How's southboud looking this year?

[Timinator]

I'm planning on going southbound this year. How are the snow levels looking in glacier?

[Spirit Walker]

So far it's an above average snowyear up north, overall.
ftp://ftp.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/data/snow/update/mt.txt
The thing to watch out for is how warm or cold the spring is. There will be more snow, undoubtedly. The question is how quickly it melts.

[Marta]

There has been a lot of snow, more than usual. We're betting the Going to the Sun Rd. won't be fully open until early July. The rivers will be very high this spring.

[Spirit Walker]

If you can't start until later (June) you might want to start at Chama and hike north, then flip south in the fall.

[Timinator]

My current expected leaving date is june 15. I figure I can take my time until the situation improves, however my anticipation is starting to take over and I really would like to leave sooner. Would early june be at all feasible or would the river's just be too high?

[Marta]

http://home.nps.gov/applications/glac/trail/belly.htm

Notice that the trail status updates were last done in August 2013. The trails are all currently closed. There is still heavy snow cover in most of the Park. Water levels are fairly high, but will become much higher as snow melts. There was fresh snow yesterday above about 2600'.

[Spirit Walker]

Timinator - you might consider doing what we did (and what the McVeighs did when they made their trail video ten years earlier): start at Butte or Anaconda and hike north for a few weeks, then jump back and hike south. We started in Butte Memorial Day weekend, but we would have been smarter to start a week or two later. That was also a high snow year with a late melt. We hiked through snow, but it wasn't continuous snow. We started the Glacier part June 24th. Biggest issue was snowmelt in the Bob, but we only had to do two detours because of high water.

http://spiriteaglehome.com/cdt99.html

[SunnyWalker]

I am scheduled to start June 20th. Waiting to see right now.