Timber Wolf Resort & Jeep Rentals — Hotel in Columbia Falls

How does a "resort" minutes outside of a national park have availability during peak season? Oh, let me count the ways. ||I reserved a group tent site in May 2023 for 2 nights. We talked about the site with the "pond." I mentioned extra people, up to 12 possibly. 4 tents, dogs, extra vehicles including camper vans (Class B). Site 30 is a smallish field with room for dogs to run and a decent amount of people to hangout. (NO POND. That part is false advertising. It's an overflow drainage hole that is now empty and full of debris.) Site 30 is at the end and not surrounded by other sites. It all sounded fine and very possible. ||We pull in after touring the park all day and the tag says we're in group site 42. I'm already thinking, that's not the right number. Site 42 is supposedly a group tent site and in the middle of other sites. Site 42 doesn't have a single inch of flat space. The parking area is not flat, the tent area is not flat. Keep in mind I originally intended to put 4 tents in the space. No way could this site hold that many tents, vehicles or people that I originally intended to bring. The owner didn't know our numbers had been reduced when we showed up.||It's late but we call the office number, and the owner comes to the site. She tells us a larger group also made a reservation and we were BUMPED from 30 and she gave it to them. She tells us we have "giant" vans and usually people don't bring those. Where we parked the vans is where tents should go she said. Again, the space isn't flat enough for tents so we thought we might as well park there. Later on she sees the tents we put up and apparently, they are also "giant." We're travelling with our family. How else do you put 4 or 6 people in a tent unless it's giant? (We'll get to this reasoning.) Did you hear an apology? Yeah, we didn't either.||We're pretty frustrated at this point and it's late. Next door to Site 42 are a couple of single tent sites with framed in, FLAT tent areas. Parking is still abysmal, and our vehicles don't fit. We put one van in overflow parking which was actually almost flat. Seriously! Why make overflow parking flat and not the actual site parking areas?!?||We set up 1 tent in each space. One van still has to park at an angle on an incline and it doesn't really fit. The mom sleeping in that van didn't do much sleeping at that incline. ||I didn't get to the party happening in the next sites, yet. Yep, big college-age crowd being super loud until very late also kept our people awake. Kids like this don't drive big camper vans or have big family-size tents. Later we found out from a local, who was nice enough to listen to our story, that this is exactly what TimberWolf is known for: for being the teenage/college hangout site. That's why family-size anything doesn't work at this "resort." The locals rolled their eyes when we mentioned this place and apologized to us that we had to have this experience. Oh! The locals know how to the apologize...the owner, not so much.||Next morning, (yes, the story continues) dads and kids are sitting around the campfire finishing up the $6 bucket of wood we purchased the night before. The owner comes around and tells them about the fire restrictions that just went into effect that morning and tells them to put the fire out. She actually tries to tell our dogs to be quite so she could talk. LOL! Does she offer to buy the wood back? NOPE!!! She says, "You had plenty of time to burn the wood last night." No, we didn't because we were moving campsites and trying to get ourselves set up! Does she apologize? NOPE!!! She sent an email, we should have known better. We're camping and vacationing, not reading emails. Was there a sign on the wood pile the night before that said anything about making sure to use it all up that night because of the restrictions the next day? NOPE!!!||So, we're quite irritated with all the rude, condescending behavior. (Don't judge all Montanans by this woman. Usually, we're really nice and have awesome customer service.) We also heard comments from another family about their stay being one of the worst experiences they've had. We decide to hit the road and find somewhere else to hangout and camp for another night. The owner finds me and asks me for the # of people, vehicles, dogs, like she's working up a bill. I'm thinking, you're really gonna charge us for this huh? Yep, in addition to my prepayments, she wants more money. When we stop by the office to checkout and find out what she's been up to, she just hands me a receipt and asks for more money. Yes, there were slight discounts. But really, there's no value given at this place. What did I pay for? To be on a hill, get rudely treated, and charged for every little thing. ||The owner could have chosen to be nice and polite at any point. She could have upgraded us when the other party came in but instead, she downgraded us and expected the same amount of money. Keep in mind, she's used to dealing with kids and party people. That's not us but that's the treatment we got. Fine, keep the kids and let them disrespect your space and the other guests. ||Whatever, we walked out of the office and hit the road. PRO TIP!!!! When you leave west gate of Glacier and want to camp somewhere, take yourself all the way to Seeley Lake Campground. HUGE SITES!!!! FLAT SITES!!!! ACTUAL WATER!!! For $10 a night!!!!! $15 if you have an extra vehicle. Hey TimberWolf owner....you should check it out and see what a real campground looks like and...

I came to Montana to experience nature and to get away from the greedy corporate culture that is the Bay Area. Montana is one of the few places on Earth where you could get away from corporate America, and appreciate nature and the great outdoors. The owners of Timber Wolf Resort are a reminder that corporate greed exists everywhere.

