u/_questionare_

I know smoke and weather is unpredictable but please be kind enough to give some insight or if anyone has any experience with this

Me and 3 of my buddies will be in Glacier then Banff from August 5th-17th

I’ve been planning the trip for a couple months, all the campsites reserved and got lucky enough to land shuttle tickets, but from everything I’m seeing the smoke out there is really bad and won’t be clearing up any time soon

So in all honestly from experience, does the smoke not go away and will it actually take away from the experience, we want to go too see all the Mountain Views and do major hikes like Grinell Glacier and Highline but are worried the smoke will take away from a lot of the experience

Is it enough to just post pone to another year and switch the itinerary and go to a different park or will it be ok enough that we can still get the full experience

It would just be rather unfortunate to spend all that money and time to not get a great experience

Me and 3 of my buddies are heading out to Glacier and Banff in August and have about 4 days in Glacier

How does the itinerary look and I have a couple small questions, if you would be kind enough to answer, I really tried to do my best to get all my research done, got shuttle tickets and campgrounds booked, just want to make this the best trip for me and my friends

Day 1. Bowman Lake

Day 2. Going to the Sun Road

Spending pretty much all day enjoying going to the sun road, all the pull offs, Lake McDonald, Avalanche Lake and Hidden Lake lookout since we can only be at Logan Pass for 3 hours

Day 3. Highline trail

Got lucky enough to land 4 tickets for us in the morning for the St Mary shuttle, planning on spending the whole day doing Highline + Grinell Overlook and possibly Swift Current Mountain

Day 4. Grinnell Glacier Trail + Many Glacier

Spending most of the day there before leaving up north around 5pm

Questions:

1. We’re driving from Spokane so we would be getting there around 4ish on a Thursday, so my question is how likely is it that we get a camping spot that late? Is it doable? I have a couple backup campgrounds that are fcfs in mind in case it doesn’t work out

2. On GTTSR, how is it with the pull offs, as I understand there are tons of pull offs that we’d want to see considering this is the first time we’re there, my question is more so, is there traffic usually? Am I allowed to wait until someone leaves a pull off for us to pull in and see, are the cars behind us going to be frustrated?

3. As I mentioned I really did try to do my due diligence with the shuttle system and got 4 tickets for us, my main question with this is as far as I know the last return shuttle to St Mary leaves 8pm, so does that mean it’s just 1 shuttle leaving at that time? Or is there a scenario where we get down before 8pm but the shuttle is full and we can’t get back or are there tons of shuttles returning so we won’t have to worry about all not getting a spot

Really just trying to make this the best trip for me and my friends, if there’s any suggestions or advice, it’s all appreciated

Those who have done the hike, how hard was it and how long did it take you?

Do you absolutely need to be an experienced hiker?

Are the views worth the trouble if you have 1 full day in the area?

Say a team is ranked #1 in Value across the league but is towards the bottom of the Contenders ranking in that same league.. what is the best strategy to handle this situation?

Should the manager cash in on their 1st and sell it for another productive player? Or do they play the long game and see how the young rosters fairs the first couple weeks before doing anything?

Or do they trade some of those younger pieces for older but more solidified veterans?