Apgar Campground

The Apgar Campground at Glacier National Park is huge! I was a little worried about it being first come first serve, but didn't have a problem finding a spot.

The sites are far enough apart where we weren't bothered by generators, though it was pretty treed for our solar panels to get much power. (That's why I gave it 4 stars instead of 5).

Overall, great for a few days.

This is a busy park and we were there in the height of summer so competition for spots is fierce. However the campground has lots of spots so as long as you get there early (before 10 am on busy days) you should get a place. Their website has traditional fill-up times so you can plan.

For exploring west glacier this is a great option. from here you can jump on the Going to the Sun, or even better catch the shuttle at the Apgar Visitor Center and let someone else do the driving, so you can sit back and enjoy the scenery. From here it is not too far to the North Fork of the park, which is more undeveloped and less crowded.

The Apgar village had a good selection of shops to stock up on a beer or some milk. West Glacier is a 2 mile cycle ride away and has a better store.

There are a large variety of sites here, with set aside for people without cars, and some that will accommodate pretty big rigs. Most sites are shady and we had some trouble getting any significant solar energy going here.

Some of the campground has a bar or two of signal but we found nothing usable. The visitor center has free wifi that is actually decent if you need to get in touch the with the world outside Glacier.

This is a busy campground in the summer and it feels like it. Lots of people milling around all the time, and I felt that it was a little claustrophobic to spend more time there than was needed to explore the park.

We are sure the views would be incredible, wished we would have been able to enjoy them (too much smoke from the forest fires). The Going to the Sun Road was the scariest road we have ever been on in our life, but is a must drive road with incredible views. The nearby town of Whitefish has the nicest dog park we have been ever been to. This campground is noisier then Two Medicine Creek campground was.

Our only issue was will the forest fires, which made the views not very clear. We left the park for that reason since the size the fire grew significantly.

We will defiantly go back again.

Glacier is incredible. Lake McDonald is incredible. If you come in October when the campgrounds become primitive and all the tourists are gone its really incredible. You can camp for up to 30 days and the rate drops to $5 because they turn off all the services and most things in the park are closed. This applies to most of the campgrounds in the park, but check the park website to make sure. You'll probably have the campground mostly to yourself and can watch sunset and sunrise on McDonald lake everyday. The fall color is pretty spectacular. They usually close Going to the Sun Road mid October so you might still be able to get up to Logan Pass. I was able to the first weekend I was here before it closed. It kind of sucks after they close it, because the best hikes are either up near Logan pass or on the East side of the park and you'll have to drive way around on MT 2 to get over there. If you wait and come in November you they close down Apgar, but you can camp for free at the picnic area right off the lake.

Checked the Glacier National Park calendar on fill times and days of week. Arrive early in the morning to scope out sites. If a site does NOT have a ticket on the site post, generally means that the current camper is leaving that day by noon. Note - current camper can extend their stay up till 11:00.

If you find a site that is occupied, politely ask the current camper if there are leaving that day (assuming no ticket on site post). If they are ask if it would be OK to leave your chair in the site drive and hang your ticket for that day on the site. Be sure to grab a pay ticket as you enter the loop campground.

There is water throughout the campground. The is a dump up front. If you want cell connection, even with a booster, park in the front of the loops.

We had a great pull-though site with 3-4 hours of sunshine for the solar. All in all, we really enjoyed our stay.

You have to be fair: The campground is a good one, especially if you score one of the more private sites in the front of the loops on the right side. We had a big private area for us that couldn't be seen from the street.

But, we were there in the busiest time of the year (last week of July, first week of August). We stayed in Kalispell for the night before heading in to be there early and we got the last site at 9am on a Sunday morning. There is an overview on the Glacier NPS website that states wether the campgrounds are full yet and when they filled up any given day of the year.

