Johnson's Campground - Review

[DaveC]

40 dollars a night for camping is madness.

I'm with you on that one.

Same question for you as for Dave.
So What?
What's the alternative? You gonna commute from Bozeman?

pocketlint

I agree; there is no good alternative on the east side, which is unfortunate.

My answer is to never front country camp on the east side. Car camping is a bit on an oxymoron anyway.

The answer for you Pete is to stealth camp out of your truck in the Many Glacier hotel parking lot. Should work for others as well.

[Pocketlint]

I agree; there is no good alternative on the east side, which is unfortunate.

My answer is to never front country camp on the east side. Car camping is a bit on an oxymoron anyway.

The answer for you Pete is to stealth camp out of your truck in the Many Glacier hotel parking lot. Should work for others as well.

Ummm
I think I'm too old, and too tall, for camping in my truck. I did that in a truck I owned back East. It sucks.
Then there's the problem of the nit-pickin "Law Enforcement Rangers" and their arbitrary enforcement of all the GNP "rules".
I don't get along with those guys very well.
Which in turn is why I don't camp in the park's front country camp grounds these days....I may wind up in Judge Molloy's Federal Courtroom in Missoula

pocketlint

[Littlejohn Dsgn]

40 dollars a night for camping is madness.

Heck you should see some of the camping fees in Oregon.

[pitamakan]

The answer for you Pete is to stealth camp out of your truck in the Many Glacier hotel parking lot. Should work for others as well.

Heh ... reminds me of a night many, many years ago, when I spent a stealth night sleeping in one of the GPI red buses parked at Many Glacier. (Note that I do NOT recommend this!) I was working for GPI at the time, and would have likely been fired had I been caught.

That said, even though I'm advancing in years myself, I can still stretch out just fine in my Subaru, and would definitely do that before spending too much money to camp down the road from an overflowing dumpster in bear country. More likely, though, I'd check Cut Bank for a spot, and when that failed I'd head down to find some Forest Service land ...

[trevbo]

The answer for you Pete is to stealth camp out of your truck in the Many Glacier hotel parking lot. Should work for others as well.

Except:

Then there's the problem of the nit-pickin "Law Enforcement Rangers" and their arbitrary enforcement of all the GNP "rules".

There's nothing worse than waking up to red and blue flashing lights . Maybe you can get away with it in the back of a truck with a topper, but definitely not in a steamed-up-windows-station wagon!

Consider rolling up to Duck Lake lodge and paying the tent fee even if you're just sleeping in your car. Won't have to worry about your name going on the 'bad' list!

[trevbo]

On a slight tangent, what's up with the Chewing blackbones campground on the east side? Is that place open?

[pitamakan]

You know, one of the summers I worked in the park two friends of mine camped a little ways from St. Mary, and they were attacked and killed in the middle of the night by a predatory bear that had been feeding from unsecured garbage containers in the St. Mary area. Nobody had reported any complaints about that bear prior to that night, either.

The thing is, the Park Service monitors bear activity in the areas under its jurisdiction pretty carefully, and so there's a very high level of information available about bear activity within the park, especially compared to the near free-for-all conditions that exist just to the east. Because of that, it's disingenuous to point to the park's info and imply that it suggests problems ... it's more accurate to say that the info is getting out because the park is doing things right.

Of course, the park would have fewer issues like that to worry about if more visitors respected the rules and appreciated the spirit behind them, rather than just complained about them ... but that's not the way humans work.

[trevbo]

Y'all kill me. Are y'all really THAT cheap?

Lighten up fuzzball ! Duck Lake Lodge is only a 5 minute detour (for me) coming from the North while driving through Babb. (It's actually just after Babb on that road to Browing. So you're really not burning that much gas if you were looking at alternatives to camping on the east side. Moreso for alternatives to Many Glacier rather than St. Mary. Check it out and tell me I'm wrong. The 'lodge' is not actually on Duck lake and maybe it's not for everyone but it's a practical alternative. And I agree, it's a good thing to support private enterprise.

[Littlejohn Dsgn]

I joked with my family every time we entered the park and passed the Entering Bear Country sign "OK girls start looking for bears" was my standard line every morning. If you think you are safer inside the park because of the rules, well its ok to be naive I don't see how one area can be safer then the other. We took a drive around most of the campgrounds while there. It was not uncommon to see issues that even we could spot (and we didn't even know all the rules for staying inside the park). We also visited quite a few campgrounds outside the park, and we marked most of those as places to look into for our next visit. I don't think any of the in park campgrounds made our list (back country sites are an exception).

[DaveC]

Y'all kill me.
Are y'all really THAT cheap?

The impact on my wallet has little to do with it. There are a number of things I refuse to support in this world, because people should just know better. Paying more than 10 bucks for camping under any circumstances which do not involve a complimentary sauna and firewood is one of them.

I've had this opinion since around age 7.

[Tara]

I'm not going to try and quote everything but some thoughts and opinions:

-Camping with a family of 5 (or any kids) changes your options sometimes...we had already done dispersed, BLM, absolutely no amenities type camping on this trip. Somehow, I'm fine doing that in some places but not in Glacier...we want to be close to or in the park and have showers. We are fine really roughing it in other places. But we expect certain things when we pay that kind of price. We didn't get it at Johnson's.

-I disagree with the thoughts on people not being safer from bear problems in the park. I think there is plenty of information out there that supports the fact that bears who have gotten human food often end up as problem bears and can be dangerous. Bears learn a food source one time...and remember it. So once they learn to associate humans with food, they won't forget that. If they get food from someone's backpack one time, any backpack is a potential food source. Glacier does a very good job making sure that garbage is secure and that bears are unlikely to obtain food from park campground dumpsters and campsites...that's why they patrol the campgrounds looking for people who have left food out. You can't control everything, but by providing the information, safe storage places (bear boxes...although not enough of them yet) and bear-proof garbage cans, I believe they are greatly reducing the chances of having bear incidents in campgrounds. I haven't read a lot about the bear in Fish Creek yet but it sounds like they followed their policy and did what they had to do to prevent further problems with this bear. I don't agree with everything the park does regarding bears...there is a griz that has been hanging out close to the Many Glacier road for weeks now and they are encouraging people to get out of their cars and see him when he is too close to the road...that bear is becoming far too habituated, in my opinion. But I still think they do a good job for the most part. I know someone who was in the park last week and there was a griz in St. Mary near the lodge. This is exactly why that garbage storage at Johnson's is a problem. They have a responsibility to their campers. And to the bears, in my opinion.

[Jen]

Of course, the park would have fewer issues like that to worry about if more visitors respected the rules and appreciated the spirit behind them, rather than just complained about them ... but that's not the way humans work.

Agreed.

[July Guy]

Tara, I am sorry this topic got so far off track, thank you for posting your review on the campground and your personal experience, knowing personally I suspect it was spot on and have no reason to doubt anything in your review.

Dave

Yes. Thank you Tara.

[missguinness]

Tara, thanks for your thoughts on Johnson's. We have reserved one of the cabins for a night. We wanted something inexpensive where we could spread out the gear before our next backpacking trip. I will be curious to see how the conditions with the cabins when we get there.

[brindledog]

Jay W,
Not sure which part of your post you are challenging two people to recognize as far as the reference, but if you mean "Last Chance Texaco," I'm with you!