I’m heading out at the end of this week to do some school work in MT and will probably head to one or the other after I’m done. I’m assuming Yellowstone will be more crowded, but how badly? I’m going to wing it and not make reservations. Which campgrounds are the best, for those of you who have camped at either park? Campgrounds with showers would be nice as the place in MT I’m staying at won’t have any and I’ll definitely need one by the time I visit one of these parks. I don’t have unlimited time but maybe 3-4 days?
Where in MT will you be staying?
I’ve been to both in the summer, though I’ve only camped at Glacier – I say go to Glacier. It will be less crowded, and the mountains are spectacular. I would recommend camping on the east side of the park, which is the drier side. Also, be prepared for cold temperatures. I once camped there in the first week of June and was unpleasantly surprised by three days of snow.
The middle of Montana is where I’ll be - I think the closest town is Roundup. I camped in frost on the coast of New Brunswick a few weeks ago (actually there were many rainy/cold nights on that trip) so I should be OK. I will keep the east side in mind, though.
Your odds of getting a campsite at one of the resorts in Yellowstone during the middle of summer are not very good. You could camp in the backcountry if you wanted to, but of course there would be no showers there. If you don’t insist on staying within the park proper, there are plenty of campgrounds near the West Yellowstone entrance that are less crowded, and cheaper as well. All of Yellowstone and the srrounding areas are gorgeous but generally quite crowded. I’ve heard tell that there’s a population of half a million during the summer months.
Hey, you’re sorta near (by MT standards) where I used to live – I lived off the Northern Cheyenne reservation, 2 hours east of Billings.
I don’t recall needing to make reservations for campsites at Glacier when I went in early June in 2005 and 2006 (though it probably wouldn’t hurt). I think we stayed at the Rising Sun campground on the east side and Sprague Creek on the west.
If you have your passport or other ID, you can also travel into the Canadian side of the park, which is said to be even more beautiful (and probably even less crowded) than the US side.
Did I mention I really loved Glacier? 
Visiting there had been a life’s dream of mine, and I was lucky enough to get to go twice – it’s absolutely breathtaking.
If you haven’t been to either, I’d suggest Yellowstone. It’s like no place else on earth and since you’ve been to the Rocky Mountains (I saw you posting in the RMNP thread) Glacier is similar. More rugged but it’s mountains, snow & water. Yellowstone is geysers, boiling lakes, bubbling mud, and zombies.
Well - maybe not zombies.
Get reservations for a campsite online, first, though. No value in going if you can’t stay there. Staying outside the park may be possible but the park is huge, it’s a long drive in every day.
True, there’s no showers in the campgrounds but the vendor-run campstores at West Thumb (and probably somewhere over near the geyser basin) have pay-per-use showers that’ll just cost a couple bucks.
I don’t know how many people stay there in the summer, it may be a half-million, but they’re spread over a huuuuuge area. Yes there’s people but it didn’t feel very crowded to me. Really, the worst crowds are in the Old Faithful area and even then, it’s not horrible.
Like any other park, if it’s a 15 minute walk, the number of people drop off dramatically.
Personally, I like staying over near Yellowstone Lake somewhere.
I’m fairly certain that you will not find an open campground site without a reservation in Yellowstone. I don’t know about Glacier. Don’t forget about all of the national forest campgrounds surrounding Yellowstone! Stay at one of those and just drive to the park in the morning.
Everybody seems to overlook the national forests areas. They are way less crowded and often have similar facilities and scenery.
Not even close says this article from the Bozeman newspaper.
If you plan to camp in a tent or sleep in your car - IOW, if you don’t have a big RV - my experience has been that campsites in Yellowstone are not all that hard to get on short notice. This park website says:
But note that there are a number of other campgrounds.
Three that offer showers are Fishing Bridge (hard-sided RVs only), Grant Village and Indian Creek.
Here’s a website that gives the current status of Glacier Park campgrounds. They look wide open.
I have to put in a word for Glacier, just because I personally love it so. Beautiful scenery, great hiking, fewer crowds, and a snowball’s chance in hell of finding a campsite without a reservation. (I’d still try to make a rez, unless you fancy sleeping in your car.) Check out the Isaak Walton Inn in Essex, drive the Going To The Sun Road, take a boat trip, or go white water rafting.
