Grinnell Glacier Overlook

The Highline Trail is often called the best day hike in Glacier National Park, and starting before sunrise made it clear why — the first light came up in a band of orange over the peaks while the trail was still empty, tracing its way along the sheer face of the Garden Wall high above Going-to-the-Sun Road. The trail itself is a gentle, rolling traverse for miles, but the exposure along the early ledge sections is enough to get your attention even on a calm morning.

Grinnell Glacier Overlook sits up a short, brutally steep spur trail off the main Highline route, gaining close to a thousand feet in under a mile of loose, rocky switchbacks with no real relief until the top. It's the kind of climb that makes you question the detour partway up, but reaching the notch at the top of the Garden Wall and looking straight down at Grinnell Glacier and its impossibly turquoise lake erases any doubt immediately — one of the most striking views on this entire list, with the Salamander Glacier hanging just below and Mount Gould rising directly across the basin.

The whole day was full of classic Glacier scenery — the Granite Park Chalet perched on its distant hillside, wildflowers still going in the high meadows, and long views back down the valley toward Lake McDonald. And then, on the way back down, a grizzly bear appeared in a basin below the trail for just a split second before disappearing into the brush — long enough to freeze everyone in their tracks, not long enough to really process it until it was already gone.

A genuinely epic day from start to finish — one of those hikes where the scenery, the exposure, and a real wildlife encounter all come together to make it feel like something out of a different kind of trip entirely.