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.

Situated on the west side of Glacier, though near Lake McDonald, Apgar is large and heavily wooded, which means there are basically no views from the campground itself. We stayed at Two Medicine and St. Mary and visited the campgrounds at Cut Bank and Many Glacier. All of those have direct mountain views from the campground as well as lake views that highlight the most notable features of Glacier. Apgar could basically be any forest campground in the Pacific Northwest.

That being said, the campground is large and has plenty of room for rigs of all sizes. There is a paved walking path to the Apgar Visitor Center, where you can catch the shuttle up Going to the Sun Road, and the small concessions at Apgar Village. Shuttles on this side were busy throughout the day, so we got in line before 7 am to have any chance to getting up to Logan Pass early. The best part is that data is available in the campground, but is significantly stronger as you proceed down the loops. With AT&T, we had two bars LTE in loop D while we had no service at all in loop A! Speeds were really poor at peak times, however (ATT Download 0.81 Mbps Upload FAILED at 4 pm. At 6:30 am, download was 15.87 Mbps and upload was 2.64 Mbps).

Our site was large, level, had great privacy and even had enough of a clearing in the trees to allow some solar power generation. Being in the last loop, noise was minimal except when there were large parties in the group camping area in loop E. D158 is one of the best in the campground, in my opinion. Access to the campground was easy, and the road into the park to the campground is in excellent condition. As is usual for national parks, there were toilets but no showers, and water was available throughout the campground on unthreaded spigots. There is one dump station for the whole campground that gets busy in the mornings.

Compared to the campgrounds on the east side of the park, we thought this was just OK, but it's obviously the biggest and best option if you want to camp on the west side.

Nice wooded campgrounds with plenty of space between sites.

Clean bathrooms—no showers.

No hook-ups. Free dump station and free water.

Campsites are mostly level and each have a nice big fire pit with grill and wheelchair accessible picnic tables.

You can run a generator only between the hours of 8am to 10am, 12pm to 2pm or from 5pm to 7pm.