Help with Glacier Nationa Park Itinerary
 

We will arrive in GNP via the East entrance and currently have reservations for two nights in East Glacier Park and one night in West Glacier.

Question: Which is better? Spend two nights in East Glacier, drive Going To The Sun Road and spend third night in West Glacier before going down to Yellowstone.

Or, spend one night in East Glacier, drive GTSR the next day, spend the second night in West Glacier, then drive GTSR back and spend the third night in East Glacier before driving down to Yellowstone?

We will spend one night each in Livingston and Great Falls before going to GNP and one night in either Bozeman or Livingston on the way to Yellowstone.

We have to do the parks in that order because of YNP reservations made months ago. WE didn't decide to go to GNP until 2 weeks ago.

Also, we have reservations at Mountain Pine Motel in East Glacier, although I still am trying to get into St. Mary or Rising Sun Motel. Has anyone heard of Mountain Pine?

Thanks!

I prefer the west side of Glacier....but that could just be me.

Utahtea

ttt

We stayed on the West Glacier side, and I preferred it. We did the GSTR one day and visited St. Mary. It didn't have the same feeling, it was a bit desolate as you looked to the east. Haven't heard of Mountain Pine. On the west side, we stayed at some log cabins in Silverwolf Log Chalet Resort at West Glacier. Their web site is www.silverwolfchalets.com.

We did Glacier for the first time this year and don't really know a whole lot about all the choices. In particular, I don't know about East Glacier. We were traveling from the Columbia Gorge to Yellowstone when we read that the "Going to the Sun Road" had opened two weeks earlier than usual so we changed our route and headed to West Glacier. We spent the first night in the park at the Village Inn at Apsgard (sp?) on Lake MacDonald. The rooms were simple and plain, but the view was one of the best we've had anywhere in the world. All the rooms look across the lake with the snow capped mountain peaks as the backdrop. The next day, starting about noon, we drove the "Going to the Sun" Road, a fifty mile or so trip that took us about five or six hours with all the stops. We had lunch at the Lake MacDonald Lodge; then, near the top the traffic was stopped by a group of mountain goats licking something off the roadway. They generally ignored us, but occasionally would pose for photos. The "GTTS" Road ends in St. Mary. We didn't take the look on around to Many Glacier, and instead took off toward Great Falls after we had visited the park. East Glacier is slightly out of the way for driving the "Going to the Sun" Road; you might consider the St. Mary Lodge as an alternative or one of the two or three outside the park motels in that area.

We are arriving at the east entrance on a Tuesday morning and staying two nights in a cabin at Rising Sun. Our plan is to do a round trip on GTSR the first day, and make specific stops on the second day.