But from Roundup, you’re closer to Yellowstone. It has a lot going on, no question – less pure “pretty” and more geological interest (hot pots, geysers). Which is not to say that it isn’t pretty, too; it is. And there’s more observable wildlife, if that’s your thing. They have mountain goats, mountain sheep, and bears in Glacier (among other things), but if seeing a REAL LIVE BUFFALO! means anything to you (IMO, after you’ve seen like three, you’ve seen them all), then Yellowstone is the place.
And frankly from Roundup, the drive to Yellowstone is not only much shorter but also much prettier. If you go to Yellowstone, I’d go over to Livingston and down through Gardiner rather than to Laurel and down through Red Lodge. There’s a lot more going on in the West half of Yellowstone, and the Gardiner drive is prettier because it takes you through Paradise Valley, MT, which is gorgeous. But the Red Lodge drive is nice too. If you look at a Montana map, you’ll see that the most direct route to Glacier takes you through Hobson (metropolis! Not), Great Falls, and Browning. That road is BORING with a capital Z. Frankly, even though it’s longer, if you go to Glacier, I’d recommend zipping over to Helena (swing by the Capitol), Missoula (very cool town), and up around Flathead Lake to Glacier from the South. That is also a gorgeous drive once you head north out of Missoula, through the Jocko Valley, past the St. Ignatius Mission, and down into the Flathead Valley.
Missoula, Kalispell, and Glacier are my old stomping grounds, but, yeah, from Roundup I think even I would probably go to Yellowstone unless I had a lot of time and really liked driving.
Actually, ability to make camping/hotel reservations would probably be my deciding factor. I’d rather drive further and have a place to lay my head. So maybe Glacier after all?
Dammit, I wanna see zombies!
Ever since they closed Zombie National Park you have to go all the way to Haiti for some good zombie. 
It looks like I’ll choose Glacier…I can’t make reservations, really, because I’m not absolutely sure how long I’ll be doing my project near Roundup. My cell phone is not going to work out there, so I’d have no way of changing/canceling any reservations I might make, so I’ve been planning on not making definite plans. I’ll visit Yellowstone when I have more time to plan and call ahead.
There are many smaller campgrounds in Yellowstone that do not take reservations, so it is possible to get a campsite on a first-come, first-served basis. If you could get there early in the day, you might have a good shot, especially during the week. (When we went last year, we had a reservation at Madison, but the posting at the entrance showed that many of the other campgrounds were not full yet.) However, you are right about your cell phone not working there. If you go, bring a prepaid phone card. Still a place for the old payphone at the Park.
Glacier is beautiful, though. I’ve never camped there. I have much more experience with Yellowstone because I grew up near Bozeman.
You do realize that would double the state of Wyoming’s population, right?
I haven’t been to Yellowstone, but it sounds freaking amazing. I saw a documentary on National Geographic or some similar channel, and there are still major features that have not been seen by anyone. In this particular show they went after this waterfall of which there had been some vague reports, but nobody knew exactly where it was.
How about checking the cancellation rules and seeing if they’re friendly.
If you make reservations for a likely range, it may be easy to trim days off the beginning or end.
Both are lovely, though obviously in quite different ways. Well, Yellowstone has some more “normal” landscapes (i.e. not geysers, but green / hills / mountains / water) in addition to the more famous sights. If you have any concerns over winding mountain roads, Glacier can be challenging; the main east-to-west road (“Going To The Sun Road”?) can be nervous-making. Yellowstone’s roads are easier to drive, as I recall (This was 20+ years ago).
One possible advantage of Yellowstone is that if you stayed on the southern end of things, it’s quite close to Grand Teton National Park which is quite beautiful also. We camped there (Jenny Lake campground) for most of a week and drove up to Yellowstone for day trips a couple of times that week, in addition to the full drive-through on the way out of the area at the end of the week.
Anyway - you’re in a win-win situation; whichever park you choose will be great.
Thanks! it seems most of those don’t have shower facilities, and by looking at the weather report for this weekend in the area I’ll be (hot), a shower for me is going to be a definite must if I am to interact with other people by the time I arrive at Yellowstone. Are there any public shower facilities at all in the park, or near that NW entrance? I know at RMNP I found showers open to the public at an Estes Park laundromat.
Zanterra says they need 48 hours notice…if only my cell would work out there…I might chance it anyway and hope it works out.
Thanks all for your help, I think I’ll go to Yellowstone.
If I may, I change my recommendation as to route. Someone reminded me yesterday that the road through Red Lodge is the Beartooth Highway. I think you’ll find the scenery along that route exceeds even the scenery in the Park for grandeur. That route will take you through Cooke City and into the Park at the Silver Gate.
::reprograms the GPS::
Thanks!