Glacier National Park – East Side

We thoroughly enjoyed being able to spend over two weeks in Glacier National Park for a truly amazing experience. We definitely liked the RV Park better on the west side, however, the east side is closer to the most popular attractions and there is less lodging, thus less people. You can’t go wrong wherever you stay in Glacier whether you are RVing, camping or staying in one of the hotels or cabins. We stayed at the St. Mary KOA on the east side, as it is the main game in town with full hook-ups for RV’s. It is only one mile from the park entrance, has a pool, lake access, and is close to restaurants and shops.

Completing the full “Going to the Sun Road” drive was definitely one of our most anticipated adventures of the summer. From the west side, we had only driven or biked to “the loop”. From the east side, we drove to Logan Pass and to “the loop” which is the scarier part of the drive, if you are not a fan of heights, but definitely worth it! It is hard to imagine the amount of waterfalls, wildlife and stunning mountain views you can see from the road and pull-off areas. We saw a bear, moose, and elk from the road. We hiked to see even more waterfalls: St. Mary’s, Virginia and Baring Falls, which were just gorgeous. The Hidden Lake hike was the most unusual hike, primarily due to the amount of snow still on the trail at the beginning of July. It was at least 60% snow and was a little dicey climbing up and definitely on the way down. The hidden lake was very cool, as were the big horn sheep, mountain goats and marmots that crossed our path. Mosquitos definitely surprised us on our hikes, as there were often a lot of them, especially on our Beaver Pond and Swiftcurrent Nature Trails. Two moose walked right in front of us on the Swiftcurrent trail and we waited for a fox to pass on the Sun Point Nature trail. We took a lovely boat ride on St. Mary Lake in a 90 year old boat, “Little Chief”, that gave us a narrated tour, which was very interesting. The best part was being able to get such a close up view from the boat of Wild Goose Island. We also stopped at the historic Many Glacier Hotel and had a snack and enjoyed the stunning view of Swiftcurrent Lake. We of course had to try more huckleberry pie on the east side, which delicious! We hate to leave, but know we will be back to explore further, especially Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada which borders Glacier National Park.

Next stop Kalispell, Montana!