aprildon6

Day 1 - August 26
9:33pm - Arrive in Jackson, WY
Pick up rental car and drive to Colter Bay Village. Night at Colter Bay Village Cabin

Day 2 - August 27
Get a campsite at Colter Bay Campground,
Drive to K-Mart in Jackson and shop for supplies, Visitor’s center and lunch
12:30pm - 4:30pm - Jenny Lake Loop (7.7 miles)
4:30pm - 6:00pm - Menor’s Ferry Historic Area and Chapel of the Transfiguration
Night at Colter Bay Village Campground

Day 3 - August 28
7:00am - 12:00pm - Hike Cascade Canyon
12:00pm - 1:30pm - Lunch/Shower
Pick up bikes for the morning
Night at Colter Bay Village Campground

Day 4 - August 29
Ride bikes all day
Indian museum
Night at Colter Bay Village Campground

Day 5 - August 30
Hike Table Mountain
Rent motorboat at Jackson Lake, ranger program
Night at Colter Bay Village Campground

Day 6 - August 31
7:00am - drive to Yellowstone
8:00am - Visitors Center, Old Faithful, watch geyser erupt and hike trails in Upper Geyser Basin and Norris Geyser Basin, Fountain Paints Pots Trail
Night at Old Faithful Inn or Old Faithful Lodge Cabins

Day 7 - September 1
Yellowstone Lake - sunset cruise or ride to Lerrardy Rapids in a clasic 1937 touring bus.
Cookout in Roosevelt?
Night at Old Faithful Inn or Old Faithful Lodge Cabins or Yellowstone Lake Lodge

Day 8 - September 2
Grand Canyon of Yellowstone
Cascade Lake Trail (2.5 hours)
The South Rim - Clear Lake Loop (2 hours)
Mount Washburn (4 hours)
Uncle Tom’s Trail (1 mile strenuous 1 hour)
Ranger
Night at ?

Day 9 - September 3
Mammoth Hot Spring Terraces and Albright Visitor Center and Self-guided tour of Fort Yellowstone
Hike Bunsen Peak (2 hours)
Night at ?

Day 10 - September 4
Up for grabs
Night at ?

Day 11 - September 5
Drive to Waterton
Night Waterton Townsite (HI-waterton hostel or Aspen Village Inn)

Day 12 - September 6
Hike Crypt Lake Trail
Red Rock Parkway and Akamina Parkway
Night Waterton Townsite (HI-waterton hostel or Aspen Village Inn)

Day 13 - September 7
Hike Carthew-Alderson Trail (6.5 hours)
Drive to Many Glacier
Drive Going to the Sun Road
Night at Many Glacier Campground, Swiftcurrent Motor Inn, Many Glacier Hotel or Apgar Village Lodge

Day 14 - September 8
Hike Iceberg Lake (9 miles, 5.5 hours)
relax at Two Medicine Waterscape (Twin Falls)
Hike Two Medicine Lake Trail (5 hours, 9.4 miles)
Night at Many Glacier Campground, Swiftcurrent Motor Inn, Many Glacier Hotel or Apgar Village Lodge



Day 15 - September 9
Hike Highline Trail
7:00pm - 8:00pm - boat cruise from Lake McDonald
Night at Lake McDonald Lodge or Village Inn

Day 16 - September 10
Hike Trail of Cedars
Hike Avalanche Lake
drive to airport, drop off car
2:10pm - flight home

any suggestions are very much appreciated. i want to fit beartooth highway in here, but it seems just out of the way. any suggestions about the yellowstone section? i also need help deciding on some of the lodging. thanks SO much!

april

xanthippe

This looks like a wonderful trip, very ambitious. All those trails and loops you mention, are they hikes? Sometimes you have 2 or 3 the same day (day 8--where is Mt. Washburn?). If they are hikes, that seems like too strenuous for me, but maybe not for you. Is this your only opportunity to see Glacier? If not, I'd suggest you save that for another trip and do the Beartooth Pass. It's SOOO spectacular. You could drive to the top, perhaps a little beyond, then turn around and enjoy it all again in the other direction, and then drive down the Chief Joseph Hwy. to Cody to spend the night. Spend several hours in the great museum there the next day, and then reenter Yellowstone from Cody, perhaps the most scenic drive in.

You might tell us who's going on this trip. Ages of children (if any)? Also, the day you arrive in Jackson (by air?), you might want to spend a couple of hours there. I love to wander through all the art galleries. Children won't enjoy it so much, but tell them to look for the large painting called "When Harry Met Sally."

justme22

things seem okay until around day 8, you have some hefty miles to travel, make sure you have flashlights on your last trail of the day!

not sure of all locations but although still light, depending on the angle of the sun and where you are, you may not have as much daylight as you think.

you may need to shift some items to day 10.

look for bears on red rock parkway on day 12

day 13, you start out with a hike i am assuming at waterton. 6.5 hours so getting one's act together and getting to trail head makes it 7 to 7.5 hours of time. it is an hour drive from waterton to many glacier.

then about 1/2 hour to gts road. one way if you rush (which you shouldn't!) it will take at least 1:15+ to do going to the sun road, you will have to stay on the lake macdonald side that night.

I suggest apgar village lodge, not run by the park but a beautiful location. right on macdonald creek- rather than lake macdonald lodge

on the whole, it looks like you should be happy to get in about 60% of what you want to do. if you expect to get it all done, you will not have time to enjoy the hikes you want to do. you can spend a week in many glacier alone.

grinnell glacier, another good hike in the many glacier area.

by lake macdonald, sperry glacier, a little bland on the way up but when you get up top wow. from your agenda, it seems you could do this hike in one day. it is a killer up tho. you will see mountain goats on the trail. deer too, possibly bear.



day 14 you have 11 hours of hiking, alone, that is assuming all goes well...

don't understand it will take you almost an hour to get to two medicine from many glacier, and then an hour to drive to apgar you need to find a place in east glacier.

