Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Glacier NP and Banff family vacation

About 10 years ago we camped - mostly on the west side of GNP at lakes - for about a week with daughter, son in law and three grand kids and enjoyed all the best of beautiful scenery, fishing, wildlife, etc.. It was near fabulous.

After a while, the summer presence of fellow tourists became a small nuisance, so one day we took a drive about 40 miles up the north fork of the Flathead almost to the Canada border and found Kintla Lake. Well worth it for us. Almost no one else there, great camping sites right at the lake, excellent fishing. If you want to try that, go north on Camas Rd, then N Fork Rd and then Inside North Fork Rd.

My wife and I are going this summer. We booked our hotel a few months ago; hotel reservations are pretty slim now.

The roads into Kintla lake is now reservation only like going to the sun road. It used to be pretty uncrowded and a nice lake to kayak in the summer. Things are way more crowded post Rona. We used to run to lake Mcdonald in the summer for a evening dip and kayak, not anymore.

Country 20boy: The waters in Glacier National Park are so cold and so clear (and winters so long!) that for the most part "fly fishing" is NOT good!
No weeds - no place for flies to nest, rut and proliferate.
Yellowstone Park has much much better fly fishing.

For an absolute "life changing" experience, rent a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter and tour the "innards" and peaks and remote lakes and glaciers of Glacier National Park!
I've done this and it was an absolutely incredible (life changing!) experience!
Be sure and take the somewhat short hike (3/4 mile?) from Logan Pass Visitor Center up the Hidden Lake Overlook Trail to the overlook.
Last September my friend from Germany and I took this trail and saw Grizzly Bears (2), Bighorn Sheep (4), Mt. Goat (20 plus - need binoculars here) and the ultra-rare (in the lower 48!) Ptarmigan (4)!
Two of my other favorite hikes are the Avalanche Creek Trail (for amazing photo ops of the creek and Avalanche Lake) and the Garden Wall Trail (I always see Bighorn Sheep on this trail and saw two Grizzly Bears over the years here). Remember that Glacier National Park is NOT well "roaded" it is more of a back packers park - I really enjoy the perimeter drive from Many Glacier around the south end of the park back to west Glacier - doing this after travelling the loan road THROUGH the Park (Going to the Sun Road).
Have NOT been to Banff as yet - enjoy your time in Montana and drive carefully.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

We also booked hotels, rental cars, park passes, etc months ago. That is all set, thanks to my wife!

Thanks for this suggestion. I'm always looking for ways to get away from the crowds. My wife believes that we have to hit the popular spots because they are somehow better, but I'm of the opinion that there are other spots just as pretty, but not as crowded or well-known.

Thanks. After looking at several outfitters and some online reading, I'm thinking fly fishing may not be the best use of our time. I'm afraid the learning curve for my girls (and maybe me) would be tough to make much of a half-day trip.



The helicopter trip sounds incredible and I'll check into it, though it may be out of my budget, which is already stretched thanks to plane tickets and the $300/night hotels in the park.

We are definitely planning for some hiking.

"The helicopter trip sounds incredible and I'll check into it, though it may be out of my budget, which is already stretched thanks to plane tickets and the $300/night hotels in the park."

Sometimes you just need to say what the hell and book the helicopter tour. We did this when we took our girls to Maui. The cost of the helicopter tour was worth it. They'll remember it forever. It's about making family memories.

Watch out for the Grizzly bears. This time of the year they like to snack on tourists for lunch.

L.W.

It may have changed but 3 years ago when we went to Glacier, getting park passes wasn't enough, you need to get a an entry ticket to get on the main road into the park unless you entered the park before 6am. They would have a lottery for the entry tickets about 2 months before to give out 80% of the tickets and then a lottery again the week before for the remaining tickets.

We had a tour in the park which gave us access without the ticket, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to get in.

No way am I getting in a chopper flying around in the mountains. A helo is a million parts, all moving in opposite directions trying to beat the air into submission ……….and they have to work twice as hard in the thinner mountain air. 😁🚁

Auto rotate?

Navy guys love planes that hit a moving deck.

Check into the safety record of the company.




Probably gtg.

If not, you make the news in an epic crash. 😎

country_20boy, if you do go to Banff and plan on doing any hiking, be careful where you go. We have a lot of Grizz in Alberta now since the hunting moratorium on Grizz started years back.

Too many now, this couple and their dog were not so lucky last year!

https://globalnews.ca/news/10005074/bear-attack-bad-harrowing-final-message-from-alberta-couple-killed-by-grizzly/#:~:text=Colin%20Inglis%20said%20his%20nephew,named%20Tris%20was%20also%20killed

We stayed in Creston just outside of Kalispell as our base camp back in September and did a full day float on the Clark Fork in Paradise, MT. My wife and i had no fly fishing experience and caught probably 15-20 fish. I would say for someone who hasn't fished floating is the way to go as most of the time your fly is drifting with the boat. We also did horseback riding which was fun, but fishing was the most fun we had the whole trip. We looked at rafting but that time of year the water was low and it was more of a float, we are already close to the Ocoee so we can do that most any time.