Above the Snowline: Hiking America's National Parks During the Short Summer Window

The Calendar Drives EverythingSummer in the national park system runs roughly mid-June through early September, and the trails worth a long drive sit mostly above 6,000 feet.The low-elevation parks people picture when they think “summer vacation”, Zion, Grand Canyon, and Arches turn into convection ovens that send people to the hospital with heat stroke by mid-morning. The real season belongs to the high country, and the window is shorter than most planners realize.Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier opens around July 1 in a typical year and as late as July 13 after a heavy snowpack. The Wonderland Trail’s higher passes around Mount Rainier hold snowfields into August. Show up at Spray Park in early July expecting dry trail, and you will posthole through rotten corn snow for half a mile if the prior winter was deep.Glacier National Park: Bears, Huckleberries, and the HighlineThe Highline Trail from Logan Pass to Granite Park Chalet is the park's signature day hike, an 11.8-mile point-to-point along the Garden Wall, with shuttle pickup at The Loop.The first quarter mile crosses a narrow ledge with a hand cable bolted into the rock, and hikers with vertigo turn around there every morning of the season.The Logan Pass parking lot fills by 6:30 a.m. in July and around 6:00 a.m. in August. The free shuttle from Apgar runs, but it adds about 2 hours round-trip to your day, which matters because afternoon thunderstorms over the Continental Divide build by 2 p.m.Huckleberries ripen along the Highline and Iceberg Lake trails between mid-July and late August, when bear activity along those trails also peaks.Carry bear spray in a chest holster…A canister buried in your pack or stuffed in a hip belt pocket is useless during a charge that closes 40 feet of distance in under two seconds.Rangers on the Iceberg Lake trail have logged grizzly sightings every week of August for several seasons running.Many Glacier on the east side rewards the drive past the queue at West Glacier. Grinnel…