Talk:Glacier National Park (Montana)

Drink

I've got a question for anyone who has ever visited the park. I started this article even though I had never visited myself. Do visitors stay somewhere outside the park or inside? If a visitor stays inside the park where do they go when they get thirsty? (WT-en) Sapphire 20:56, 3 April 2006 (EDT)

The Official Website points to the concessionare's website which lists the hotels within the park. Kalispell is nearby, and I think there is lodging near some of the other entrances too. And there is always camping with the Grizzly Bears, which afforded me at least one sleepless teenage night.

The concessionare seems to have places at eat at each lodging, but Drink only at some of them. -- (WT-en) Colin 21:19, 3 April 2006 (EDT)

There's lodging in the park that needs to be booked well in advance during the summer, and campgrounds that will also fill quickly during vacation season. Towns outside of the park have bars, and I would assume that the park lodges serve drinks (although I've never had a drink there). That said, the park is one of America's best known national parks for its backcountry, so if you're at all into camping this is the place to put on a pack, hike a bit, and then sleep under the stars. You can bring your own drinks with you, and the bears really aren't all that bad - just don't rub steak on yourself and bath in gravy before going to bed. -- (WT-en) Ryan 22:05, 3 April 2006 (EDT)

Thanks for the advice. I was actually going to use steak to scare the bears aware! What was I thinking? :) We need to add that to the "Stay Safe" section. (WT-en) Sapphire 22:11, 3 April 2006

Hmmm, it may be worth mentioning that in the US of A Parks usually do not sell alcohol and often have rules about glass containers or bringing alcohol into the park at all. I know that folks from other countries may be as surprised by this as I was to find a full bar at some Canadian parks! (WT-en) Majnoona 22:47, 3 April 2006 (EDT)

Safety and Over-Zealousness

I added a bunch of safety advice to the Stay Safe section and while everyone at Glacier does seem to err toward the hysterical side with grizzlies, a lot of the information is not Glacier-specific... What do other people think, should it be briefer? Is there some centralized page with back-country safety tips (including gear advice)? Thanks! (WT-en) Palimpsest 21:34, 17 September 2006 (EDT)

The info you added looks good to me - one of the goals is to produce standalone guides, and you didn't go overboard on bear safety. My only criticism would be that I thought it was only with grizzlies that you play dead, but it's been a while since I was backpacking around black bears so I could be wrong.

As to a place for general animal safety, see Travel safety and Wilderness backpacking for two potential locations where additional information might be helpful. Eventually we could probably use an Animal safety article, but that information should start out in a parent article first. Nice job with the Glacier National Park article, by the way! -- (WT-en) Ryan 21:40, 17 September 2006 (EDT)

I made a couple of updates - after checking a few sources on the web, it is true that individuals should fight back during a black bear attack but play dead during a grizzly attack. Otherwise this info seems fine to me. -- (WT-en) Ryan 22:21, 17 September 2006 (EDT)

Thanks for your additions. I was there a week and a half ago and most of the worry seems to be about grizzlies (because black bears are so cute and little, etc etc). We weren't given any information about the differences between the two so thanks for the heads-up! (WT-en) Palimpsest 22:32, 17 September 2006 (EDT)

What else?

What else does this article need to be promoted to star status? I've filled in all the remaining parts of the text itself, but I think there are some formatting oddities (mostly in text that I didn't want to remove or change), like in the Get in (by car) section and two places under Sleep. I have no idea how to do the wikivoyage-preferred map - does anyone want to take up this task? Also, I uploaded a picture on to the internet for the first time ever and am not sure if I dotted all the i's. Thanks! (WT-en) Palimpsest 04:23, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

This article has always been a good article, and it's nice to see people continuing to contribute to it. If you're looking for ways it could be improved then you may want to take a look at Yosemite National Park and Isle Royale National Park to see examples of current "star" articles. At a quick glance, some items I'd like to see improved in this article:

• It could use a list of hiking trails, with descriptions. http://nps.gov/glac/ is a good source for that information, and it's licensed in the public domain so it can be copied here, although it's generally better to reformat their info to be more appropriate for a Wikivoyage article.
• The eat and drink listings don't following the suggested style. See Project:Listings and Project:Restaurant listings for formatting information.
• "History" is a bit thin.
• I mostly agree with (WT-en) Andrew about the "Read" section - we generally try to limit the pointers to outside sources since such sections generally become unwieldy lists and tend to encourage people to add links rather than content (see Project:External links for a similar topic). In addition, it's going to be difficult to keep the section from becoming an exhaustive (and thus nearly-useless) list of every book that has ever mentioned the park.
• A new criteria for star articles is that they must have a Wikivoyage-style map. Project:How to draw a map has some guidelines.
• A few of the sections lack contact info. For example, the Rental cars section mentions Dollar but doesn't provide an address, phone number or web site.

-- (WT-en) Ryan 23:34, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

Read

Should we have a "Read" section? I'm weary of it because it could be a slippery slope and I don't like promoting other guides all that much. For now, I've moved the section to be a subsection under "Understand". -- (WT-en) Sapphire • (Talk) • 22:22, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

My two cents: I understand not wanting to promote another product or show preference for one publication over another, but on the other hand, there are a ton of guidebooks out there, both good and bad. I think it would be useful in general to hear which resources are useful and for whom, and which one can do without. This is the first wikivoyage article into which I've put any significant time or material, however, so I don't really know the protocol works. Anyway, I'm glad you raised the point, since it didn't occur to me. (Also, what about maps?) (WT-en) Palimpsest 22:30, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

Star

Is this nearing star status? It's a really amazing guide to what I hope will be a really amazing trip one day. -- (WT-en) Sapphire • (Talk) • 18:58, 8 January 2008 (EST)

db page or not?

How do we know whether Glacier National Park is referring to the US or the Canada one? Wikipedia also disambiguates it. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 13:11, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Isn't the U.S. park the main one? --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 14:45, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Not sure to be fair. Out of the 17 parks I've visited in the US, Glacier National Park isn't one of them :-(. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 21:26, 19 December 2021 (UTC)