I spent 4 days backpacking in Glacier National Park in early August, along with 2 high school classmates and one of their sons. This was my first backpacking trip in Glacier and I thought I’d share some of what I experienced along with (as usual) a few photographs. Our planned route totaled about 26 miles over 4 days, visiting 3 campsites along Logging Lake and Grace Lake in the North Fork area of the park. Logging Lake is one of the least crowded areas in the park and also one of the easier hikes with no extended climbing. Both were good reasons to choose this itinerary!
I made our backcountry reservation several months in advance through recreation.gov. My original plan included 4 nights, but we had to cut it to 3 due to the work schedule for one of our group members. Cancelling the last night was easily done online, but that would have left us with a 13 mile hike out on our last day with people needing to catch flights in the afternoon. Permits are available to be picked up the day before the start of the trip, so I decided to drive into the park early that morning to swap the locations for our last two nights. The permit office opens at 7:30am in the summer and I arrived at about 6:30. A line had already formed for people looking to obtain walk-up permits, but they took me early because I already had a reservation and didn’t need to pay anything.
I was able to make the change I wanted (swapping the last 2 locations to limit the last day of hiking to only 10 miles) and then watched the mandatory backcountry camping video. The video focused mostly on bear safety and leave-no-trace principles. As a note, Glacier requires reservations to enter the park after 6:00am in the summer. I happened to have one, which allowed me to enter at 6:30. Otherwise I would have had to make sure I arrived before 6:00am in order to get to the permit office in the morning on the day before the backpacking trip. This wouldn’t have been an issue if I had picked up the permit on the day the trip started, since the backcountry reservation would have given me access.
Day 1 – Trailhead to Logging Lake Foot
We entered the park through the Polebridge entrance (after the obligatory stop at the Polebridge Mercantile for huckleberry bear claws) and drove down the well maintained dirt road to the Logging Lake trailhead. Our first day involved about 5-1/2 miles in the peak heat of the afternoon (95°F) to the foot of Logging Lake. This portion of the hike is mostly uphill, although there are breaks in the climbing and it isn’t steep. As had been noted from online reviews, the trail is not well traveled and is partially overgrown in many places. It was never hard to find, though, and all trail junctions were well marked. In wetter years or earlier in the season it would be muddy in places (especially when hiking along Logging Lake) and wouldn’t be particularly fun.
We took our time as we got used to the packs, the heat, and the hills and took frequent rest breaks. We didn’t see any large wildlife but several deposits of bear scat on the trail made it clear that we were not alone. The campground was beautiful and a nice reward for the work to get there. Two of the 3 campsites were right next to the lake and we grabbed one of those. The cooking area had several logs available for sitting, a metal bar for hanging food (and anything else with a scent), and a firepit that sat unused due to fire controls in effect at the time.
After setting up camp, going for a swim, and eating I took a few late afternoon photos of the lake. The Flathead Valley had several serious fires this summer, but it looked like they wouldn’t affect us as they were south of us and winds were expected to keep the smoke at bay. Everything was clear while hiking, but hazy smoke drifted over the mountains at sunset obscuring the view. My favorite images were in the late afternoon when the skies were more clear and light was visible on the mountains. Logging Lake is similar to other lakes I’d visited on the west side of Glacier (Lake McDonald and Bowman Lake in particular) being 6+ miles long in the east-west direction, narrow, and a nice view of the mountains to the east.
There is a ranger station at the foot of the lake and we saw two rangers canoeing by our campsite. They passed on the opportunity to take our gear to the other end of the lake for us.
Day 2 – Logging Lake Foot to Grace Lake
Our second day had us hiking about 5 miles to the head of Logging Lake and then another couple of miles to Grace Lake. I had expected this stretch to be pretty easy, since lakes tend to be flat and we’d be near water so we could filter it as we went. As it turned out, the trail was rarely close enough to the lake for any water access and it went up and down much more than expected. It was also more overgrown along this stretch, primarily with thimbleberry, which slowed our progress. At least the ground was dry so we didn’t have to deal with mud and there weren’t any mosquitos.
