I have to disagree with many other reviewers, don't take the boat. You'll miss some great views and wildlife viewing opportunities, and the part you cut off is a flat and easy hike. Good warm up and beautiful! Plus, getting on a boat with a crowd changes the whole feel. Anyways, like everyone else said, it's a beautiful hike. Mid October we got to see the radiant yellow orange colors of the cottonwoods, tamaracks and aspens. Not many opportunities to see a glacier like this, and this one won't last too much longer!
Two in our group hiked up to the Glacier (boat for part highly recommended!) and the other hiked to Grinnel Lake. The best wildlife and scenery we saw on the whole trip. A bit more work to get there (especially if not staying at Many Glacier Lodge) but worth every bit of effort.
Grinnell Glacier is a small glacier that can be seen from two vantage points in Glacier National Park. The best one is from the Highland Trail which is about 7 1/2 miles to Granite Park Chalet. Just before the chalet there is a steep trail to your right that goes up to an overlook looking down to Grinnell Glacier. You can only look, there is no trail down to the glacier, unless you are a mountain goat. The other viewpoint will require a boat ride on Lake Josephine, which by the way should be done by every visitor to Glacier National Park (fee for boat-ride). Anyway, as the boat heads up the lake you will have a view of Grinnell Glacier, however, a binocular is helpful. This boat ride takes off from the dock at Many Glacier Lodge and is quite beautiful and gives a great view of Mount Grinnell.
Many Glacier is the park's best location to enjoy day hiking. My favorite hike in the area is the Grinnell Glacier. It provides breathtaking views (looking down Grinnell valley towards Many Glacier), some good grunt work and a tremendous lake at the finish (you'll be enjoy that view from above).The hike starts along Swiftcurrent Lake, then travels along Lake Josephine before you get to the steepest part of the climb which overlooks Grinnell Lake. See photos below.Start early am when it's cool. The hike up is 10x more enjoyable if you avoid the midday sun while climbing.
Amazing views for almost the entire trail. We hiked in mid-September at the peak of the fall color and it was spectacular. Even if you don't go all the way to the glacier, there are wonderful views at Grinell Lake. We were worried about bears, and took the Ranger-led hike to ensure we were with people, and saw no bears, but lots of other wildlife. We would do this hike again !
Historical photos make this hike as sad as it is beautiful. Well worth the hike and one I strongly encourage you to take.
Words cannot describe how beautiful this place is. A relatively short hike filled with amazing panoramic views of mountains, lakes and water falls. When you get to the glacier itself you will be in an awe of the beauty. It almost feels as if you're looking at a massive photoshopped canvas. To get there from the main part of the park you will have to drive towards the east entrance of Glacier, exit the park, then drive north and reenter the park and drive west towards the parking lot where the trail begins.
Definitely recommend the ranger-led hike, where you take the boat over the 2 lakes to skip the extra 4 miles walking. While we're experienced travelers & in reasonable shape for late 50's (!), we're not frequent hikers or "bear savvy" , so we almost certainly wouldn't have done the Grinnell hike on our own. The interpretative ranger Kaylin (sp?) was excellent & we had an incredible day - it was one of the high-lites of our 2+ week trip!
I recommend taking the boat from Many Glacier hotel which takes off 3.4 miles from the otherwise 12 miles long hike. If you go in the summer buy tickets in advance (we bought them online 2 months ahead). When you get off the boat you will go through deep forest which is excellent bear habitat so make noise and carry bear spray. After that the trail will go uphill on the mountain, at times it will flatten out a bit and the last bit, just before you see the glacier is very steep. You will have to go through a small waterfall,be careful there as it can be slippery.Watch out for bighorn sheep, we saw lots of them. It's heartbreaking to see how the glacier is melting away. Go see it before it disappears.It took us 4 hours to complete the hike, but we were going back down really fast as we wanted to make the next boat. When we got to the boat, some people told us they saw us running down the mountain and asked if we saw the grizzly bear not far from us. (???) We had no idea there was a bear!! I guess it wasn't smart from us to run down the mountain as it's discouraged to run in bear country. Anyway, my point is that these people on the boat saw us running and they thought we were running from the bear, when we didn't even know there was a bear. Anyway, this is a must do hike when visiting Glacier national park..
My husband and I took the ranger led hike to Grinnell Glacier. After spending the two previous days hiking, we figured the boat ride portions would give our legs a little break. The ranger and naturalist who led the hike did a good job explaining the surroundings. In our opinion the group was a bit large for a 7.8 mile hike with 1600 feet of elevation gain, as it seemed we were always waiting for people to catch up. Unlike other trails which lead to some spectacular viewpoint, the trail itself yielded beautiful views the whole way up. The Grinnell Glacier itself was largely snow-covered in July, but it was interesting (in a sad way) to see comparison photos of how large it used to be.