IMHO don't be disappointed if you don't get it all in, you need to enjoy your trip not worry about getting to the next venue. IT'S VACATION!!! (a veteran of a trips at glacier)

aprildon6

hey xanthippe and justme22,
first off, thanks for taking the time to help me. yes, all the trails and loops are hikes. understand that this itinerary is a guideline, so that we have an idea of what we CAN do if we feel up to more. does it make sense to do the beartooth highway on our "Day 10 - up for grabs"?
The Mt. Washburn trailhead is in Yellowstone about halfway between Tower Junction and Canyon Village.
This is probably the only trip we will be making anywhere close to Glacier for quite a few years, so i'd definitely like to go and at least get a small tasting.
My boyfriend and I are making the trip. We are both 28 and avid hikers. Last year we hiked about 80 miles in the grand canyon, moab, bryce and zion in 9 days. we also biked many miles and did rafting and horseback riding. we defintely had a good balance of relaxing, well, enough for our liking anyway. we really enjoyed the driving, since we live in PA and the west is a whole new world to us.

hey justme22, as far as day 13, my idea is this:
6:30am - 12:30pm Carthew-Alderson Trail
2:00pm - 3:00pm - drive to glacier
3:00 - ? Going-to-the-sun road
Night at Apgar Village

Day 14 - September 8
7:00am - 12:00pm - Hike Iceberg Lake (9 miles, 5.5 hours)
1:00 - 2:00pm - drive to two medicine
2:00pm - 3:00pm - picnic at twin waterfalls
3:00pm - 8:00pm - Hike Two Medicine Lake Trail (5 hours, 9.4 miles)
would you recommend somewhere to stay this night?

don't worry, we're not crazy. we stop when our bodies say "NOOOOOOO!"

any further thoughts?
thanks again! april

aprildon6

one more question, how long does it take to explore beartooth? can it be done in one day?

utahtea

Beartooth can be done in one day. It's a fantastic drive and might be the way to exit the park on the way to Waterton.

If you don't have reservations for Old Faithfull Inn by now, you chances are next to nill!

The cookout at Roosevelt was a lot of fun when we did it YEARS ago! I would not want to drive back to Old Faithful area from Roosevelt...that's one long drive! If you do the cook out do it from Mammoth area. There's a campground in Mammoth, but it's small and you will need to get there early in the day to get a site...I don't remember if they take reservations.

Utahtea

bob_brown

Two comments.
Day 8 is not taking into account the rigor of the trails. Uncle Tom is not a trail really; it is a series of steps that are about as steep as normal steps get.

Mount Washburn is steep.
Also, you should take into account that some of the road is closed. From the north, from Tower Falls, you can get to the start of the dirt road to the top that is closed. I do not know how close you can get on the south side. I suggest you ask.

Your day in the geyser basins is going to be somewhat fruitless unless you get lucky. The really big geysers like Grand and Castle erupt on predictable bases, but the eruption time window for Castle is 2 hours and 4 hours for Grand.

If you don't see one of the big ones, you don't really know what a major geyser eruption is all about.

Old Faithful is the most predictable, and people are satisfied with it.

You also seem to have left out Lone Star. It is a beautiful, but solitary geyser.

all in all, having done those parks when I was younger, I think you are trying to do too much and rushing past sites and sights you should take time to enjoy.

If you do Iceberg Lake in 5 and a half hours, more power to you. Seriously, do you plan on stopping and looking at the lake? Or just say, "I'm here," and leave immediately.

Or why not climb the Grand Teton while you are about it.

justme22

for lodging at various towns to to visitmt.com links will get to you various lodging lists

when i visited two medicine i used east glacier because it had some choices on where to stay. i stayed at a place that my mom wouldn't have stayed in but hey, it was clean.

Pine Motel looked nice from the outside.

iceberg lake is doable in 4.5 hours if you don't spend a lot of time at the lake, but that won't give you time to look for bears on the slopes or watch dippers (birds) in the lake

you'll do fine on two medicine too. (love the bridge on the trail) I took the boat one way to get more in... however If you are the type of hikers it sounds like you are... (i envy your ability!)

day thirteen is ok. you can easily do gts road starting at three and still enjoy sundown on the shores of lake macdonald either at apgar village or the lake macdonald complex.


at two medicine i enjoyed scenic point, the way some storm clouds came in saw multiple rainbows in the valley...

enjoy, glacier is a hiker's paradise!

aprildon6

thanks so much to all of you for your feedback. i cut down some things out of the itinerary and put them into the "if we are still amped to explore" page, so that i allow some time for us to relax and for me to paint (i paint watercolors).

MY MAIN QUESTION NOW IS:
What do you think of us cutting off our last day in Mammoth and driving the Beartooth Highway and doing either of these three options:

option 1:
Drive the Beartooth Highway in the A.M. and then drive to Helena (or somewhere else that you might suggest)and stay there for the night before heading to Waterton the next morning.

option 2:
Drive the Beartooth Highway in the A.M. and then head straight to Wateron, giving us more time for hikes in Glacier

option 3:
Drive the Beartooth Highway in the A.M. and then drive to Missoula for the night. Drive through Glacier on GTTS road the next morning on our way to Waterton.

i'm leaning toward option 2.

thanks again! april

justme22

since you already carved out time for gts rd, i'd say two, gts rd is great and you'll also use it for access to highline

you are a hiker and glacier is a hiker's nirvana. so your question is a simple one. more time for hiking! enjoy.