St. Mary Campground

Not a bad campground, but be aware that a majority of the campsites are shared with another person, and there are also no showers on at this campground.

During our stay there, we had some volunteer ranger that thought he ran the campground with an iron fist during the day, as he got upset that I had backed my car into my campsite, as the only way to get to it, is through a C-shaped loop on the campsite, and if your neighbors got there before you, you were kind of out of luck with pulling through. Anyways, our second night there, there was clearly some inconsiderate people playing loud music at 2am, but the cranky ranger was nowhere to be found.

We camped here in mid June, arriving on a Friday evening with no reservation, and had no trouble finding a spot for our 25 foot travel trailer. St. Mary's is one of two campgrounds within the park that offers reservations, and you can check online to see if they are full, or to make reservations.

There were many rigs up to 35 feet at this campground, and they seemed to fit comfortably. Most sites were pull through and offered privacy with bushes and small trees. Loop B was not very shaded, and offered plenty of light for our solar panels. There was potable water, and no electrical hookups, with generators allowed in loops B and C. The bathrooms are a bit older, but clean. We had three bars of 4g Verizon service, and were able to download and work from a laptop from our campsite.

Loop B offered views of East Flathead Mountain, and had open areas of grass, and aspen trees. A short drive, or a longer walk, can take you over to St. Mary Lake, with the option to hike to Red Eagle Lake. The opposite direction will take you right onto Going to the Sun Road, and Logan's Pass. It's important to consider the weather when camping on the east side of Glacier National Park. They are on a separate weather system than the west side, and in our experience, tended to be more wet and windy in May and June.

St. Mary Campground is inside the East entrance of Glacier National Park. Most of the sites are gravel pull throughs large enough to accommodate big rigs and with enough separation for some privacy. There are three loops: A loop has taller trees and more vegetation, but does not allow the use of generators at all. B loop is a little more open, but you have awesome views of the mountains and, as noted, we are literally parked in a huckleberry patch! C loop is also more open, has group camp sites, and the only shower facility. One downside to the more open areas is little to no protection from the wind. It was very gusty during our stay. Generators are allowed for limited hours in B and C loops. There is a dump station and water, but no hookups. Bathrooms in each loop were basic, but clean.

The campground is a short drive or 1/4 mile walk to the St. Mary Visitor Center on a paved ADA path. There are lots of great hikes in the area and you are midway between Many Glaciers to the north and Two Medicine to the south for more incredible hiking. The campground is all about location and makes a great base for exploring the east side of Glacier National Park. The 4 bars of Verizon LTE also make researching hikes/activities a breeze.

Notes:
- When coming to the park Hwy 49 has a vehicle length restriction of 21 ft, which wasn’t signed until we were several miles down the narrow windy road.
- Bring all of your provisions if possible, the grocery store outside the East Entrance is ridiculously overpriced (1/2 gal of milk $4.49, box of Ritz crackers over $6, and a 12oz package of Starbucks coffee was nearly $20).
- We were here in early August and picked two pints of huckleberries in about 10 minutes in our campsite. Just doing our part to make the campground less attractive to bears. :) We made fresh huckleberry pancakes and huckleberry syrup – Yum!

We arrived September 26 and all but Apgar campgrounds in Glacier NP are closed or primitive. That's fine with us as the people are mostly gone too. We stayed at Apgar last night but found it too cold under the trees and lacking the views that the east side of GNP.

St Mary's has great internet a well...4 bars Verizon LTE. Vault toilet is spotless, too. Only the C loop is open right now.

The best National Park Campground we ever stayed in, but only because it wasn't high season yet.
We stayed here during Memorial day, and the campground was basically empty, even with only the C loop open.

The C loop has the best views of St.Mary, with 101/103/105 being the prime spots. In my humble opinion C101 is the best spot in the entire campground: Beautiful views, privacy if you have a rig, close enough to all the amenities without being bothered by the people using them. Also perfect solar. The views in the A and B loop are not as grand, but you have some shade and protection from wind (we had two windy days and they were awning ripping windy. But only 2 out of 14). In the high season the sites may be a bit too close for my liking, at least in the C loop.

Internet was the fastest we ever had in a National Park, something like 25 Mbps up (Verizon). No AT&T coverage until you leave the park.

The road into the park is somewhat steep and bumpy. Do not use the 49, that one was creepy in a car without trailer. And if you go via the Starr School Road instead of the 89 you have less bumps. Just watch out for the wild horses.

The showers were more like lukewarm and they have a 5 minute limit (not enforced during our stay). But hey, showers! They were clean and big.
You can walk over to the St.Mary Visitor Center, which is a nice and beautiful walk.

During our stay the (still closed) A loop flooded on a regular basis due to some rain (really not much rain but a river through the campground). We also had at least two mice a night.

The store up by the National Park entrance had some $8 ice cream and that was about it. It's 45 min to Browning for the next chance of groceries (not less expensive but somewhat more stuff), so fill up before heading here. Nothing much to the north, or in West Glacier. Browning really is pretty much the only option to get food.

We parked a 31ft travel trailer in this spot for 4 days, 3 nights. Unfortunately, you enter the site with right side of the trailer facing the road. We were able to do a 180 with the trailer to have it facing the fire pit and picnic table and upon departing, was able to flip it around again.

