Nice! I’m so glad you had such a great trip! Yeah, this is a fantastic loop and super beautiful, but a GPS phone navigation app with the route downloaded is highly recommended/necessary. It would be easy to get lost if you’re not an expert at map and compass navigation. Thanks so much for the comment and happy hiking!

Yup! A great decision. I almost always hike in shorts. Even when it’s chilly I’d prefer to wear more layers up top. They’re easy to remove and then my legs can breathe. You’re correct that the biggest downside to hiking in shorts is if there is a lot of prickly brush to bushwhack through, but most maintained trails are totally fine. Even though part of this trip is "off trail" there wasn’t any dense brush to walk through, so no difficulties on that front. You do want to bring enough sunscreen so you don’t get burned, but a little goes a long way. Honestly, I get this question a lot, but for me it’s a total no brainer. I almost always wear shorts and I love em.

Hi Malle! Thanks so much for the note! Good to hear from you.

As for your GPS question, I’d definitely recommend ditching the Garmin, saving the weight, and just downloading a phone app. We’ve used both Gaia GPS and TopoMaps+ extensively and they’re both great. We’ve had no problem getting gps signals all over the place and they don’t drain our phone batteries much either (just make sure your phone is on airplane and low power mode. You could bring a small backup power bank too just in case, depending on how long you’ll be out there. We like the jackery mini listed in our gift guide and top picks page). I’d advise downloading an app ahead of time (like right now) so you can learn how to use it and get a little practice with it in the field. It’ll probably take you a couple hours of fooling around with the app and reading online guides to learn how to use it properly. The most important thing to do is make sure that you’ve downloaded the maps for offline use in the area that you’re hiking. Then you won’t need a phone signal to use the maps on your trip. Also, for this hike, I’d recommend downloading the GPX track from the NPS website. It’s easy to do and it will give you the exact route to follow (with one minor exception listed above in our guide). Anyway, sorry for the novel, but I hope that helps! Have a wonderful trip, you’ll love this area. It’s an excellent winter hike. Take care!

We met you guys at the eating area at Bowman lake the day we were heading out of Glacier. This post comes at perfect timing because we are heading out to this loop in December.

I noticed you mentioned gps apps. How much phone power do you get using one? We are doing the three day loop and, although I have a loaner Garmin, it’d be nice to spare the weight.

Best,
Malle