Glacier National Park Info

[rfloyd99]

We are planning to visit there in a 27' TT in mid August for a week. I am aware that Yellowstone is a zoo all Summer, but is Glacier really busy also?

Will it be hard to find a campsite or an RV park? We enjoy park/forest service CG's, with or without hookups for 3-4 days, then an RV park for the next 3-4 days with HU's.

Any info or suggestions will be greatly appreciated! I'm planning the trip now, and can try to make reservations in the next few days.

Thanks!

[suprz]

We enjoyed the KOA very much. And they had rental cars onsite

[agesilaus]

kmb1966 wrote:
Glacier is wonderful and we have never found it to be very crowded in late June. But bring BEAR SPRAY and be aware of the precautions regarding bear safety. On the hiking trails, we saw so many bears and had so many close encounters. No attacks, but can be scary at times. Many grizzlies in GNP.

Yeah we did see a bear but it wasn't all that close on a hike once.

[kmb1966]

Glacier is wonderful and we have never found it to be very crowded in late June. But bring BEAR SPRAY and be aware of the precautions regarding bear safety. On the hiking trails, we saw so many bears and had so many close encounters. No attacks, but can be scary at times. Many grizzlies in GNP.

[ppine]

I have only been to Glacier once on Labor Day. I found to be very crowded with no where to park. I went up the Going to the Sun highway and had leave without getting out of the truck.

This park has a short season and the visitors are compressed between late June and Labor Day. I will not be going back. I love Yellowstone and have been going for 60 years, but not in summer.

[agesilaus]

katleman wrote:
Something to consider, if actual glaciers are of interest, you might want to consider time up in Banff, 4-5 hours to the north of Glacier NP. Not too much further given you are coming up from Florida.

That's true, just north of Banff is Glacier Parkway where you can almost drive up to a glacier and you can walk on one and take a snowcat tour over the glacier. One of the big CG will be closed in 2020 tho so that will make it harder to find a spot to camp. Banff itself has Lake Louise a definite cannot miss sight.

[katleman]

Something to consider, if actual glaciers are of interest, you might want to consider time up in Banff, 4-5 hours to the north of Glacier NP. Not too much further given you are coming up from Florida.

[Truckinguy]

Hikes not to miss. Yellowstone. Fairy Falls then past it to Imperial Gyser. Glacier Ice berg lake from Many Glacier. Garden Wall for about 4 miles then return. Also on days with no views. Leave from the Sunset Point and easy hike by St Mary Falls to Virginina falls. Many cascades along as well. Love that hike.

I'll be heading out to Glacier for the 4th time in Sept. Hopefully St. Mary's Campground will have only hard sided vechicle camping due to Bear problems like in the past year or year before. This makes it easy to first come site's.

Last year I was there right after labor day and with the Bear warnings it made it easy to get a site.

I have reservations in Many Glacier at Site #090 and wonder if it will take my shortbox F350 and Lance truck camper ok.

Anyone going to Many Glacier this season? would you check it out and let me know if it's a great site. I tried for a while to get the reservation and finally got it today.

[Gjac]

10-15 years ago GNP was easy to find a campsite, 3 years ago when I went we got there early before noon and the web site and sign out front said full we were able to get one site. For YSNP there are always the NFS CG's in west yellow stone to stay in like Bakers Hole CG and that is easier to find a site. If you stay off site go into the park in late afternoon and drive the wild life loop in the northern part of the park you have a greater chance of seeing animals late afternoon until dusk. We saw about 2 grizzlies and 4 black bears one was a cinnamon black bear at that time. Both parks have good fishing caught a huge cutthroat trout in Yellow stone lake and many smaller ones in GNP along with a 22 in lake trout in a stream also. No fishing licence is required in GNP.

[bobcouch]

Quite a bit of info you don't need - but some you might...
HERE

[rfloyd99]

Great information, everyone. Please continue!

