Glacier: Construction Reroutes Access to Two Medicine's North Shore Trail

If your Glacier trip takes you over to the Two Medicine area, there's one thing worth knowing before you hit the trail. The North Shore Trailhead is currently closed while crews work in the Two Medicine Campground. This holds for the 2026 season, with no reopening date announced so far. It's worth planning ahead, especially if this corner of the park is part of the hiking itinerary laid out in the Glacier park guide.

In practical terms, you've got two options. The first is a reroute set up so you can still reach the North Shore Trail. It comes with one real catch. It requires a ford, meaning you cross a stream with no bridge. That crossing calls for confidence, the right gear, and a careful read of the water level, which can shift with the season and the weather. It's no small obstacle, especially in early summer when snowmelt swells the rivers. One bit of good news for navigation. Directional signage is in place to mark the reroute, so you're less likely to take the wrong branch.

The second option skips the ford entirely. Take the South Shore Trail and you'll reach the same spots people come to this part of the park for: Twin Falls, Upper Two Medicine Lake, No Name Lake, and Dawson Pass. The tradeoff comes down to one number. Figure on about a mile of extra distance, one way. On a day that's already long, that add-on is worth planning for, especially if you're aiming for Dawson Pass, one of the more demanding high points in the area.

Our advice is simple. If you're hiking with kids, in wet weather, or without any experience fording streams, go with the South Shore Trail and build that extra mile into your schedule. Give yourself a comfortable time cushion and check the signs on site, since these construction setups change as the season goes on.