Montana Travel Forum

I'm planning a trip from Sacramento to Banff this May. One possible itinerary was to go through Montana and stay a couple nights in Glacier National Park. Does anyone know if Going to the Sun Road will be fully open during this time and what would the weather and road conditions be like? Thank you in advance for any help and pointers you can give me.

The best way to find out about the conditions of the Going to the Sun Road is to look up the parks site for road conditions. See website:http://home.nps.gov/applications/glac/roadstatus/roadstatus.cfm

Plowing on the Going-to-the-Sun Road begins in April and the entire length of the road is generally open in late May or early June. This partly depends on winter snows, but even more so on late spring snows. I would recommend that you plan this drive, as it is a wonderful one, but also have an alternate route figured out in case the Going-to-the-Sun road is not open. I am sorry that I can not give you a for sure heads up on this, but weather has some say in the opening process.

The actual opening date varies depending on road conditions. I was there in early May last year and the road was only open about half way from the east end. The route around the south side of the park is a good drive, very pretty. You can also go into the park from the south and from the east at a couple of points (Two Medicine Road to Two Medicine Lake was quite spectacular in early May.) There sould be some tips on my VT page, I stayed in East Glacier for a couple of nights.

Even if you can't drive the Going to the Sun Road, the park is very much worth a couple of days to explore.

Enjoy!

David

My experience was that the mountain parks try to be up and running for the last Monday in May (Memorial day). That having been said it is dependant on conditions and it has been a rough winter in the East, Not sure about the west.
I would plan the trip and then if you couldn't do the Going to the Sun hwy you could just go north through Creston and Kimberly to Banff.
If you are camping and are traveling with kids the campground in Kimberly is a blast, and the town is a wonderfull visit kids or no.
http://www.kimberleycampground.com/
And fort steel is a great place to visit.
http://www.fortsteele.ca/
Highway 93 is a great way to approach Banff as well.
Have a great trip, and welcome to Canada.

The highest portion of GTTS (through the Logan Pass) is never open before mid-June.

In 2007 the park started much-needed repair work on GTTS and because of this, it is likely that they will not be opening GTTS until July 1 for the next few years, and it will close to the public around mid-September. The road is very narrow and repair work is difficult to begin with. By keeping traffic off the road until July, it gives the construction crews a chance to get a lot more work completed each year. The construction work is scheduled to continue for several years.

There is a link to the website for GTTS roadwork status on my GNP page.