We are definitely going, planning to arrive there 8/14, for about a week. Will no doubt benefit from this information.

Any tips on places to not miss? Hikes, views, etc. Our limit on hikes is about two miles, unfortunately. Lived in Colorado for 30 years, so am familiar with mountain hiking, just getting old...

We will be traveling to Glacier from Yellowstone, and have a week to spend on the way. Anyone have favorite places to see/stay in western MT?

Thanks again!

[4runnerguy]

Many of the CG's within the park are first come, first served. Many Glacier on the east side is a beautiful CG that does take reservations. Currently they have about 1/2 of the sites reservable but by sometime in March the other 1/2 will also be come available. This is a very popular CG that books immediately when the booking window opens.

One useful took that is usually available on the NPS website is the Campground Status page. But it has only worked very intermittently for me in the last couple of days. If you can get it to load, you can see when the campgrounds filled on a daily basis going back several years. Hopefully they will get it back on line as it is a very useful asset to plan when you need to arrive at a given campground. And as mentioned above, you'll have to drive on US 2 around the south end of the park to get from one side to the other a one cannot tow over Logan Pass.

St. Mary's on the east side goes to first come first served in Mid August, so that might coincide with when you'll be there. Rising Sun is another option on the east side Logan Pass road. Apgar on the west is a big CG with good proximity to the Visitors Center where you can catch the shuttle bus. It is worth staying on both sides of the park as they are quite different. West side (the wetter side) has more forests further up the mountain while the east side is more rugged.

If you are going during the summer months, yes it will be busy. Not Yellowstone busy, but there is far less parking so one has to plan accordingly. If you are hikers, use of the shuttle system will get you to most of the trailheads. Using the shuttle one can plan loop hikes. But popular routes can mean quite a queue when you get to the bus stop at the end of your hike. We had to wait 45 minutes when we took the Highline Trail down to the Loop bus stop. As noted, if you want to park at Logan Pass, plan to get there at 7:00 a.m.

[BarabooBob]

We were in Glacier in Sept of 2019. We got to Logan Pass at 7:30 am and were lucky to get the last Handicap Parking spot (wife has handicap card). Everything else was full. At noon when we left, people were arguing with the poor Park Ranger that was telling them that if they parked illegally they would be towed. People were trying to park off road, in the middle of driving roads, all over the place.

[linnemj]

On the east side of the park we really enjoyed the Many Glacier campground within the park. They don’t take reservations so we reserved at St, Mary’s campground and then drove over to snag a empty site at Many Glacier. They refunded our St Mary’s reservation. There are more good hikes on the east side. You can then drive south of the park to camp at the west side.

It is a beautiful park but when we were there in August a few years ago, they closed Going to the Sun road because of snow!

[Addy15]

Glacier can be very crowded, especially in July and August -- prime time there. If you want to drive the Going to the Sun Road and stop at Logan Pass to do some hiking (the Hidden Lake trail is awesome!), you need to be there very early in the morning, like before 8:00, to get a parking space. Really, anything along that road fills up pretty quickly in the mornings. Some say that waiting until late afternoon is a good time too, but then you are limited on how much time you have there before sunset. When we went, there was not one parking space available in the Logan Pass Visitor Center parking lot by 8:30 a.m.

The West Glacier KOA is a great place to stay! However, I see that they are already booking for 2021! It's possible they are already booked full for this year.

We had one very peaceful day in Glacier, away from the crowds at the Fish Creek picnic area. Very few people there, very quiet. Did a little fishing and a long hike along the shore of Lake MacDonald. Beautiful.

Whitewater rafting was one of our favorite activities in Glacier. Did that through Glacier Guides/Montana Rafting. Very fun!

[hornet28]

We pulled into Apgar in late June last year around 5 pm and were told it had filled just a few minutes before. Stayed in a commercial campground nearby and was in the park around 8 the next morning and no problem finding a site. We were there three nights and saw people getting sites into early afternoon except on Sat