Trail of the Cedars Hike: A Walk Through Glacier National Park's Ancient Forest

Hiking the Trail of the Cedars in Glacier National Park is one of the easiest ways to experience the lush forests of the park's west side. Located along Going-to-the-Sun Road near Avalanche Creek, this short nature trail travels through an extraordinary grove of ancient western red cedars and western hemlocks before crossing the rushing waters of Avalanche Creek. At roughly 1 mile round trip with only about 80 feet of elevation gain, the Trail of the Cedars is suitable for nearly every ability level and is one of Glacier National Park's most popular short hikes. It also serves as the beginning of the much longer Avalanche Lake Trail, making it easy to combine the two hikes for visitors looking for a more substantial adventure.

Trailhead elevation 3,402'

Water filterable along Avalanche Creek near the end of the hike (clockwise)

Don't miss exploring Avalanche Creek along the backside of the loop (clockwise)

Hiking the Trail of the Cedars

The Trail of the Cedars trailhead is located at the Avalanche Picnic Area, roughly 16 miles east of Glacier National Park's West Entrance. Because Avalanche Creek is home to both the Trail of the Cedars and the extremely popular hike to Avalanche Lake, this is one of the busiest areas along Going-to-the-Sun Road. Parking can be difficult to find during the summer, particularly from mid-morning through the afternoon, so hikers hoping to drive should plan on arriving no later than 8 AM during the park's busy season (July through Labor Day).

Unlike most hikes in Glacier National Park, there is virtually no warmup required before the scenery begins. Almost immediately after entering the Trail of the Cedars Nature Trail, hikers find themselves beneath a towering canopy of western red cedars, western hemlocks, cottonwoods, and other moisture-loving vegetation. A combination of wooden boardwalk and hardened trail surface makes the route exceptionally easy to follow, while the nearly level terrain allows hikers to spend more time looking into the forest rather than watching their footing.

The forest itself is what makes the Trail of the Cedars so remarkable. Walking here feels surprisingly different from hiking through many other areas of Glacier National Park. Instead of the drier lodgepole pine and fir forests commonly associated with the Rocky Mountains, hikers enter a cool, dark environment filled with enormous tree trunks, moss, ferns, fallen logs, and dense vegetation. In places, the landscape looks more like the temperate forests of Washington or Oregon than northern Montana. There's a good reason for that resemblance. Moisture traveling east from the Pacific Northwest is pushed upward when it encounters the mountains, producing significantly wetter conditions on Glacier's western side. Those conditions allow a small pocket of Pacific Northwest-style cedar-hemlock forest to survive deep within the northern Rocky Mountains.

Western red cedars are particularly significant here because Glacier National Park lies near the extreme eastern edge of their natural range in the United States. Some of the enormous trees growing around lower Avalanche Creek are more than 500 years old, meaning they may have begun growing around the early 1500s. These ancient trees are survivors of centuries of wildfire, severe winters, windstorms, insects, and other disturbances that continually reshape Glacier's forests. Their age and immense size make the Trail of the Cedars one of the best places in Glacier National Park to experience an old-growth forest.

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The forest also provides an excellent look at forest succession, the gradual process through which plant communities change over time. Long before the towering cedars seen today became dominant, fire likely opened portions of the landscape, allowing grasses and shrubs to move in first. Lodgepole pines eventually followed, while increasingly shade-tolerant species became established beneath them. Over centuries, western hemlocks and western red cedars were able to thrive beneath the darkening canopy. Today, the canopy is so dense that relatively little direct sunlight reaches the forest floor, favoring shade-loving plants such as ferns, fungi, and other species adapted to the damp environment.

Continuing along the Trail of the Cedars boardwalk, hikers pass some of the largest trees on the route while small openings occasionally provide glimpses into the remarkably green understory. Fallen trees are an important part of this ecosystem rather than simply dead timber. As old trees decay, they return nutrients to the forest floor and create habitat for insects, fungi, mosses, and young plants. This constant cycle of growth, death, and decomposition is one reason old-growth forests contain such extraordinary ecological diversity.

Eventually, the sound of rushing water becomes increasingly noticeable as the trail approaches Avalanche Creek. This is where the Trail of the Cedars transitions from a beautiful forest walk into one of the most photogenic short hikes in Glacier National Park. A bridge carries hikers across the creek, providing excellent views into Avalanche Gorge, where brilliant blue-green water rushes through a narrow channel surrounded by moss-covered rock and thick forest.

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The bridge over Avalanche Creek is also one of the most important junctions on the hike. Near here, hikers looking for a longer adventure can leave the Trail of the Cedars and continue onto the Avalanche Lake Trail. From this junction, the route climbs steadily alongside Avalanche Creek before eventually reaching Avalanche Lake, a spectacular glacial basin surrounded by towering mountains and waterfalls. Those only hiking the Trail of the Cedars can continue around the nature trail loop instead, remaining beneath the old-growth forest canopy as the route gradually turns back toward Going-to-the-Sun Road.

The final portion of the loop continues through more impressive cedar-hemlock forest before eventually returning to the Avalanche Picnic Area and Going-to-the-Sun Road.

Because there are no strenuous climbs, the entire Trail of the Cedars hike can easily be completed in less than an hour, although photographers and hikers interested in the forest's ecology could spend considerably longer exploring the route. Benches and interpretive information along the way also make it easy to slow down and appreciate an environment that is very different from Glacier's famous alpine landscapes.

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For hikers with limited time, families with young children, visitors with mobility limitations, or anyone looking for an easy hike in Glacier National Park, the Trail of the Cedars Nature Trail offers an exceptional scenery-to-effort ratio. It may lack the sweeping mountaintop panoramas found on Glacier's more strenuous hikes, but few trails provide such an intimate look at the park's ecological diversity. Between the centuries-old western red cedars, dense hemlock forest, lush ferns, rushing Avalanche Creek, and beautifully carved Avalanche Gorge, hiking the Trail of the Cedars provides a completely different perspective on Glacier National Park—and one of the best short hikes along Going-to-the-Sun Road.