The campground is loud, no matter where you are. It is crowded and do not expect the campers to know basic courtesy rules like not walking through your campsite or paying attention to the speed limit. We actually had a little crash right in front of our campsite because the people are speeding through just to slam on the brakes when they see a free campsite.
The maximum stay is 14 days, which we maxed out. We had 3 bars 4G Verizon (no booster), but the network was completely over capacity. Work was only possible midday (when everybody was gone) or at night after 11pm (when everybody was done checking Instagram). There is one dumpstation for 200 campers, expect delays in the morning when people are leaving. Water was available at hand pumps and grey dumps at some bathrooms as well as toilets (no showers).

I would love to come back off season, and then maybe split the stay between here and the eastern part of the park. It takes about an hour to get up to Logan's Pass from the campground, and another hour down to the east side. By that time most of the parking spaces in Many Glacier, St. Mary or Two Medicine are packed.
It is conveniently located though, you can walk to Lake McDonald, Apgar Village and the Apgar Visitor Center as well as the Amphitheatre.

Only A, B, and C loops are open now its half empty which is lovely. Restrooms have seen better days but it's a decent NP campground. However, much better views can be had at some of the other campgrounds on the east side.

Intermittent cell signal with booster.

Apgar Campground has been one of our favorite campgrounds by far. There are no hookups but a dump station and fresh water are on site. Honestly, I like that it doesn't have any hooksups because then the price would be crazy high, I'm sure.

This campground is first come, first serve, so plan accordingly. We arrived on a Sunday afternoon almost 2 weeks before July 4th and had no trouble getting a site. It started filling to capacity the weekend before the 4th but during the week, you can almost certainly get a site. Just have a backup plan in case you don't. It's worth the effort, though.

The scenery is beautiful and wildlife is abundant. Within an hour of arriving there was a deer walking through our site. The rangers warn about bears and enforce the rules.

Rule enforcement is actually one of the things that we liked the most about this campground. They set the rules and enforce them *strictly*. The rangers are very nice but do their job thoroughly. The rules are reasonable and ensure that everyone has a good, safe time.

At this campground, you are within easy walking distance to McDonald Lake and Apgar Village. Both worth while. The Going To The Sun Road starts at the entrance to here and is a phenomenal drive. An absolute must.

The sites can be a bit tight and range from "no way to get anything more than a tent in there" to big enough for larger rigs. Our 31' class A towing our Jeep had no troubles parking.

The only drawback (really, if it is one) is that cell service is nearly non-existent here. Without our booster, AT&T had 1 bar of LTE to just 4G to nothing. With the booster we had 3 to 4 bars of LTE but the tower was so overloaded that it was unusable. T-Mobile had about the same signal but zero data. I heard that Verizon was about the same here as well.

We were here years ago and paid another visit this week. We stayed in C loop which consists of all pull throughs however, if you have anything over 25' or so, you'll likely have to back in. The pull throughs are tight and trees are in the way. A Loop is mostly pull-off sites and B Loop is mostly pull through but looked to be more level and wider. With our 30', I'd plan for B loop next time.

During the high season, Apgar is now a reservation only campground. This made it less stressful than driving around looking for a FCFS spot however because some people don't cancel when plans change, there were a lot of empty spots. Just an FYI, we left a day early and were able to go on to recreation.gov, even after we had checked in, and we were fully refunded for our last day that I cancelled.

I love this campground because it's within easy walking distance of Lake McDonald, the Apgar Village and Visitor center.

Clean bathrooms with flush toilets. People were respectful of generator hours. If you have a campground reservation, take a screenshot of it because you'll need to to get back into the park between 6AM-4PM. You do not need a separate GTSR pass if you have camping reservations.

We had no ATT or Verizon. We even tried the WeBoost and Mimo. However, T-Mobile had voice and text service with no boost and crazy 30-45 Mbps down and 2-3 Mbps up with the WeBoost.

There were no hookups but plenty of water and a dump station as you came in. The toilets were flushing and there were showers in Loop A. We stayed with our 17 ft TT and it was pull through. The sites were far enough from each other to afford privacy. It was a great location to Lake Mcdonald and Apgar Village. Wished we were able to stay longer but would definitely come back again!