefish: Such a cute town!! It actually is quite large and definitely a tourist destination because of Glacier and all the fun outdoor activities in this area, but despite all this, it didn’t feel too busy. This is definitely an outdoor adventurers paradise. Lots of mountain biking, whitewater rafting, boating, etc. So much to do in one town!!

Day 2 in Glacier (Day 6 of our trip):

We were miraculously able to get a reservation for 0900 this morning for Going-to-the-Sun Road at Glacier National Park. We made it into the park at about 0930, then headed on our trek.

Initial thoughts regarding Glacier: Such a beautiful park!! The mountains are absoutely stunning. It was chilly and I was thankful we had layers. Despite lots of traffic and narrow roads, it wasn't too bad finding our way around.

And thanks to the reservation system, it didn’t feel too crowded. Our first day was a little cooler with some rain, so we weren’t able to hike because of the rain, but our plan was to drive all of GTTS Road, so we were in the car most of the day. Admittedly boring for the kids, but Mike and I loved the scenery.

The ride is stunningly beautiful and a must-do in the park.  With all of our stops, it took us about 5-6 hours. Funny thing is that, because we’ve learned from other national park experiences, we entered the park with a full tank of gas and lots of food. We planned a great picnic lunch in just case, but we ended up having lunch at Lunch Creek which offered amazing views! One perk of this park is that it was actually so easy to find food and bathrooms! Yay for that!

My only disappointment was no wildlife this day. But the views were spectacular  nonetheless. The kids got to walk on a glacier and we saw so many beautiful waterfalls and wildflowers.

We did hike a little in the evening as we were leaving along the Trail of the Cedars.

After leaving the park we went to dinner back at Craggy Range because we liked it so much.

Then back to the hotel to swim.

Day 3 at Glacier (day 7 of our trip):

Today was all about the kids (for the most part). After 2 days of just sitting in the car, we wanted to have a fun outdoor day. So we went to Whitefish Mountain Resort, another must-visit destination!! What a fun place!!

We started with the chairlift to the peak. It offered amazing views all the way to the Canadian Rockies!!

We had lunch there at a great restaurant, bar and shop there. You can sit at the picnic benches outside for some amazing views, but the bugs were pretty aggressive so we sat inside. Then we checked out the views and headed back down to ride the Alpine Slide.

There are 2 slides: forest (slower and more “scenic”) and meadow (shorter and faster). We would recommend the meadow. The way it works is that there is a leaver you push down to move and if you release it, you come to an instant stop.

We learned the secret to going fast is while you push the leaver down you also pull the hook at the front of the sled. Camilla did that during her last run and she was flying!!! Everyone was commenting how fast she was going. A few warnings: There was a deer that jumped across the slide and some squirrels too that slowed people down and a few people fell out of their sleds which sucked. During my ride I definitely was a little fearful of falling out and may have slowed down a bit because of that. Some people, like Kendall, had a really hard time moving it even though they were pushing down the leaver. It caused some frustration and some rude people behind us to making comments… but still so fun, super worth it and I would highly recommend!!

Before we left we made a pit stop for some yummy huckleberry treats!

After we left the resort we headed back to town for dinner at Jersey Boys Pizzeria. Another delicious place off the beaten path (where the locals go!) and it was soooo good!!! Amazing food!!!

Then we changed into warmer clothes and headed back to the park to hike some of Avalanche Trail to try to see wildlife. Thankfully the sunset is so late that we were hiking until 2130 with no issues other than being spooked a few times. We were bummed that the only wildlife we saw were some ground squirrels and birds. It was a great hike nonetheless!! I was actually surprised by how many people were hiking so late and many were clapping and loud (so as to not scare a bear) so the chances of seeing wildlife were low.

We watched sunset at MacDonald Lake then headed back to the hotel at about 2200.

Day 4 at Glacier (Day 8 of our trip):

We started off with breakfast, a swim and packing. Then hit the road for calgary.

It was a stunningly beautiful drive!!! Canada is one of the most beautiful countries!! The mountains are massive, everything is so green, the water is beautiful blue, and the fields are full of yellow mustard. I just loved the 5 hour drive. We arrived to Calgary at about 1800.

We quickly checked into our hotel and then headed to dinner at Pacini - a favorite from Banff. We had a great dinner and then headed back to the hotel the swim.

Day 5 now in Calgary (Day 9 of our trip):

We woke up early for hotel breakfast and then left the hotel about 0830 to swing by Tim Hortons quickly and then headed to return our rental car and check in.

Everything went smoothly including our flight until the very end: we’re not sure what happened, but Kendall experienced extreme mouth pain and was freaking out on the flight. We were all terrified, even the flight attendants who almost called the paramedics. She finally calmed down and was fine when we got off the plane. Phew. That was terrifying though!

Our trip to Vancouver be continued in next post....