Glacier National Park Day 6 – Guided hike to Avalanche Lake

After having a nice quiet day to recover, it was time to get back to hiking.

I tend to wake up before anyone else when we are camping and I enjoy the peacefulness before the campground wakes up. I used this morning as a chance to head down to the lake and watch the sun rise since I was up about 6am. At some point my daughter woke up and came to join me down on the beach.

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We hoped to be able to make the guided hike to Avalanche Lake in the morning. This is a very busy trail head as there are a number of trails that start from this parking lot. It can be tricky to find parking, so may be worth considering the park shuttle if you want to hike in this area. This is a 5.7 mile hike with a total elevation gain of 730 feet if you only go to the lake and turn around.

Luckily the hike left a few minutes late and we were able to catch up to them after finally finding a parking spot.

The first portion of this hike is along a boardwalk called the Trail of the Cedars. This is an accessible 0.8 mile trail that is part boardwalk and part paved path. It is a loop that is great for all ages and abilities with benches throughout for anyone who may need a rest. You could easily use a stroller on this path, or if you are in a wheelchair this is one trail that you could enjoy. The ranger stopped a couple of times for us to really take in the beauty of this rainforest and the size of the trees as it also gives a sense of this areas past.

Avalanche Canyon is the stop just before we turned onto the trail to Avalanche Lake. The colour of the water in this canyon is that stunning blue that doesn’t look real.

Then it was off up the trail to Avalanche Lake which started off steep and then became more of a gradual climb. Our ranger asked the kids to use their observation skills on the first climb, to see how many different coloured rocks they could observe. This was a great way to keep the kids moving and not realize how steep it was.

During the hike we passed an area where there had been a slide, saw massive boulders and enjoyed the hike. The nice part about this hike is that most of it is located within the trees so you don’t have to worry about the heat quite as much.

When we reached the lake, the kids thought it was a good time to have an early lunch so they could then wade in the water. There are lots of fallen rotting logs from a previous avalanche in this area. The beach area around the lake is quite large and so it was easy to find a spot to sit together and enjoy the view. There is no shade at the lake, so something to take into consideration when planning your day.

After some fun in the water, the kids asked if we could see where the trail lead that went around the lake. We started out on the trail and got up the one side when a family coming towards us warned us of a bear not far up ahead that did not appear to be shy of people. We decided that it wasn’t worth the risk and it was time to turn around and we would head back down to the car.

By the time we got back to the car it had gotten quite hot out, so we decided to go for a drive to keep the kids a bit cooler and see if we could find some ice cream.

Just outside the gates at West Glacier there is the West Glacier Cafe which has a good selection of ice cream and ice cream treats. A perfect spot to stop on a hot day.

The rest of the afternoon was spent hanging out by the lake and cooling down as needed.

What is your favourite ice cream flavour? My kids were taking full advantage of any opportunity to have Huckleberry ice cream.

To see what other fun we got up to on our Trip to Glacier National Park check out the links below:

Day 1 – Getting our Bearings in St Mary’s

Day 2 – Waterfalls and a boat tour on the East side of the park

Day 3- Driving the Going-To-The-Sun Road and hiking at Logan’s Pass

Day 4 – Full day ranger led hike to Iceberg Lake

Day 5 – Quiet day exploring the west side of the park

Day 7 – Family fun at Whitefish Mountain

Day 8 – Hungry Horse Dam

Day 9 – Two Medicine Valley