On-line Resource Ready To Help You Plan Your Hiking Treks In Glacier National Park

A new on-line guide is available to help you figure out the hike in Glacier National Park that best suits you. Kurt Repanshek photo.

There's a new on-line resource available that can help you plan your hiking forays in Glacier National Park long before you set foot in the park.

Compiled by Jeff Doran, who previously put together an on-line hiking guide to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Hiking in Glacier provides the lowdown on more than 60 trails in the park. There are details on trails less than a mile in length, to hikes that run nearly 16 miles roundtrip.

Handy charts list the trails by length, difficulty, payoff (great views, waterfalls, lakes), and, of course, alphabetically. You can even zero in on trails in specific areas of the park you plan to visit.

You'll find elevation gains (and elevation profile charts) and Mr. Doran's own difficulty rating: difficulty rating of less than 5 is generally considered to be an easy hike, between 5 and 10 is moderate, and anything over 10 is considered to be strenuous.

"My wife and I spent more than five weeks in Glacier National Park back in August and early September. The website is the result of the 250 miles we logged while hiking to most of the dayhike destinations within Glacier," says Mr. Doran.

Considering how large Glacier is -- it covers more than 1 million acres -- this guide is not all-inclusive of every hike in the park. But it's a pretty good start.