We packed up camp in the morning after breakfast and got a relatively late start. My backpack (below) had all of my camping gear as well my camera equipment. I brought my camera, a 14-35mm lens, a 50mm lens, and a 70-200mm zoom lens as well as a lightweight tripod. I used a camera pouch attached to my backpack straps that gave me easy access to my camera and the longer zoon lens for trail photos and any wildlife that we came across (which turned out to be none). We all also carried bear spray. Overall my pack weighed about 45 lbs when we started out.
Morning at the lake was beautiful and I took some photos of the setting moon over the foot of the lake. The lingering smoke was visible as well.
The campground was down a spur about half a mile from the main trail. The photo below shows the trail through the camp itself.
Half a mile uphill we rejoined the main trail. As noted above, all of the junctions were well marked. Of course, as anyone that has hiked in national parks is aware, none of the mileage on these signs can really be trusted. You can see the thimbleberry that we’d be pushing through for the next couple of days. Our route took us through the Adair campground, where we would be spending our last night, on the way to Grace Lake.
We stopped for a long break at the Adair campground, refilled our water and had a snack before finishing our hike. Grace Lake is much smaller than Logging Lake, only 4200 feet by 1300 feet, and is in a beautiful setting surrounded by mountains. I was happy to see that there was no visible smoke and the lake was perfectly calm (at least through sunset) which allowed for some nice photos.
The Grace Lake campground is clearly more remote than the others we visited on this trip. Campfires are never allowed and there is no fire pit (just a flat rock where one would have been). Instead of a nice structure to hang food from, there is just a single pole with some hooks on the top. Even better, the outhouses we had seen at Logging Lake (which are actually a treat for backcountry camping) were replaced by a pit toilet mounted on a platform with no walls at all. Taking care of “business” was done in the open air. The campsites were smaller and had a lot of fallen trees around them. Getting two tents into a site would be a struggle. Three wouldn’t be possible (no matter what the rangers tell you). There are three tent sites at Grace Lake. One, right next to the lake, was already occupied so we took the other two.
The wind picked up after sunset and we relaxed in the food prep area before bed. We were startled by a loud splash nearby and wondered if a bear or moose had gone into the lake. We had seen moose tracks on the trail and bear scat was common as well. After another loud splash, we decided to check it out. In the darkness we spotted a beaver swimming away. We all concluded that we were probably safe from a beaver attack and decided to resume our evening. As the wind picked up, the lake grew louder which again started to sound like there were animals nearby and we started to wonder if we’d soon be overrun by moose. In the end, the night was uneventful.
Day 3 – Grace Lake to Adair
This would be the easiest day of our trip with only a 3 mile, mostly downhill hike back to the Adair campground. There was a potential thunderstorm in the forecast and we could see clouds pouring over the mountains in the wind – which was too strong for any good photos of the lake in the morning. I did capture a few images of the nearby mountains though.
We packed our gear and got ready to head back down the trail. This image shows the food prep area at Grace Lake, along with Paul and Aaron getting their stuff together for the hike. You can see the lake and mountains in the background.
We stopped for a few group photos at the ranger cabin at the head of Logging Lake.
The Adair campground has 4 campsites, one of which was in poor repair and required climbing over fallen trees to access. Otherwise it had the usually food prep area, rack for hanging food, and an outhouse. It also had the best lake access of the sites we visited with a nice rocky beach. After the short hike and several hot days, it was nice to spend an hour in the water. A couple of other groups stayed in Adair that night, making this our only significant human interactions on the trip. Everyone was friendly and the company helped make an enjoyable evening.
Day 4 – Adair to Trailhead
While this was the most mileage we’d need to cover in a day, it was not our most challenging day of hiking. Since the others needed to catch flights that afternoon, we left early in the morning (before 7:00am) and took advantage of the cool morning temperatures. We knew from the hike in that there would be some hills as we made our way toward the foot of Logging Lake, but after that the trail would be mostly downhill. We made good time hiking the 5 miles to the ranger station at the foot of Logging Lake where we took a water, bathroom and snack break. For those hiking between the trailhead and Adair, the ranger station at the foot of Logging Lake is easier to reach (shorter, flatter spur trail) than the campground and has a pit toilet and rocky beach.
Overall we logged about 27 miles for the trip and enjoyed each of the three campsites. I have also put together a video from the trip that you can watch below. Let me know if you have any questions about camping in Glacier or anything else you are curious about.