Autumn Colors

Boulder Ridge

On your way into the Many Glacier area of Glacier National Park, you may notice the dam at the foot of Lake Sherburne. On the other side of this dam is an old trail along the boundary heading up to Boulder Ridge. This trail used to provide access up and over Boulder Ridge to the Boulder Creek drainage and out to St. Mary. Today the trail only goes up to the ridge.

To access the trail, you park at the dam, then walk along the dam on the Swiftcurrent Creek side. Once there, take the road down and look for a trail to your right. If you start hiking right away, you’ll walk up the boundary and see the trail cross. It is a nice little forested walk that’s pretty steep and then dumps you out into a little meadow.

You can walk up the meadow to the summit of the ridge or turn back around. The trail that used to go down is nonexistent anymore. I believe this trail is primarily used by the Glacier Mountaineering Society for trips up boulder ridge and I’m guessing the NPS employees to manage livestock from coming into the Park.

Unless your goal is Boulder Ridge summit or to get every mile of trail, however, I don’t really recommend making a special trip out here unless you just want to see it. 😀

Boulder Ridge
Aspen Grove on Boulder Ridge

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3 responses to “Boulder Ridge”

  1. Mike Kinsella Avatar
    Mike Kinsella

    Another hiker has disappeared in the Floral Park traverse area. Did you ever do that (off-trail) hike? Isn’t that where that Chinese student died a few years ago? I once went down to Hidden Lake by myself, but that part is a snap. There were some steep dropoffs on the other side of Hidden Lake.

    1. hike734 Avatar

      I’ve never done the Floral Park traverse but I really want to. Not sure when, but I will. We’re not sure of the details…. and that’s part of the problem. It seems that one should let others know of your route and you should also be familiar enough with it to stick to it to avoid (or at least keep at bay) tragedy. We’ll see what happens. Either way, it’s a bummer that he’s missing.

      1. Mike Kinsella Avatar
        Mike Kinsella

        We both knew that when we hiked alone in the Glacier back country, we were taking a calculated risk. That risk was really very low but there was always the outside chance of a slip or of a bear encounter. You had quite a few bear encounters (and one wolf encounter) while alone. It seems unlikely after 5 days that the hiker will be found alive.

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