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In Glacier, it helps if you are flexible as to starting and ending points, i.e. if you are willing to go north to south instead of south to north, or to start at either Chief Mountain or Waterton or to go to Polebridge instead. All the trails in Glacier are worth exploring. You should be able to walk from Marias Pass to E. Glacier in one day and then from there to the Campground in one day. Or you can rent a car in town and go to the Ranger Station at St. Mary's and work out your permit. <BR> <BR>As to Yellowstone - one of the problems there is that the campsites are reserved for different uses - some are for hikers, some for horses, and some for groups, so you may find a campsite empty but not available because it wasn't intended for solo hikers and there were no horses or groups to take it. <BR> <BR>In both cases, I prefer to work with the rangers to get the best possible options, and then just accept the occasional short day as a mini-vacation within the park. Camping whereever you want is a good way to get the park authorities to be really unfriendly to future hikers. Also, if there is a problem with bears or fire, the rangers will come looking for you. <BR> <BR>On our first thruhike, (second visit to Glacier) the trail was closed to hikers because of a destructive grizzly at the campsite we were supposed to stay in on our 3rd or 4th day. They sent a ranger out to find us to let us know what was happening. She told us we could either roadwalk around the area or pass through the area doing a 25 mile day in heavy snow, but we were not to stay anywhere near the campsite because of the danger. They kept that campsite closed for a long time. On our second thruhike the trail was closed because of a fire. We roadwalked around it, but again, we needed to work with the rangers to work out an alternate route. <BR> <BR>Ginny<BR> </div></body>
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