Road trip: Salt Lake City to Glacier National Park and back one week.

[Suz Little]

Seeking, Suggestions of routes, must see places and lodging favorites. (Other than Yellowstone)

[DonnaR57]

Welcome to RTA!

One thing you might notice around here: "must see"s are not something we subscribe to. Your "must see" might be totally different from my "must see". For instance, just thinking aloud, I'd want to go to the Fort Hall replica near Pocatella, stop at Gates of the Mountains Recreation Area in Montana, hit the Great Falls Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center, then head over to the east side of Glacier Park. Drive across Going to the Sun Road, over to Kalispell, head south and stop at Flathead Lake, head down US-93 and US-20 (Stopping at Craters of the Moon National Monument), take that back to the 15, and head south for home. There's more in there than a week's worth, too.

If you include Yellowstone in the mix, you probably don't have time for anything else. Yellowstone is a day's drive from SLC. It takes a good 2-3 days to see the highlights (the thermal features including Old Faithful, the waterfalls including Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, and Mammoth Hot Springs). Another day to drive up to Glacier, another day to see Glacier, then it's a little more than a day's drive home via the fastest route.

For lodging, if you plan to stay in either park, it's late in the season to make those reservations. You could be lucky and get in on someone else's cancellation. For Yellowstone, outside of the park, you might want to check on places in West Yellowstone, MT. We stayed at the One Horse Motel when we were there two years ago, the folks were nice, they did a small continental breakfast, but the rooms were very small, too. For Glacier Park, you could stay in East Glacier Park, MT, St Mary MT, or on the west side of the park at West Glacier or even as far out as Kalispell.


Donna