With the limited use of a generator (7am - 9am, 12pm - 2pm and 5pm to 7pm), we were gone by 8am and home by 5pm. 2 hours wasn't enough to charge up the pitiful battery we had. Bring solar panels to charge up during the day if you rely on a battery for the water pump or lights or automatically lighting the propane fridge.

The site itself is nice and protected. No views really but you will get plenty of views walking to the bathroom and around the park itself. The showers are not clean or updated, they get a bad review from this camper. The bathrooms were nice and clean - something they admitted to staying focused on. Only 4 showers for 110+ campers - its hard to keep them clean.

The walk to the visitor center was nice and the St. Mary River is nice to put your feet into. All in all - this was a nice campground and we saw many tent campers who seemed pretty happy. We did have a wind storm come into camp the first night. They crop up rather quickly with strong winds, but it only lasted for an hour. If you are planning on tent camping here, make sure the tent is secured with stakes.

at&t customers - no cell service here. If you need it, you'll have to drive 10 or 15 mins north or south and get some higher elevation - then you'll get a signal.

We lucked out and had someone who had an extra spot offer this spot up to us at the last minute and we were thrilled to be in the park! The campground is probably pretty typical of a national park, built before the rigs were very large...and while we don't feel large at 27 feet, the pull through sites are all curved, so many of them are pretty tight fits!
Ours was nestled in a little private cove of huckleberry bushes and scrubby trees (none big enough for a hammock) with no real view to speak of...but, because of the way our site was situated, we were very protected from the winds, which tended to want to kick up pretty good in the late afternoons. We had a fire ring and a picnic table, a resident bunny we saw every morning and the usual chipmunks and such...and a fairly level spot, no hookups, of course, but plenty of sunshine for our solar.
The showers in the adjacent loop were pretty clean, spacious and warm, we used them once to conserve our water!
The best thing about this campground is its proximity to the park, of course. Our favorite day we walked to the visitors center and caught one of the free shuttles (every 20 minutes or so) and shuttle hopped and hiked our way up and down the east side of Glacier. That made it very easy, stress free, and we got to see so much of the park without hassling with parking and such!
It's one of our favorite parks...we particularly love the Many Glacier area, but there, too, the sites are pretty small...and the road getting in is kind of awful!
We had pretty good cell coverage from Verizon, slower in the evenings, when everyone was back at camp!

We enjoyed our stay here a lot. Comfortable feel to the campground. Even went to a presentation by one of the park rangers. We didn't make it to the astronomy presentation at the St Mary visitor center, just didn't work out. Looked interesting though. They had a good size telescope for the presentation.

Loop C has free hot showers available and they are clean and spacious. Short drive from campground to some good hikes and scenery. Due to popularity of Glacier I recommend using the free shuttles that are available as parking is very limited.

The sites in loop C are about 50/50 as far as mostly shady or mostly sunny. Most sites are on the smaller side and are pull through in a half circle layout. Just enough room for small trailer & truck. They also include a pad for pitching a tent, fire ring & picnic table. Verizon data was pretty good here.

For what it's worth - We're just 10 years removed from tent camping so may have more generous rating than those accustomed to higher-end amenities.

It's exactly what you'd expect from a busy National Park campground in the middle of August. It was fully booked and crowded but we snuggled into our site and had a wonderful time. We arrived on a Monday afternoon and upon receiving our site map proceeded to drive the loop road only to find we were booked in a site with a shared drive-way. I guess I should have looked more closely at my booking information. The way our side of the drive way was facing forced us to go back out to the main road and access the loop road going the wrong direction. We spoke to the ranger at check-in and she told us that's how everyone else gets into that site even though she made it clear she couldn't tell us to go the wrong way. From there it was a breeze to back the trailer in. This meant our trailer door was facing the road but the portion of the site with the fire pit (no fires while we were there due to wildfire danger) and picnic table was nicely private. We thought this was a great base camp to explore Glacier. It was an easy drive to the Two Medicine and Many Glacier areas for day hikes. Starting the Going to the Sun road from the east side was a treat as well--just be sure to start early.

We found this campground to be far less desirable than Two Medicine, where we spent the majority of our time on the east side of Glacier. Sites at St. Mary were extremely unlevel (side to side and front to back) and we had trouble getting into the site because of the overgrown shrubs along the sides which scratched the trailer. Sites are highly variable, some with lots of shrubbery and some are wide open, and the sizes vary a lot. Larger rigs are probably best served by staying in Loop C. (Loop A is generator-free.) Despite the shrubbery, there are no trees so we had no trouble with generating solar power.

The best feature of this campground is the proximity to the St. Mary Visitor Center - it's a 0.25 mile walk from the campground on an accessible trail. The visitor center is a shuttle stop on the Going to the Sun Road shuttle, which is highly recommended to access the center of the park. The parking lots at Logan Pass and the trailheads fill quickly so the shuttle is the way to go. This campground also offers showers (functional but not great) for free, which was really nice after days of hiking. We had 360 degree views of dark skies at night during the new moon, and the stars were outstanding. The dump station is modern and well-designed.