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Galcier N.P Advice

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Pulling behind Motorhome

Lost trailer left turn and brake light

Weve decided to take our family vacation to Glacier National Park this year. We're going to be on the East side of the park near St. Mary for a few days, maybe slide up into Canada for a couple of days, then meet some friends from Oregon on the west side of the park near Kalispell. My question is; Is the "Road To The Sun" safe for an 08 dually to pull a 25' Coleman TT over?... or do I need to take Hwy 2 across the south side of the park? I'm not so much worried about the truck as I am the truck and trailer combo.



While we're on the East side, we're pretty much flying by the seat of our pants, meaning we've made no campsite reservations and have no itinerary. We've never "not planned" a trip, so I'm really looking forward to this style of RV-ing. That said, does anyone have some campsite recommendations? The only requirement would be fairly easy accessability for the truck and trailer,... and maybe, but not mandatory, some potable water on site.



Our kids are 18 and 15, and my wife and I are both in our 40's, so if there are any "must see's" or "must do's" for anywhere in or around the park, please chime in. We'll take a pass on any shear faced freestyle mountain climbs, but if you know of some good outfitters for river-rafting or horse-backing, some short hikes or museums, or a good place to get a good sit down meal (steak) with a beer (ale) that would be helpful too.



Thanks in advance to everyone.
 
If you look at any Montana map, you will see that the "Going to the Sun Hyw", is closed to any truck or RV 8' wide and something like 24' long. If you unload the trailer at a campground in St. Mary's, I believe that your dually will be too wide to go through. By all means get campground reservations or you won't find a place to stay. I prefer staying at a campground on the westside, then take the tour bus across the "Going to the Sun Hyw". You'll enjoy the tour buses, with are refurbished 1929+/- Ford stretched limos. If you do drive it, and I have, you won't enjoy the tour and you'll have white knuckles. Make reservations for the tour also, you'll be glad you did. Have fun.
 
The length limit is 21'. They do check it and you don't want to be longer anyhow. My avatar picture is my truck on the going to the sun road. I had to pull off my hitch hauler to make the limit. I would not even consider taking a dually over the road.



Phil
 
I drove my 99 F350 dually through the park, across the Going To The Sun Road (both directions at busy times of the day) and to the most remote parts of the park without a problem. Yea, a few of the turns on the GTTSR are pretty tight with cars in the other lane, but its pretty doable. Waved to every park ranger we saw, and they just waved back.

PS, good luck on "flying by the seat of your pants" on the no reservations deal. Depending on when you go, it can get pretty hard to find openings anywhere. Its definitely an awesome vacation though.
 
Be sure to take some good binoculars and/or spotting scope. We spent a whole afternoon up there on the side of a road, sitting in lawn chairs. We had the spotting scope set up on the hood of the truck watching grizzlies on the mountain above us. We had two pair binocs and one spotting scope, and used them all. Just two of us (me and the wife), but somebody always stopped by to ask what we were watching. We were there about 5 hours and counted 22 grizzlies (some boars, some sows and cubs) graze their way across the meadow above us. Some were about a mile away, some were only a hundred yards. One of the best afternoons we ever spent!
 
Just watch out for the grizz, they do occasionally EAT tourists in the Glacier. They (the grizz) are not politically correct. :-laf:-laf:-laf

Have fun on your trip, it's a great national park:)
 
But Grizzly lives in Alburqurque! Oh wait, you were talking about BEARS I guess.

Just watch out for the grizz, they do occasionally EAT tourists in the Glacier. They (the grizz) are not politically correct. :-laf:-laf:-laf

Have fun on your trip, it's a great national park:)
 
Be sure to take some good binoculars and/or spotting scope. We spent a whole afternoon up there on the side of a road, sitting in lawn chairs. We had the spotting scope set up on the hood of the truck watching grizzlies on the mountain above us. We had two pair binocs and one spotting scope, and used them all. Just two of us (me and the wife), but somebody always stopped by to ask what we were watching. We were there about 5 hours and counted 22 grizzlies (some boars, some sows and cubs) graze their way across the meadow above us. Some were about a mile away, some were only a hundred yards. One of the best afternoons we ever spent!







