St. Mary Campground

SUDDEN CANCELLATION by Recreation.gov. This review is only related to our experience with Recreation.gov, NOT the campsite, Glacier-St. Mary's. To be clear: the stay at the campground was glorious; our experience with Recreation.gov was horrific and frustrating.
We were on the road for two weeks with little cell service. We were staying in Grand Tetons, Yellowstone and wrapping up in Glacier- St. Mary's. A week before our arrival in Glacier we received an email notice (that we did not see) that our reservation had been cancelled at St. Mary's due to flooding in Loop A. I get it. It happens. Been a very unusual winter and spring in this area. What infuriated me was that between four and five days after cancelling our reservation due to the whole loop being closed for flooding, NPS re-opened the loop and Recreation.gov allowed someone else to book our site. We knew none of this and showed up at St. Mary's to be told we did not have a reservation. We later found the cancellation email once we got to a place with service. We scrambled and cobbled together a variety of sites in park and out of park to stay for our four days but it was a nightmare plus exceedingly expensive. I understand the mechanics of allowing the re-booking b/c our reservation no longer technically existed, but there has to be a better way. Do better Recreation.gov. Recontact your cancelled reservations. Try using text notices. Our National Parks are the envy of the world and offer world class experiences, vistas, views and memories. They should be supported by the same type of subcontractors. We have been staying in National Parks and using Recreation.gov for at least a decade now. This is the first time something like this has happened. It was eye opening to say the least. We will approach future trips with a different set of priorities to be sure. Future vacations will now be populated with daily worry of if our reservation will in fact still even exist when we arrive.

The worst part about this campground is that there are no trees, however, this does allow you to see the mountains at sunset. The bathrooms are new! It’s only a short walk to the lake as well. I didn’t see any showers.

Spot for tent was overgrown, 8-12 inch weeds were growing through the tent pad gravel and completely surrounded by overgrowth. Kind of scary when you are in bear country! We set up our tent in the driveway. Showers are out of order this season in St Mary campground. We had a moose walk into our campsite and through the overgrowth. Restrooms were nice.

I liked that we could barely tell that we had neighbors in the nearest campsites.

Not being able to book a campsite at the campground was very inconvenient, especially in a place with such poor signal.

Recreation.gov had sent us an e-mail with a cancelation of St Mary Campground, but we thought it was for Yellowstone. It was not very clear to us.

Not a hint of shade in this site. Worst spot in campground

We loved the views of the mountains right from our campsite! Our campsite had plenty of room and was easy to pull into. Bathrooms were nice and clean, although having showers would have been nice.
Campground was nice and clean although the dumpster nearest us was overly full for 2 days and you couldn't get even one more bag in! We just brought our trash to a diff one and that one was fine.
I would definitely camp here again.

The bathrooms that were available were very clean. However, there was no posting or notice that the shower building was closed due to roof repairs. Also, there were a number of sites with large groups who were quite loud well past quiet hours. I did not see a ranger or campground host managing the noise in the evening.

Not being able to book a campsite at the campground was very inconvenient, especially in a place with such poor signal.