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Glacier National Park

Bear grass on Logan Pass, photo copyright Tony Bynum, Tony Bynum Photography

Featured Photographer

Tony Bynum's picture
Tony is a Montana-based wildlife, nature, outdoor commercial photographer based in East Glacier, Montana, whose backyard is Glacier National Park.
 
He spends his days photographing landscapes and wild, free-ranging animals in their natural habitat; there are no captive animal photographs in his archives. Tony's images are published each year on covers of the nation's top outdoor and hunting magazines, in advertisements, and on tourism planners and brochures sent around the world.
 
In 2010 Tony was the Guest Photographer for the Montana Office of Tourism. He has a seasonal art gallery in East Glacier.

Sweeping, grandiose landscapes are a staple of many of the West's iconic national parks, and among those Glacier easily stands out when you look from horizon to horizon atop Logan Pass.

While Glacier's name evokes images of rivers of ice, spend time in this park in northern Montana and you'll find jagged rock bands that help define the Continental Divide, aspen glades, stands of an unusual evergreen -- larch -- that loses its needles in winter, temperate rainforest, and even gorges carved by snowmelt. Avalanche Creek cuts one such gorge, throttling snowmelt spilled from the glaciers that pour their icy waters into Avalanche Lake down two miles to McDonald Creek.

While they say Glacier's namesake glaciers are on the wane and could be gone by 2030, maybe sooner, even without its rivers of ice this park tucked up along the Montana-Canada border is a rugged masterpiece that begs exploration. This rugged, out-of-the-way slice of Rocky Mountain West is part of the Crown of the Continent ecosystem, and standing atop Logan Pass you can understand why. In all directions are jagged peaks, glacially sculpted basins, fields of snow, and mountain goats.

True, its backcountry is roamed by grizzlies and wolves, challenging and demanding in its ruggedness, and definitely not the place for neophytes. Yet there are plenty of front-country vistas and day hikes to entice the novice. You can walk through a dense forest along a crashing creek, make your way across an alpine meadow flecked with lupines, asters and bear grass, paddle across one of the park's 131 named lakes, or count mountain goats back on Logan Pass.

Spend any time in this breathtaking park and you won't be disappointed, whether you're hiking off into the backcountry, spending a night in one of its historic high-country lodges, or simply enjoying a boat ride across Lake McDonald.

Traveler's Choice For: Backpacking, hiking, paddling, wildlife viewing

Camping in Glacier

With 13 front-country campgrounds, Glacier National Park offers more than 1,000 campsites for you to choose from -- or compete for, depending on the season.

Fortunately, the park makes it easy for you to see which campgrounds have sites still available, and which are sold out. In fact, from this webpage you can jump to a page that will tell you what time of day the campground filled, which is good for planning purposes.

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The Essential RVing Guide

The Essential RVing Guide to the National Parks

The National Parks RVing Guide, aka the Essential RVing Guide To The National Parks, is the definitive guide for RVers seeking information on campgrounds in the National Park System where they can park their rigs. It's available for free for both iPhones and Android models.

This app is packed with RVing specific details on more than 250 campgrounds in more than 70 parks.

You'll also find stories about RVing in the parks, some tips if you've just recently turned into an RVer, and some planning suggestions. A bonus that wasn't in the previous eBook or PDF versions of this guide are feeds of Traveler content: you'll find our latest stories as well as our most recent podcasts just a click away.

So whether you have an iPhone or an Android, download this app and start exploring the campgrounds in the National Park System where you can park your rig.