The story began in July 2016 as I was planning a trip for my birthday at the end of July. This time of the year gets very busy for Glacier and I could not find any accommodations but the one at Timber Wolf Resort. The cabins were $125 per cabin and were very basic. The business nature of the “resort” became apparent when I had to continuously feed a shower every 10 minutes with a $.50 to get a hot shower. The absurdity in prices continued at the gift of the “resort” where they charge $5 for forks and knives, $2 for a small miniature box of cereal. In fact, there was a “clearance” sale that had items “50%” off,” including a $38 hat (note: I bought an official park hat for $18 at Logan Pass visitor center, and supported the Park not some business people).

The lack of professionalism of the owners of Timber Wolf started the first day when I received a note on our cabin door when we returned from a long day of hiking, informing us that there was a problem with our booking. At 6AM, the next morning, I decided to call the owners and see what the issue was. The owner informed me that she booked us in the wrong cabin and that we needed to move. This was an extreme inconvenience for us, as we were ready to hit the National Park and start our day of hiking. As most of you know, the secret in successfully navigating the national parks is to start early.

The owner used her sweet Texan charm to explain the problem in the booking, clearly her problem not ours. I naturally asked her why she could not simply put the new guest in the new cabin and adjust their booking, instead of moving us. She kept insisting and did not leave us with any other option but to pack all of our belongings at 6am and move us. I told her that we wanted to book another night and if there was something/anything she could do it would help us immensely. She said she would look at the system and get back to us; she did neither, nor had the courtesy to stop by (leave a note) and say there was nothing available.

The next day, as we were about to check out, I asked her if she was able to find accommodations for us. She said there was nothing. When I asked her if she could make a simple tent cite for us, she said there was nothing. She then went on to say I committed fraud by writing that I had five people in our party when my reservation said four. This made my extremely upset because two of our guests were a couple that was staying at a hotel in Kalispell. Further, we had set up a hammock on a tree outside the cabin and she assumed someone had stayed in the hammock overnight (note: no reasonable person would spend the night in a hammock in Grizzly country!). She said she wanted to charge me $10/head. At that point I had a real sour taste in my mouth, gave her my credit card, and begged her to charge me the extra money. She obviously cared more about the $10 charge than customer service or the long-term future of her business. I also told her that I was an attorney and she needs to look up the definition of fraud. At this point, she started back pedaling very quickly.

She asked me what she I would do in her position. I told her, that I would do something, anything, to make me feel that it was worth my time moving from one cabin to the other, sacrificing my time on the mountain. Perhaps, a small parting gift from the gift shop? She laughed at the idea. At that point I gave up and just asked her for a complimentary coffee, and her reply was “that would be $1.50.”

Timber Wolf Resort is another example of outsiders (Texans) coming into Montana to exploit it for its beauty and profit from every...

First off, let me share that the location to Glacier and other activities was excellent and overall our trip was wonderful. However, I am posting this review for anyone considering booking one of the Lodge Rooms at Timber Wolf Resort. When booking this trip, my understanding (and my sister's as well as she booked the other Lodge room) was that we had our own bathroom/shower in a rustic lodge room setting - which was not the case. I see now that their website language has been updated and has clarified that, but at the time of my booking this room, that was not the case.

Upon checking in, we were told that we have shared bath facilities with the RV and folks tent camping, but that between 10pm and 8am, the Lodge was locked and the facilities were ours to use. Not quite the same as having our own private shower/bath. For $170/night, I was expecting more - lesson learned! Our rooms were right by the front door and until at least 10:30pm that first night, all we heard was that front door slamming and people talking as they came to use the bathrooms. The next morning at 7am, there was loud banging on the front door (because it was locked, as it was not 8am and open to the others yet), very disturbing. My brother-in law opened the door for a woman who exclaimed that these doors should be unlocked 24/7. What?! That day, I talked to one of the owners about this and she said something along the lines of, "I was going to tell you, but we have an issue with our septic at the bathrooms on the other side of the property, so now everyone will need to use the facilities in the Lodge. That front door will now be unlocked 24/7." Would have been nice to get a heads up prior to the loud slamming and talking at 10:30pm at night.

The bathrooms themselves could be kept in better condition - it was like walking into a swamp - the floor was always wet and even though there was a fan in there, definitely not enough ventilation. By the end of the day, wet toilet paper was on the floor. Also, one of the two bathrooms was not working on 2 different occasions. I also don't agree with having to pay to use the shower, not for what we were paying.

The cherry on top of this perfect storm was that the power went out one day - and everything runs via their well/septic, so that means we could not use ANY of the facilities, with the exception of the onsite porta potty. I understand this is out of Timber Wolf's control, but it did not help with our experience at this place. Luckily, the power was back on after we got back from dinner. However, a day or two later, I was informed by the cleaning lady that the power company was coming to fix the transformer and that they'd be without power again - starting in 25 mins! So, I had to quickly shower and hope the power didn't go out on me. The headline here again - no notice was given by the owners so we could plan accordingly.

While our trip overall to Glacier was wonderful, I would not stay at the Timber Wolf Resort again and for anyone looking to book the Lodge Rooms (I can't speak for the RV and camping experience), consider...