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Glacier National Park
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Photo by Trougnouf (Benoit Brummer), CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Best time to visit Glacier National Park

United States · North America

All twelve months scored on daily temperature, rainfall, humidity and holiday crowding.

The year in Glacier National Park

Tap a month for its page

  1. Glacier National Park in January: avoid
  2. Glacier National Park in February: avoid
  3. Glacier National Park in March: avoid
  4. Glacier National Park in April: good
  5. Glacier National Park in May: sweet spot
  6. Glacier National Park in June: good, busy
  7. Glacier National Park in July: sweet spot, busy
  8. Glacier National Park in August: sweet spot, busy
  9. Glacier National Park in September: sweet spot
  10. Glacier National Park in October: ok
  11. Glacier National Park in November: avoid
  12. Glacier National Park in December: avoid
  • Sweet spot
  • Good
  • OK
  • Avoid
  • Busy
Good for
Go in May, Jul, Aug or Sep — these months score within a whisker of each other; 26C max, 4 rainy days. Jun is the next best.

Things to do in Glacier National Park

  • Going-to-the-Sun Road The most spectacular viewpoints in the park are along this road.
  • Lake McDonald Lake in Flathead County, Montana
  • Triple Divide Peak Mountain in Montana, United States. Located at the hydrological apex of North America.
  • Chief Mountain Mountain in Montana, United States
  • Mount Cleveland Mountain in Montana, United States
  • Going-to-the-Sun Mountain Mountain in Glacier National Park, Montana, United States
  • Dragons Tail Ridge in the state of Montana

Tours and tickets in Glacier National Park

Each site opens on its own search: choose your dates there. A few open on their home page, where you type the place too. Links marked Ad pay us a commission if you book, at no extra cost to you; most pay nothing, and what a site pays never decides whether it is listed or where. How we rank

Sights and their lines from Wikivoyage (Glacier National Park (Montana)), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, and Wikidata; in order of how often each one's Wikipedia article was read on phones in the last 12 months.

Month by month

MonthMax °CRain days HumiditySun h/day VerdictWhy
Jan 0° 7d 82% 4.4h avoid bitter cold: 0C daily max
Feb 0° 10d 74% 5.3h avoid bitter cold: 0C daily max
Mar 6° 10d 71% 8.0h avoid bitter cold: 6C daily max
Apr 10° 9d 67% 9.6h good 10C max, 9 rainy days
May 17° 10d 67% 11.6h sweet spot 17C max, 10 rainy days
Jun 21° 9d 66% 12.4h goodbusy busier than usual
Jul 27° 2d 57% 14.3h sweet spot busy busier than usual
Aug 26° 4d 63% 12.4h sweet spot busy busier than usual
Sep 21° 6d 71% 10.3h sweet spot 21C max, 6 rainy days
Oct 12° 8d 77% 7.9h ok 12C max, 8 rainy days
Nov 4° 11d 83% 4.7h avoid bitter cold: 4C daily max
Dec 1° 12d 85% 3.3h avoid bitter cold: 1C daily max

Rain days are the days with at least 1 mm of rain, as a weather station counts them.

Weather read at Apgar and West Glacier, the west entrance, 31 km from the airport (FCA): ten years of ERA5 and ERA5-Land reanalysis, through Open-Meteo's open data.

A busy month is a crowded one, not a bad one — usually it is crowded because the weather is good. It is flagged rather than scored down, and crowds alone never make a month “avoid”: that is reserved for weather worth skipping.

How busy it gets

Busiest from June to August; quietest from October to April.

Then and now

Glacier National Park's December days now average 0.9°C, 4.8°C warmer than in 1981–1990. 3 of 12 months are clearly warmer.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
1981–90-1.9°-0.2°5.1°9.7°15.5°21.0°24.6°24.8°18.1°11.2°1.9°-3.9°
2017–260.1°-0.4°5.8°10.4°17.5°21.1°27.2°26.2°20.6°11.7°4.4°0.9°
Change+1.9°-0.1°+0.8°+0.8°+1.9°+0.1°+2.6°+1.4°+2.6°+0.5°+2.5°+4.8°

The average daily high, month by month, for the nearest ERA5 grid cell. Bold is a clear change; grey is within the ordinary spread between years. Every destination, ranked.

Getting there

How far Glacier National Park is depends on where you set off from — the months above do not.

Before you go

Type A and B plugs at 120 V. Drives on the right. The currency is the United states dollar. No UK Foreign Office advice against travel. Everything for United States: cost of living, languages, emergency numbers and health.

Being there

On arrival

  • Paying — Cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay work almost everywhere, though a few small places take cash only. Keep some $1 and $5 notes for tips; Venmo and PayPal are for locals.
  • UPI, for visitors from India — Not accepted for paying here; bring a card that works abroad.
  • Tipping — Expected: 15–20% in sit-down restaurants (18–20% is standard in New York) and 10–20% for taxi, Uber and Lyft drivers. Large groups may find it already on the bill.

Getting around Glacier National Park

  • Apps — Rides: Lyft, Uber. Maps: Google Maps, Apple Maps. Messages: Text messages (SMS), WhatsApp. In San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami and some other cities you can also book a driverless Waymo in its own app.

Help

  • Emergency — 911 (any emergency).
    TravelCharika is not an emergency service: we cannot call for help or send anyone. Numbers can change; if one fails, ask someone local or your hotel.

Put together by hand from the sources listed, checked 7 October 2026. Apps, cards and rules change, so check before you rely on one.

Sources (50)

Glacier National Park in pictures

Glacier National Park HCP October 23, 2022 002
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Vulturesong, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Glacier National Park HCP October 23, 2022 001
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Vulturesong, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Around Glacier National Park

Also in United States

Nearby

Kind of place

Glacier National Park is in United States, North America. Distances are great-circle, so a short one can still be a long way round.

Links marked Ad pay us a commission if you book through one, at no extra cost to you. That does not affect the scores on this page, which are computed from climate and holiday data before any link is built.