I am a little late to get this posted, but back in September my sister, her fiancee, and their friend joined me on a backpacking trip in Glacier National Park. Our original plans ended up getting scrapped due to fires and bear activity. The park service did an awesome job re-routing us so we could still complete a multi-day trip. We ended up with a 3 night trip in the Belly River / Many Glacier area. None of our days required a lot of hiking which was good for me as I was fighting off a cold 🙁

We started our trip at the Chief Mountain/Belly River trailhead and hiked to the foot of Elizabeth Lake. From Elizabeth Lake, we hiked to the Bear Mountain overlook and then onto the head of Glenns Lake. The next morning we made a short trip up to Mokowanis Lake before going to our final campsite of Cosley Lake.

We saw a moose within the first mile of starting our hike…

The first few miles were mostly walking through sections of forests which then opened up into big fields. We saw a black bear in one field, but he was too far off to get a good photo.

We made sure to report our bear siting at the ranger station

Shortly after, we reached Belly River where we had to cross a swinging bridge.

We followed the trail for awhile along the river.

We eventually came across a waterfall. I believe it is named Dawn Mist Falls?

We eventually made it to camp at Elizabeth Lake. We hung out beside the lake for a bit hoping for a good sunset, but didn’t see much. It was still a nice view.

The next morning we started our hike to Glenns Lake. We had to backtrack slightly so we got to see the waterfall again.

Instead of crossing the swinging bridge like we had the day before, we continued along the river until we came to Cosley Lake.

We had to take our shoes off to cross the creek at the lake. Brrrrrrr. It was a little chilly. We set one the rocks for a little bit after soaking in the sun and letting our feet dry off before putting our boots back on and continuing on.

Since Glenns Lake wasn’t much further and it wasn’t even lunch yet, we decided to take a detour to Bear Mountain Overlook and have lunch there. It is a bit of a climb up there, but the view makes it worth it.

Clouds started forming as we climbed down the mountain. Glenns Lake was only a few miles away, but had clouded over by the time we arrived.

The next morning we decided to leave our stuff at Glenns Lake and hike to Mokowanis Lake. The sky was still very clouded over so we weren’t sure how much we would be able to see.

We ran into a deer along the trail – he seemed to be more interested in eating and completely ignored us.

From there we headed back to camp, grabbed our stuff, and headed to Cosley lake for our final night. I didn’t take many photos as most of our trail was backtracking from the day before.

At the end of the evening, we got to sit by Cosley lake and watch the last rays of sun hit the mountains. It was the best (and only) sunset we had the entire trip.

I believe Cosley Lake is also where we were awoken during the night to the bugle of an elk. And then some nice fog across the lake in the morning!

From Cosley Lake, we headed back to our original start – Chief Mountain/Belly River trailhead. We got an early start as we needed to find a campsite for the night (see note above about fires/bear activity) and knew that meant we had to get to the permit office early.

We passed a nice waterfall before joining back in with the original trail we came in on.

And then some supplies being brought in…