Goat Lick

In the south end of Glacier National Park, just east of Essex, lies a mineral deposit that the mountain goats find particularly delicious in the spring. While driving along Highway 2 near Essex, MT, look for the sign for the Goat Lick and pull into the parking lot. The best time to see the goats is in the spring and you may even be rewarded by elk or other wildlife (but more likely if you come at dusk). It is a short wheelchair accessible paved walk to an overlook, but you can see them from the road as they walk underneath or right at the trailhead.

Goat Lick
Mountain goats at the Goat Lick

Get our sweet newsletter!

(and your free “10 Insider Tips for Glacier”)

Lists

Comments

7 responses to “Goat Lick”

  1. Cheri VanderWeerst Avatar
    Cheri VanderWeerst

    I love how you call July 3rd “spring”…we’re really missing Glacier this year, thanks for all your posts, and letting us live vicariously through you!

    1. hike734 Avatar
      hike734

      Ha! That IS funny! Well for me, I guess summer is just now getting into full swing. It’s really compressed right?!

  2. kelly kralicek Avatar
    kelly kralicek

    Nice little stop… I don’t think I’ve ever been there when goats haven’t been present!

    1. hike734 Avatar

      You must always hit it early season then… right? I have seen elk on the high side of the road before.

  3. Good to know the goats are still gettin’ in their licks. Thought maybe they’d started ordering mineral supplements from amazon.com. Visited Goat Lick twice drove Road to Sun thrice, & road Two Medicine ferry once July 15 – 17. Saw no goats at Goat Lick either time, even with binoculars. (I had the binoculars–didn’t expect the goats to.). Did see 3 intrepid goats very near the road at Logan Pass on one of our Road to Sun trips. We decided we liked the views traveling east to west better.

    Just returned from a 7,800 mi. round trip from Atlanta to Astoria. Picked up Louis & Clark Trail in Missouri & followed Missouri & Columbia Rivers all the way to Pacific Coast (as closely as two retired Sr Citizens can in a Chevy can follow a circuitous river.) Came back thru Glacier, but that part of trip was all too short.

    Since we didn’t venture onto hiking trails, that’s all the wildlife we saw in Glacier, but we did see a doe nursing her fawn alongside the little-traveled Route 1806 in South Dakota, while another fawn watched and waited. This was on an Indian Reservation.

    Good to be home, but we’d like to do it all over again. It was a great trip!

    1. hike734 Avatar

      Sounds like a great trip! Yeah, the goats aren’t there year round. Usually see them earlier spring…. although you just never know!

  4. Looking over your map we received, planning our hikes. Looking forward to our trip coming up Aug 26 ?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.