That sounds exciding. I wish I knew exactly where you pulled off the road to spot the grizzlies. We will be going again soon because we love Glacier NP. We can sit on our new Tailgator spotting Grizzlies and other wild life.
 
Grizzly... wish I could help you, but I don't think I could find the place again for sure. That was 5 or 6 years ago. All I remember for sure is that it was not too far from one of the "village/shopping/camping" areas. Don't even remember which one. It sure was fun though. Lots of people just buzzed by and didn't even notice the close bears, much less those over a mile away. We would find them with the binocs, then zoom in with the spotting scope.

Anytime we would see a likely meadow, we would pull over if there was room and start glassing. Found lots of deer, some elk. Looked for sheep and goats but struck out there.

ADugan... my best advice would be to not be in a hurry. Get the whole family in on spotting for animals so you can concentrate on the road. Keep the binocs handy. Sometimes if we had not had them sitting in our laps when we saw something, it would have been too late to dig them out. Most of all, enjoy yourselves.
 
There will be 6 of us traveling and camping there in July - reservations made last year! I have been planning this trip for a couple of years.
 
Grizzly... wish I could help you, but I don't think I could find the place again for sure. That was 5 or 6 years ago. All I remember for sure is that it was not too far from one of the "village/shopping/camping" areas. Don't even remember which one. It sure was fun though. Lots of people just buzzed by and didn't even notice the close bears, much less those over a mile away. We would find them with the binocs, then zoom in with the spotting scope.



Anytime we would see a likely meadow, we would pull over if there was room and start glassing. Found lots of deer, some elk. Looked for sheep and goats but struck out there.



ADugan... my best advice would be to not be in a hurry. Get the whole family in on spotting for animals so you can concentrate on the road. Keep the binocs handy. Sometimes if we had not had them sitting in our laps when we saw something, it would have been too late to dig them out. Most of all, enjoy yourselves.







Thanks Radshooter, I appreciate the feed back. We were there two years ago on our way to Alaska. We didn't see any grizzlies in Glacier NP, but we did see 12 or more at Denali NP and 50 to 70 at Katmia NP in Alaska. We sat at the river bank watching the bears fish for salmon right in front of us.



Jumbo Jet, have fun, that's a great National Park.
 
Thanks for everyone's comments. I never thought about a spotter's scope, but I'll pick one up before we leave. Again, thanks to everyone's input, we've decided to take the road to the sun with just the truck and the four of us so we can take our time spot animals. We'll take the tour-bus when we meet up with our friends. They've got 6 kids ranging from 4 to 19 (all girls) so the novelty of the bus and the tour should keep the younger ones busy. Plus, their dad just got back from an 18 month tour in Iraq as a field medic, so they'll be crawling all over him anyway. Looks like we'll head south around hwy 2 when we meet up with them.



I may have led everyone on when I said "by the seat of our pants". We've got reservations on the west side with our friends, just not on the east side. We leave on the 19th of June so I'll keep an eye on the thread for any more comments... Jumbo Jet we get back on July 6th so hopefully if we see anything I can give you a heads up then. Thanks to all!!
 
My wife & i will be there in about 2 weeks. We really are winging it. Plan to park our toy hauler in kalispell & ride the ktm 950 through the park. Looking forward to it!
 
Me and my wife will be there about August 6 to Aug. 9. . Doing a whole loop from here in Salt Lake to the northwest in the toy-hauler. about 2900 miles. Will be staying at the fish creek campground on the west side.

Thanks for the advice of a spotting scope. Any Idea on how much they are?
 
The comments on Galcier are great... there isn't a road there that I don't think I would worry about if your a good driver with a trailer...

There's a couple of roads around Yellowstone that I would never tow anything unless it had air brakes...

