Glacier National Park's remote locale allows visitors to experience an intact ecosystem that hosts nearly all wildlife and bird species that were found a century ago when Congress designated the 1.2 million acres as America's 10th national park. Here at that Crown of the Continent, hikers use the guide to access a mountain pass where meltwater drains to three different oceans. Trail users retrace routes to some 200 sapphire blue or turquoise green lakes, following trails along some of the park's 1,557 miles of streams and rivers and discovering some of Glacier's 200 named waterfalls. The ever-changing landscape encourages trail users, photographers, and nature lovers to return to Glacier to explore glacial tarns as they melt, aspens as they quake golden in the fall, and even recovering landscapes from large wildfires a decade ago. This guide also reveals historically significant information about the park and the trails, culturally significant waypoints, Blackfeet Indian and other Native American traditional use, ongoing scientific research and sustainable practices in Glacier.

Top Trails: Glacier National Park by local author Jean Arthur leads visitors to secluded trails and unique settings while providing details of current and past human activity, wildlife movement, wildfire's importance, and geologic changes that altered the landscape and created America's 10th national park.

The unique approach of Top Trails: Glacier National Park reveals why certain trails wend alongside sensitive meadows or climb above crystalline lakes. The guide leads hikers to backcountry respites, unique to Glacier. The guide also traces outlaws, poachers, and mining ventures that occurred inside the current park boundary.

Jean Arthur travels North America and Europe writing and photographing outdoor adventures for numerous ski, adventure-travel and general-interest magazines covering alpine and Nordic skiing, hiking, adventures, wildlife, history and sustainability. For 15 years, she lived and worked where she could see the sunrise over Glacier National Park's peaks and the Northern Rockies. For this guide, Jean hiked some 400 miles of Glacier's trails during 2012 and 2013, retracing routes she's been hiking for 30 years. She spent countless hours with park historians, Blackfeet Indian guides, and in libraries among historic collections of Glacier's photographic, memorabilia and other artifacts to provide the reader with a glimpse at the cultural significance of the park's 1.2-million acres.

Jean has written two award-winning ski-history books, a cross-country ski trails guidebook and contributed to four travel and adventure guidebooks for Fodor's and others.