Bowman Lake Campground — Glacier National Park

Long, rough dirt roads leads you to this primitive campground at the gorgeous Bowman Lake.

The sites are roomy with lots of trees. Clean pit toilets and a few water spigots are available.

For those who want it, there is no cell service!

Spend the day kayaking or paddle boarding in this serene, remote location. Polebridge Mercantile is about 30-40 minutes away for a small selection of food supplies you might need.

First let me say DON’T plan on camping here unless you have the proper vehicle to get you safely up that road. If you are driving a low profile vehicle you are likely to blow your suspension as it is a dirt road with lots of potholes. I was fine with my 4Runner but I definitely saw some people in cars that should not have been driving on the mostly uphill road. With that being said this was my definitely one of my favorite places I’ve camped. The sites are huge so you’re not on top of your neighbors, lots of trees to hang a hammock etc. it was so quiet & peaceful. Lots of wildlife, the lake is a short 2 minute walk down a designated trail. You can kayak, paddle board or canoe on the lake. There are tons of areas to sit around the lake to relax or have a picnic. Due to the remote location they only have pit toilets and a few water spigots around the campground. There is no cell service and even my satellite GPS was finicky at times. There were a couple bear boxes open to anyone but none on the individual sites. Everything must be stored inside of your LOCKED vehicle due to bear activity. Polebridge is about 30 minutes and they have a small store with the best baked goods. You can drive to Kintla Lake it’s about an hour on the dirt road. Kintla Lake is even more secluded, but worth the drive. I will be returning to Bowman Lake as it was one of my favorite places in Glacier.

We were visiting GNP in mid-June 2021 and originally wanted to stay at Apgar, or another campground closer to the Going to the Sun road, but since we did not have reservation to get into Glacier National Park & going to the Sun Road, we headed up to the north fork area of GNP to see if we could get a campsite at Bowman lake or Kintla Lake Campground.  When we arrived at the Polebridge Ranger Station the ranger thought we should be able to get a campsite at Bowman so we headed the 6+ miles down the  curvy dirt road to Bowman Lake. When we arrived around 2pm there were only 3  campsites occupied so we found a nice level campsite to pitch our tent.  The campsites were spread out enough that you had plenty of privacy (except for those dang deer and chipmunks that keep on visiting us). This campground only has pit toilets.  The views from the lake are unbelievable and we enjoyed our hike around the lake. We also drove the 15+ miles up to Kintla Lake (the campground was empty and had only a few campsites compared to Bowman Lake).  When we returned to GNP in September of 2021 we were able to get a campsite at Apgar but we took a day off from hiking and drove up to Bowman Lake, this lake is a hidden gem, so peaceful and so beautiful, definitely worth the long bumpy trip.  Bowman lake is definitely my favorite lake at GNP.