WY/MT/ID trip recomendations

[Forester]

I hope this is not so far off topic as to need to be deleted..if so my apologies.

My fiancee and I are kicking around the idea of a honeymoon in this general area because it is a part of the country we both have wanted to see for a long time. I have spent a lot of time in northern New Mexico and Colorado hiking and working in the Sangre de Cristo range but I would like to see areas farther north.

Our current thoughts center around trying to see some of Glacier National Park and Yellowstone National park. We are planning to fly out to the area, rent a vehicle and drive from there. Staying in 2 or 3 different places depending on what makes sense.

Because we are flying out, camping probably won't work but for those that live anywhere in this area, are these two parks up to their reputation, and for two people that are not crazy about big crowds and "touristy" places are they a good choice? What else should we consider seeing while we are there or instead? Should we just pick one and spend more time there?

We will probably have 6 or 7 days to be there and will be there in late May or early June next year.

Thanks for your suggestions, we have some time yet to do the planning but it never hurts to get an early start.

 

[Len Backus]

It would be totally non-crowded that time of the year. Very pleasant. But some of the trails may not be open yet. Perhaps others will offer more accurate info regarding that aspect.

 

[Sasquatch]

yellowstone in late may/early june

If we have a good winter parts of the park may be inaccessable without oversnow accomidations in may. The nice part of coming early like this is lack of tourists like you see after July 1. If you enjoy hiking I would recomend you take at least a few days hiking in the park and get away from the blacktop. I never really enjoyed yellowstone until I finally spent three days hiking and seeing what is away from the main traffic.

 

[Forester]

If we have a good winter parts of the park may be inaccessable without oversnow accomidations in may. The nice part of coming early like this is lack of tourists like you see after July 1. If you enjoy hiking I would recomend you take at least a few days hiking in the park and get away from the blacktop. I never really enjoyed yellowstone until I finally spent three days hiking and seeing what is away from the main traffic.

Thats what I was thinking...I doubt that what you can see from the blacktop is going to be all we really want to see. it looks like we will be there the first week of June right now.

 

[MontanaRifleman]

There are a lot of great trails in YNP and Glacier. There are some very nice lodges too. In Yellowstone you could spend a night or two in one lodge then another night in another lodge to see different parts of the park. You could easily spend 2 weeks there are not see it all, let alone the backcountry. Something to remember is you can possibly expect snow this time of year as it is doing right now and a lot of the trails will likely still have some snow pack on them. If you're only going to be here a week, trying to see both parks will be rushed. It's a day's travel (about 6 hrs) from Yellowstone to Glacier.

Flying into Salt Lake will be a lot cheaper than into Montana or Wyoming. It's about a 6 hour drive from SL to W Yellowstone. The drive from Billings is about 2 1/2 hours to the park and about 2 hours from Bozeman.

Have a great honeymoon, you picked a good spot.

PM me if you have any questions.

Mark

 

[Forester]

There are a lot of great trails in YNP and Glacier. There are some very nice lodges too. In Yellowstone you could spend a night or two in one lodge then another night in another lodge to see different parts of the park. You could easily spend 2 weeks there are not see it all, let alone the backcountry. Something to remember is you can possibly expect snow this time of year as it is doing right now and a lot of the trails will likely still have some snow pack on them. If you're only going to be here a week, trying to see both parks will be rushed. It's a day's travel (about 6 hrs) from Yellowstone to Glacier.

Flying into Salt Lake will be a lot cheaper than into Montana or Wyoming. It's about a 6 hour drive from SL to W Yellowstone. The drive from Billings is about 2 1/2 hours to the park and about 2 hours from Bozeman.

Have a great honeymoon, you picked a good spot.

PM me if you have any questions.

Mark

Thanks, we decided to just visit one park instead of trying to rush through both. I booked 6 nights at Glacier yesterday.