parkverdict

By state

National parks in Montana

Every national park and public-land unit in Montana, scored and ranked by our Experience Score.

Montana's national park units stretch across nearly the full width of a state that genuinely recalibrates your sense of how far things are, and together they make a strong case for anyone willing to put in the miles. The northwest corner belongs to Glacier National Park, one of the most celebrated wilderness destinations in North America, while the southern border shares Yellowstone National Park with Wyoming. Past those two well-known anchors, the picture gets more interesting. Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area offers world-class stargazing and water recreation in the far southeast corner of the state, Big Hole National Battlefield preserves a quiet and genuinely affecting piece of Nez Perce history in the southwest, and Grant-Kohrs Ranch brings the ranching frontier to life near Deer Lodge. The visitors who get the most out of Montana's NPS units tend to be self-sufficient, at ease with long drives, and curious about both the natural world and the complicated human stories woven into this landscape, from Indigenous history to the fur trade.

Summer view of the Yellowtail Dam from the Ok-A-Beh road. 100DOES IT ALL Sharron Genaux

National Recreation Area · MT

Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area

Bighorn Canyon runs along the Montana-Wyoming border at no charge, centered on the deep gorge the Bighorn River cut over time and the reservoir that backed up behind Yellowtail Dam.

Large mountains dotted with snow loom above a rocky meadow filled with yellow flowers. 90DOES IT ALL NPS Photo

National Park · MT

Glacier National Park

Glacier National Park's 90/100 experience score is well deserved.

A geyser erupts steam in front of the bright sun. 90DOES IT ALL NPS / Jacob W. Frank

National Park · ID

Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone is the park every other national park gets measured against, and that reputation holds up.

Multiple tepee poles and a river are silhouetted against a dawn sky. 88DOES IT ALL NPS Photo

National Battlefield · MT

Big Hole National Battlefield

Big Hole National Battlefield marks the site of one of the worst engagements of the Nez Perce War of 1877.

Colorful painted tipi on green lawn 83WIDE RANGE NPS Photo

National Historical Park · ID

Nez Perce National Historical Park

Nez Perce National Historical Park is unlike almost any other national historical park in the country.

Small waterfall with brown rocks and green moss 74WIDE RANGE NPS Photo / Alex Wiles

National Historic Trail · IA

Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail

The Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail is not a single park.

View from Missouri River bottoms of Southwest bastion 66GOOD RANGE NPS Photo / Kris Baxter

National Historic Site · MT

Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site

Fort Union Trading Post sits on the Montana-North Dakota border along the Upper Missouri River, a reconstructed 19th-century fur trade fort that is free to visit and genuinely pulls you in.

Evening Light on River Below Citadel Rock 60GOOD RANGE Recreation.gov

Recreation Area · MT

Upper Missouri National Wild and Scenic River

The Upper Missouri pulls off something genuinely rare: a free, mostly undeveloped river corridor in Montana that still looks much the way Lewis and Clark found it.

A front view of the ranch house. 56GOOD RANGE NPS Photo

National Historic Site · MT

Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site

Grant-Kohrs Ranch sits in Deer Lodge, Montana, preserving what remains of a cattle operation that once covered roughly 10 million acres.

Pompeys Pillar 53FOCUSED BLM Montana Dakotas

National Monument · MT

Pompeys Pillar National Monument and Visitor Center

Pompeys Pillar has a reputation that outpaces its physical size, and there is one reason for that: William Clark's 1806 signature carved into the sandstone.

The sun sets behind the Indian Memorial. 49FOCUSED NPS photo

National Monument · MT

Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument

Little Bighorn Battlefield sits on the rolling Montana plains where, in June 1876, Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors defeated the U.S.