Kalispell, Montana and Glacier National Park

Where we stayed

Visiting Montana was on my bucket list for a long time, so what better time to visit than for my 30th birthday! Chad and I decided to book an Airbnb in Kalispell, which is only 40 minutes from Glacier National Park. We wanted to do some sightseeing, hiking, and fishing while we were there, and ultimately decided to roadtrip instead of fly so that we could take our time and not feel rushed. The drive was a long one at roughly 18 hours, but I feel like it went by pretty quickly. Chad did most of the driving, and I did most of the sleeping LOL. The Airbnb we chose is linked HERE. It was such a cute little cabin vibe, and tucked away in the hills of Kalispell.

What we did

We got in around 5pm the first night, and decided to spend some time exploring the town and went out to eat at a local barbecue restaurant called The Desoto Grill. WOW, we can’t recommend this place enough! They don’t serve hard liquor, but they served us this sparkling blood orange margarita wine, which was phenomenal, and the barbecue brisket was probably the best I’ve ever tried in my life! We turned in for an early night since we were a little sleep deprived, and wanted to be fresh and awake for horseback riding in the morning.

The next day was my 30th birthday, and the number one thing I wanted to do on my birthday was horseback riding, which I have never done. We went to Montana Horse Works and had such a fun and relaxing time on a 2 hour trail ride. I’ve always had a little fear of horses, but my horse nuzzled right up to me and I had such a great time. My horse’s name was Poncho and he was so funny! We stayed at the back of the group and he would wait for each horse to make it up the hill and then he would run full speed up the hill to catch up. We rode the horses all the way up to the top of a hill, where our trail guide took some photos for us. It was such a fun experience, and I definitely want to do it again.

After we finished our trail ride, we stopped back at our Airbnb to change, and went to go pick up my birthday cake from Ephemera Confection, which is this cute little bakery tucked in the back of an antique shop. I found them on Google, and they have such beautiful cake designs, and it was one of the best cakes I’ve ever tried. I got the tiny dancer classic cake, which is lemon cake filled with raspberry compote. It was phenomenal!! After we picked up the cake, we headed to a local fishing spot to see if we could catch anything. Nothing was biting, but the view was soooo beautiful. After fishing, we headed back to the Airbnb to eat cake (dessert before dinner always), and then we headed out to dinner at Mercantile Steak. I ordered the seafood pasta, and Chad had a burger. I literally can’t stop raving about all the food we tried in Kalispell, but OMG this was such an amazing meal, and the birthday cheesecake was also delicious.

The next day, we decided to take our time exploring Kalispell, and see what the town had to offer. Little did we know, Kalispell, and Montana in general, are known for huckleberries. We tried huckleberry fudge, huckleberry milkshakes, and huckleberry pie. It’s a little bit of a different taste, but also very good! we checked out a couple local gift shops and trading posts, and then decided to try fishing again, this time at Lake McDonald. We had to venture into Glacier National Park a little ways to get there, but we were saving the next couple days to fully dedicate time to hike and explore the National Park. Lake McDonald’s water is SO blue, it doesn’t seem real. The water is also pretty clear, and you can see the colorful rocks for quite a ways out into the water. We did'n’t get any bites, but I was so excited just to explore.

It was starting to get late so we headed back to our Airbnb, when we noticed a few cars stopped along the side of the road. A man was holding binoculars, and Chad pointed out a large dead elk on the side of the road. We pulled over to see what the cars were observing and we were shocked to see around 50-60 elk in a herd by some farmland. I have never seen an elk in person, so it was cool to see so many at once!

We wanted to spend the last two full days of our trip dedicated to hiking Glacier National Park. The first of the two days we decided to drive up the Going to the Sun Road, which is a long and narrow drive up the mountain to overlook Glacier National Park. If you are afraid of heights, you may not love this, but it was a view I will never ever forget, and I highly recommend doing this! Pictures truly do not do it justice, and I could have spent all day just exploring this road. There are plenty of pull-off areas for pictures also! After we made it to the top, we wanted to check out Logan’s Pass, which is the base area for one of the lake hikes. Unfortunately, parking was packed, and we were unable to get a parking spot. Our plan B was to hike the 6 mile trail to Cracker Lake, but we were informed by a park ranger that it was currently closed due to a mama grizzly bear charging hikers on the trail. Our plan C was to switch our hiking plans to the Grinnell Lake trail, and we were not disappointed! It was about a 3.5 mile round-trip hike to get to the lake, which was somehow even more blue than Lake McDonald! We ended up staying at the lake all day, enjoying the view, and catching lake trout. Everything you catch in GNP is catch and release, but we both caught a good amount of trout! We didn’t see any bears, but we did find a fresh moose trail, and another hiker informed us they saw a mama moose and baby about 45 minutes ahead of our hike. It was a long day, but the view at the end of the hike was incredible and very much worth it!

On our last day in Montana, we decided to try one more hiking trail in Glacier National Park. This time, we hiked the trail to Avalanche Lake which was about 5 miles round-trip. I will say this trail was a little more difficult than the Grinnell Lake hike. It wasn’t hard per say, but the amount of hill climbing we did took a lot more effort than the Grinnell hike. This hike was still very beautiful, and there were a few waterfalls along the way to stop at. This trail was more populated than the other one, as its one of the more popular trails. We could see why it was so popular though, with all the beautiful waterfalls and vegetation along the way. Avalanche Lake was just as beautiful as Grinnell, and we ended up staying most of the day again. We brought lunch with us and had a little picnic next to the lake. A few other people were fly fishing the lake, but without much luck. We did catch several trout in this lake with our reel rods though. We aren’t sure what type of trout we were catching, but we guessed they were rainbow, cutthroat, and/or brookies. Our feet hurt at the end of this hike, but we are already making plans to come back and hike a few of the trails we didn’t get to see. Montana is one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited, and truthfully, I would move here in a heartbeat!!