Montana. Endless views bookended by Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks.
Nature defines the Montana experience from the very moment you arrive. The wonders of Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks—fumaroles and hanging glaciers, boiling rivers and vibrant wildflowers, wolves and wolverines—reveal what you’ve come to see.
It might be the Rocky Mountains guiding you in for a landing on your way to Glacier National Park, or the rolling sagebrush sea stretching to the horizon as you drive in from points farther east. From rail tours to scenic drives to safaris, Montana has a way of getting inside you. Even if you keep the window closed.
As much as nature has shaped the mountains, rivers and prairies of Montana, its biggest impact will be on you. Long after the ins and outs of your first visit have faded from memory, Montana stays with you. The experiences you can have are as vast as the spectacular landscape. The only challenge is where to start.
Glaciers, Mountain Goats and Going-to-the-Sun Road
Glacier National Park, together with the Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada, form the world's first International Peace Park. But in this rugged section of the northern Rockies, exhilaration is the universal language. Mountain goats cling to craggy, glacier carved peaks. Pie is served fresh daily in small towns. During the summer and fall, drivers watch the scenery unfold as they drive along a road that defies words and hikers climb to what feels like the top of the world while wildlife abounds.
In winter months, feel the quiet. A depth of quiet that most of the world doesn't even know exists. That is what you are struck by as you enter Glacier National Park blanketed with snow. In every season, this part of Montana is sure to exceed any expectation.
Watch the “Shaped by Glaciers” video, check out top destinations and get sample itineraries.
Geysers, Grizzlies and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone
Entering the Park from Montana's gateway towns, you'll find that Yellowstone National Park is a distinct environment. You know when you're there. With over 10,000 thermal features, you can watch as steaming geysers erupt in all their glory—all year long.
With each season in the Park offering a diversity of rewards, witness bison calves as they discover their new surroundings in the springtime. By mid-summer, the Park's flora and fauna sprinkle the landscape with color and movement. Autumn's golden daylight is enhanced by the sound of bugling elk. In winter months, cross-country skiing or a guided snowcoach or snowmobile tour in Yellowstone National Park is unforgettable—a meshing of steaming hot springs, mudpots, geysers and snow shared with little more than an array of wildlife.
Just what you'd expect from a place where little has changed since it opened over 135 years ago—2.2 million acres of steaming geysers, thundering waterfalls, crystalline lakes, and panoramic vistas.
Watch the “Shaped by Geysers” video, check out top destinations and get sample itineraries.
Beyond the Parks
The Parks are starting points. Between the parks, scenic trails outnumber freeways and towns framed by rivers, peaks and grasslands are going strong. From corner to corner, all 147,042 square miles of Montana are an invitation to connect with the wild world.
See how Montana’s landscape has shaped others.
Photos:
1) Mountain Goats in Glacier National Park
2) Glacier National Park
3) Bison on the edge of Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone National Park
4) Blackfeet Tepees east of Glacier National Park
