Many Glacier Campground
Glacier NP · national park
How it scored.
What was there.
- No hookups
- Bear box
- Vault toilet
- Potable water
- Tent pads
Last verified on our stay in 2025.
The mud and the marvels.
The drive in took us four hours longer than Google said it would — there's a 6% grade with switchbacks the last 40 miles, and we had the trailer in second gear most of the way up. The trailer fridge gave up after the climb and didn't reset for a day. We lost the milk.
And the bears. The bears at Many Glacier are not theoretical. We had a juvenile grizzly cross through our loop on night two — the rangers had a sign up by morning that read GRIZZLY ACTIVITY: SECURE EVERYTHING — and we lay in the trailer at 11:30 p.m. listening to it work over the bear-box at site A-15 with what we now know was complete equanimity.
The light at the lake. The first morning we walked the 200 yards from our site to Swiftcurrent Lake at 5:30 a.m., and the water was a color we did not have a word for. Pale glacial blue with rose on top. We did not photograph it. We will never photograph it correctly.
The hike to Grinnell Glacier — eleven miles round trip, two of them on a ledge over the lake — became the single best day either of us has had on this trip. The wildflowers at the saddle. A mountain goat at fifty feet. We ate lunch on a rock above blue ice.
When to go.
The campground opens in late June and closes early September. We went the second week of July — warm days (mid-70s), cold nights (mid-30s), and the wildflowers were past peak but still going. Reservations open six months out and book up in minutes; the first-come walk-up loop is your backup.
How to book.
- Recreation.gov, 6 months out, 7 a.m. MT — set an alarm
- For 22-foot rigs: loops A and B; the rest are tight
- Cancellations open up on Sundays; refresh often
- Walk-up loop is C — small, no hookups, fills by 10 a.m.
Worth the detour.
Grinnell Glacier Trail
“Worth the bears.”
Iceberg Lake Trail
“Less crowded; better lunch spot.”
Many Glacier Hotel cafe
“Charge devices. Free wifi.”
St Mary Lake overlook
“On the way out, eastbound.”