I will be in Glacier National Park on 6/19-6/20 and can't find much information on the West Lodge vs. the Great Bear Lodge. Both are in my price range, although "clean, safe, convenient" alternatives are welcomed.

Also, what is the best website to monitor the opened/closed status of the Going to the Sun Road?

Thanks
Mike Honeycutt

Can't gine you rec. on lodging as I live here and naturally never make use of the lodges.
For up to the minute road reports in the park
www.nps.gov/glac/home.htm
click on "what;s new"
click on "current road conditions"

Presently the Sun Highway is closed from the loop to Jackson overlook due to snow, slides etc.
They expect to reopen early this week (13 June)

Great Bear Lodge and West Lodge are part of the same "hotel". Google Great Bear Lodge. Great Bear Lodge is newer and has views of the river. West lodge is more motel like and somewhat less expensive. They are located in St. MArys proper-the east gate tp Glacier.There are other lodgings available near by- Google.One suggestion is Glacier TrailHead Cabins- ore rustic but clean and fairly new.

St. Mary's lodge is right on the main road where Going to the sun road starts. Haven't stayed but was tempted by Trail Head cabins, but decided to stay in east glacier to see a part of the park i hadn't on my last visit.

IMO the cabins seem like a much nicer setting than the lodge.

Be sure to go to the many glacier area, spectacular. enjoy!

John - thanks for the website - it is exactly what I was looking for (and the GTTSR appears to be open again).

Zinfanatic and justme22 - thanks for the update on the TrailHead Cabins.
I ran across them in my searching. Unfortunately, I've already had to reorganize the trip once and will probably stick with the Great Bear Lodge since I'm running out of time.

One other question - the trail to Grinnell Glacier appears to be closed until mid July - Any other trails in the
8 to 10 mile round trip range you could recommend?

Thanks

Mike Honeycutt

although more heavily used than grinell, i recommend iceberg lake. beautiful vista and you may see icebergs in the lake at that time of year, you may also see grizzlies far enough away on the slopes.

it is 10 miles round trip but if you are a reasonable hiker i would rate this as an easy hike. others might say moderate. round trip is 4 to 5 hours but take time at some of the lakes and do it in 6.

I've done both and it is a tough call on which i liked better. at grinnell i saw big horn sheep but iceberg was a more interesting destination.....

a great place for up to the minute inforamtion is the glacier chat page. you can ask questions and get some good and not so good (free advice is what it is) answers to questions.

the site is:
www.glacier.national-park.com/wwwboard/
glacchat.htm