Belton Chalet

Top choice in Glacier National Park


Built and opened the same year as the national park (1910), this Swiss chalet overlooking the railroad tracks in West Glacier was Glacier’s first tourist hotel. Other incarnations followed, including time as a pizza parlor, and it lay rotting until a late-1990s refurb, which dusted off 25 traditional yet elegant rooms, arts-and-crafts-style furnishings, a spa and a celebrated taproom.

Two stand-alone cottages and a fairly spectacular cabin, in the Old West rustic vernacular, are open year-round and are ideal for families.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Glacier National Park attractions

1. Apgar Visitor Center

1.9 MILES

This LEED–certified center with a large parking lot and free wi-fi signal is 1½ miles north of West Glacier at the west end of Going-to-the-Sun Rd. Catch…

2. Apgar Village

2.36 MILES

Supporting little more than a couple of lodges, a gift shop or two, a recommended outdoor gear outfitter and a restaurant with an adjoining window for ice…

3. Lake McDonald Valley

8.2 MILES

Greener and wetter than the St Mary Valley, the Lake McDonald Valley harbors the park’s largest lake and some of its densest and oldest temperate…

4. Lake McDonald Lodge

9.49 MILES

On the northeastern shore of the lake, this rustic lodge, first built in 1895 as the Glacier Hotel, is the park’s oldest hotel. Replaced by a newer Swiss…

5. Glacier National Park

16.48 MILES

The rival of any of the United States' most spectacular national parks, including Yellowstone, Yosemite and the Grand Canyon, Glacier National Park is…

6. Stumptown Historical Society Museum

17.45 MILES

Whitefish’s fine old tudor revival Great Northern Railway Depot, built in the 1920s, doubles as a history museum displaying train memorabilia and…

7. Bird Woman Falls

17.97 MILES

Standing at the artificially created Weeping Wall, look across the valley to this distant natural watery spectacle; the spectacular Bird Woman Falls drops…

8. City Beach Park

18.03 MILES

Glued to the southern shore of Whitefish Lake, this busy sandy stretch is where the whole town comes to date and debate in the summer months. The swimming…