This summer our big family camping trip was to Glacier National Park.
Glacier National Park is situated in Northwest Montana in the Rocky Mountains. The park has a number of entrances, but we chose to start our vacation off on the East side of the park as it is the closest to our home.
The east entrance is located in the village of St Mary which is just over 3 hours from Calgary.
We crossed the border at the Piegan-Carway Port. As it is a small port, be prepared to wait in a line up during busy summer months.
We had been a little late at trying to book a campsite within the National Park so our first night we camped at KOA St Mary. This campground is not very well maintained, with sites overgrown and lots of Cow Parsnip throughout the sites (beware with little ones as it can cause nasty burns on your skin). It is completely open with no privacy between sites. One thing to be aware of at this location is that the wind whips up in the afternoon so make sure to stow away any loose items before heading out for the day.
St Mary KOA is situated on a lake so can be a nice spot to cool off in the morning or evening.
Being that we couldn’t bring fresh food across the border, we had to pick up groceries after checking in at the campground. The staff at the KOA told us the closest grocery store was Browning. Browning is about 45 minutes from the KOA and with road construction in the area it took us longer.
We found out on our way back that there is a small grocer right in St Mary outside the park gate which had more fresh options than the store did in Browning. These are small grocers so you can pick up your basics, but don’t expect anything fancy. It was sufficient to get what we needed to make meals while on this side of the park.
Our first stop with any National Park is always to the visitor centre to get the lay of the land, pick up maps and chat with the rangers to get a sense of must do hikes. We also like to pick up a copy of the schedule of activities. In Glacier National Park there are quite a number of ranger led hikes as well as kid geared activities.
Of course we had to grab a photo with the park sign. The nice thing about going in the evening is that the visitor centre tends to be quiet, giving us a chance to chat with rangers a bit longer and for the kids to collect their Junior Ranger Books to complete throughout our time in the park.
There are some great views from the St Mary visitor centre along with a number of paths and shorter hikes.
We arrived at the park early enough to find out about the children’s evening program at the campground just inside the park. The kids really wanted to attend. They had lots of fun learning about some of the wildlife we may encounter in the park.
Check back later this week to see what we got up to on our first day in the park.
Have you been to Glacier National Park? What were your favourite spots, hikes or memories?
To read about what else we did on our trip to Glacier, check out the links below:
Day 2 – Waterfalls and a boat tour on the East side of the park
Day 3- Driving the Going-To-The-Sun Road and hiking at Logan’s Pass
Day 4 – Full day ranger led hike to Iceberg Lake
Day 5 – Quiet day exploring the west side of the park
Day 6 – Ranger led hike to Avalanche Lake
Day 7 – Family fun at Whitefish Mountain
Day 8 – Hungry Horse Dam
Day 9 – Two Medicine Valley
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