Understand the laws regarding fresh food going into Canada and back to the US... .

Understand the gun laws going into Canada... if they see a spotting scope expect a look through for sure...

I cross into Canada 30 times a year... Passport, passport, passport..... if you take a pet... get a statement from a vet... Expect an inspection of the trailer going both ways... the Canadians seem to be worse for the fresh food thing... .

When we travel with the trailer into Canada we don't put anything in the fridge, (meat, veggies... thats fresh) and buy just what we'll use in Canada... and the same coming back...

Hope this helps...
 
"Road going into the sun" probably won't be open to at least mid July. My wife and I rode our bikes on it and there are still avalanches across the road. Due to construction there are many spots that there is only one lane of the road, as in the other lane is dug up and not there at all. Glacier is definately a beautiful area with lots to do. We have been here since last Wednesday and haven't done as much as we would like, but have done a lot. We are going to come back here many more times, that is for sure!Oo.
 
Just got back Saturday the 5th. The Going To The Sun Road opened the last day we were there on the 2nd. Got a great pic of a bighorn sheep checking out my truck near the Weeping Wall. There is a section on the West side of Logan's Pass where only one lane is open... and it's tight for a dually!!



The East side is the place to spot animals. It's not as densely forested as the west side. Using the spotter scope ($150. 00) we saw 3 grizzly total on two different occasions about 10-12 miles in on the Going to the Sun Road (From the East) up high on the mountains in the grass. We could barley see them with the naked eye. Other people were stopped and pointing or we never would have saw them.



Spotted or fist bull moose on the way back from the Prince of Whales hotel in Canada right along the side of the road. Saw several more in the park after that. Go to Goat Lick on HWY 2 on the East side for mountain goats. Go the the Weeping Wall for big horn sheep on the Going To The Sun Road. Black bears were all over Many Glacier. Saw a momma and two cubs in the evening one day, and while we were eating lunch at the Many Glacier Hotel on another occasion, we heard the park rangers shooting another bear with rock salt and rubber bullets. Moose, grizzly, and elk seem to come out in the early evening hours. 6:00 PM or so. Goats come down off the mountain at Goat Lick at 6:00 or 7:00 PM. Saw the ram at the weeping wall in the middle of the afternoon.



Going to Canada was really no problem for us, but we didn't have the camper with us. Answered a few questions, showed our passports and we were off. On the way back into the US, showed our passports, declared $60. 00 in souvenirs (Which didn't even phase the Border Agents) and we were back home.



All in all a great trip. The only problem was our 30 amp main breaker vibrated loose during the trip. While we were in Spearfish SD (On the way up to Glacier) my wife said "Do you smell something burning", and at that instant, it tripped. Took the panel apart and it had burned A good portion of our plastic bus bar. We found a 30 amp breaker in Billings MT and I was able to "Dugan-ize" the bus bar with some ACE Hardware stuff.



We stayed in Hungry Horse for the first portion of our trip at the Mountain Meadow RV Park. I highly recommend this park. Privately owned, very nice and helpful staff, and very clean. It's on HWY 2 about 8 or so miles West of the West entrance to Glacier. I will stay there again. We stayed at the White Fish KOA for the last part of our trip when we met our friends from Oregon. Our site was at the bottom of a hill. About 6 or 8 RV's were above us. Remember what rolls down hill?... It stunk and I won't stay there again. Lesson learned.



Want a great steak and an ale??? Try "Shakers Steak and Ale" just West of White Fish on 93. It's no more than 5 miles West after you make the left turn at the light in downtown Whitefish. It's on the left. You'll come around one of several curves and you've missed it. Plan on missing it. Oh you'll see it, but you'll miss the entrance. Be sure to turn around, it's worth it.



I think I've covered most of the trip with exceptions to a couple of excursions we took, so if I can be of any help to someone, just ask.
 
Sounds like you had a good trip!! Congrats. Post some pics when you can. Do you think it was worth picking up a spotting scope before the trip?
 
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