The CDT: through hiking and permits in the Glacier National Park

Strategies for glacier National Park

«People love glacier. They love to death. «-Marcy, Park Ranger.

In general, I do not write guides, but after dealing with the Supreme Cluster-Fuck, which is the glacier crossing system, I will present some strategies to deal with glacier as a hiker. Undoubtedly, these strategies will be more useful for the sobo, since that has been my experience, but nobos can also benefit, especially if the crossing sites still have a great demand when nobles arrives at the park.

Glacier National Park receives 3 million visitors annually. Of these, less than 500 are CDT through hikers. This is the only thing you really need to know. The park is not customized for hikers. We appear and want to follow that magical red line, but in most cases, we cannot. The crossing camps are reserved, either for weekends or by the hikers who reserved them before we did.

Looking at the glass base camp is a great backrest point, but from August 2025 it is closed. It can open again, it may not, which means that you cannot count on an affordable and friendly breathing point for hikers in the East Glacier. Therefore, I will not include it in the following options. Nor will I include option 0, which is to appear in the permit office and be one of the lucky few who obtain exactly the walk they want.

Before starting, there are some useful information bits to know. First, permits allow up to four people, so make some friends. This saves space, since GNP does not differentiate between a permit with a person and a permit with four. Once a camp is taken, it is taken.

Second, the cost of permits (from summer 2025) $ 90 for permission and $ 10 per additional person, which means that obtaining four people in a permit saves a ton of money.

Third, if the bad weather arrives and fucks its plan, you may have to buy another permission and rebuild your route. Depending on the ranger, this is not always the case, but prepare for it. It is much better to choose a route with the daily mileage within its capacity than to choose sites at distances at the end of its comfort range. Make fifteen, enjoy the park, get the value of your money.

Finally, you have to get permissions in person. Once again, this park does not adapt through hikers and other people without cars.

There are options to obtain permits at the beginning of spring, but I did not take advantage of these, and neither do most of the hikers I met. If you see the opportunity to do it using one of the following options, I would. Otherwise, you can get hooked to an permissions office (two medications is the most common) or walk there from the east glacier, be allowed, camping during the night in two medications, walking or hooking to your starting point, finishing your route and then returning to East Glacier.

This can feel a bit unclear now, but read the following and begin to make more sense.

Very good, moving to strategies.

Option 1: Go for the glacier.

You are in the CDT, and the CDT is freedom of the red line. Only red blood loyal will follow the red line with any consistency on this path, and even for them, they can be forced to deviate due to fires, climate or other problems. Fortunately, Canada and the United States share a long border, and there are passable options both east and west of the park. I will not design exactly where, I will have to get used to using Gaia or another similar application together with Farout anyway, so that I can make your own routes as a practice.

Option 2: Imagine that the whole glacier is the red line, and that direction does not matter.

Its ability to reserve crossing sites will be relieved to a large extent if it does not try to compete with all the other hikers competing for campsites during the high season. Select any continuous series of 8-100 miles crossing sites long and bring it as the red line. The whole glacier is beautiful and you cannot be wrong. When the route is finished, go to a highway and take Cake to East Glacier to meet with the red line.

Option 3: Platinum blaze.

Rent a car, van, whatever. Use it to lead the most desirable places and a one-day walk all day at the loops back to your vehicle until you have made 80-100 miles of paths. Every night, leave the park and sleep in the car, the camp or the hotel of your choice. Once this is done, return the rent and begin to make the east glacier.

Option 4: Start walking in East Glacier.

Obviously, this will be an unpleasant choice for many, but there may be some that would choose this option. Glacier is the most suitable for vacationers, and you may want to keep it for a vacation.

If time is a problem for some reason, save Glacier for later and leave your Amtrak in East Glacier and begin the red line. It is right there. Very easy, very convenient. It is not the most inspiring term that exists, but it would save time and money.

If you really want to see a little from the park and get most of the same benefits that option 4 provides, then you can make a small yoyo from the east glacier to two medicine camps and vice versa. You will see radical mountain views, you will have the opportunity for a short blue fire at the top of Mount Henry, and probably see a ton of beautiful Bighorn sheep. It is about ten miles from East Glacier to two medications, so be sure to book a site on Two Medicine if you want to spend the night.

But what about my terminal photos?

Yes, unfortunately, if you want that photo, you will have to take a walk or hook to a specific place on the border, walk through the friend of the Canadian patrol, get the shots and then … well, then you must return to where you want to start or have a permission that allows you to start in the location and direction of Primo.

Ultimately, it depends on you whether or not to visit the microobelisk that is the «monument». If it were for me, and if I did this again, I would get a photo of the place where I started and call it the term. It is not everyone’s style, without a doubt, but if you want that photo, you have to be lucky or do a lot of work to get it.

If you are a spirit of the type of law instead of a word of the type of law, you can start from anywhere because of the terminal and call it good. Remember, most hikers do not walk 3100 miles that make up the red line. Enjoy the freedom of the Wild West and concentrate on his adventure.

So we have it there. Realistic options for hikers for Glacier National Park. For those who come from the AT, these may seem unhappy commitments, even sinful, but the CDT is not the AT, and there is no place on any path that knows with systems that are so inconvenient for hikers. To walk in or around the glacier, you will have to compromise something. Time, address, money or even the park itself.

Good luck, happy paths and, above all, walk your own walk.

Part 1 will continue with the narration of regular stories. I hope to see you there.