Access to the glacier is difficult due to poor weather conditions and the requirement to travel via off road vehicle and then hike on foot several miles to the base of the glacier. The road is impassable for up to 10 months of the year. The Beartooth Highway (U.S. 212) is one of the closest access roads. Two smaller glaciers in the immediate region also have the same species of grasshoppers entombed in their ice; one is also named Grasshopper Glacier, the other simply Hopper Glacier. Other glaciers also bear the name for the same reason, including one in the Crazy Mountains north/northwest of the Beartooths, and Grasshopper Glacier in the Shoshone National Forest in Wyoming.