RV camping at Glacier National Park, MT, USA

This is the first part of our Second RV trip, this time to Glacier-Banff-Jasper National parks in USA and Canada. Here is the link to the next post (Banff and Jasper National parks, Canada).

Inspired by our first RV trip to Utah’s mighty Five National Parks in Spring 2022, we planned this 2-week RV camping trip to Glacier National Park in Montana and Banff and Jasper National parks in Canada for Summer 2022. Since it was just our family this time and we don’t know anyone at the destination, we carried all the stuff we needed for every weather (Heat, cold, wind, Rain-hail, Snow - absolutely useful), instant pot, my Indian cooking spices and dal, and even ordered online grocery for pick up to save time. It was a smaller RV by Mallery’s memories RV rented on RVshare, very thoughtful as its loaded with water, very authentic Montana’s huckleberry pancake mix and the welcome kit with very popular Montana’s special seasoning, local soap and the toiletries among others. Being summer, the days are long (sunset at 10pm), so we had plenty time to cover places and unwind at campsite at night. We moved almost each day, and as my DH gets busy setting up RV every evening, I would cook dinner, have kids shower and we plan for next day.

Day 1: Saturday, July 16, 2022:

Lucky for us, Allegiant runs direct flights from Oakland, CA to Kalispell, MT. Arrived in Kalispell, we were picked up by our RV owners and given a quick tour in a nearby hotel parking lot. We ran errands at Rosauers and Walmart stores and checked into our Rocky Mountain “Hi” RV Campground. It’s a beautiful campground, very welcoming with the spring creek and its swimming hole at the entrance packed with kids and conveniently located. So, we stayed here on our return as well, and kids were even able to make friends and labeled it the best part of the trip, more on it later😊

Day 2: July 17, 2022:

It was very hot and my DH was under the weather so we rested till 3pm as kids played in the creek and playground, then made trips to Costco, Walmart and drove towards Glacier National Park. West Glacier village at the west entrance has grocery, dining and cute shops for souvenirs, and we tasted my much-anticipated huckleberry candy here. There is also Canada welcome and Information center as Waterton Lakes NP, Alberta and Glacier NP, MT meet along the international boundary and Waterton – Glacier becomes the world’s first International Peace Park. We drove to Apgar campground and played in lake McDonald next to campsite, before wrapping up for the night.

 

Day 3: July 18, 2022:

The park has 7 regions to be explored with multiple entrances: The North Fork, Goat Haunt, Two medicine, Many Glacier, St Mary Valley, Lake McDonald Valley, Logan Pass and we could only visit the last four of them. The road connecting Apgar to St Mary – “Going-to-the-Sun Road” has RV restrictions, so we parked the RV at Visitor center and took the park bus to go to Avalanche creek area, that’s when we were able to see the vastness of Lake McDonald, the result of a once massive glacier today filled with water. We did the Trail of the Cedars Nature Trail in rain, halfway through which my DH and DD1 split up to do the 4 mile hike up to avalanche lake while I took my sleepy DD2 back to visitor center and spent time there. They experienced hail half way but the end result was so worth it.

To go to St Mary Valley, we had to drive around the park via Browning with RV restrictions as I said before, but it became too windy to drive and we stopped on the side. A good Samaritan (forgot to get her number) guided us to a deserted barn area at the end of a dirt road off HWY 464, and we parked there behind the barn as a windshield for the night, hoping and praying the rest of the night will be an uneventful one. She promised to return the next morning to check on us, but we left early to St Mary Campground.

Day 4: July 19, 2022:

It was still windy morning and contrary to the Apgar campground nestled in big trees, this campground is a wide-open grassy area with no big trees in sight. We got ready and took the park bus to Logan Pass which we had to change midway at Sun Point. During the wait, we did the Nature Trail to the St Mary Lake overlook which was windy but spectacular and ride the bus to Logan Pass. As the shuttle drive up to the apex, we saw beautiful carved valleys and waterfalls. The Logan Pass Visitor center is a huge building, very busy, surrounded by snow and subalpine meadows. As we were not prepared to hike in snow, my DH did the 3-mile hidden lake overlook trail, as us girls did the Hidden Lake Nature Trail and played in snow at the visitor center. 

We returned and drove to the Many Glaciers hotel and spent some time looking in and around the once Showplace of the Rockies. Made popular by the “See America First” campaign by the Great Northern railway at the park’s inception time, this place lived up to its Swiss hype with all the Swiss architecture and Rockies resembling Alps on the shores of Swiftcurrent lake. Right off the parking lot, we saw the popular Red bus tours and Trail rides being offered by the Swan Mountain Outfitters, but they were all booked up. Behind the hotel and right off the boat dock is the ticket office for Scenic boat tours for Swiftcurrent and Josephine lakes, which is a convenient way to get to Grinnell Glacier Trailhead. Advanced reservation here is required as ticket office is DAY OF sales only with a small daily number of walk-up tickets available via a waitlist. We confirmed our boat rides for the next day and went to Many Glacier Campground for the night.

Day 5: July 20, 2022:

My DH took an early morning boat ride to do the Grinnell Glacier hike, which was not as strenuous and he even met a 90-year-old hiker on the way. I took our girls on a later one (instead of Swiftcurrent Nature Trail) and we enjoyed the boat ride and took pics. The first boat took us along Swiftcurrent lake and after a ¼ mile walk over a hill, another boat awaited to take us around Lake Josephine. We hung out at the hotel, did shopping at café and gift shop downstairs as we waited for my DH to join. Back to the campground, DH and I hiked to Redrock Falls leaving kids in the RV as the older one watched over the younger one nap. Evening we went back to hotel for kids to play at the lake for a while, then did laundry, showers and went to bed excited for Canada next day.