Whitefish, Montana, United States
Sometimes you just need a day of rest between hikes,
especially when it gets very hot. Northwest
Montana’s location and geography is such that I think of it as a cool, cloudy,
misty place. In mid-summer, though, that
couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Because of lower elevation that farther south around Bozeman and location
west of the Continental Divide, it is sunnier and hotter, which has been my
experience with all three summer trips to the area, this one with temperatures
mostly in the mid-90s in the valleys.
So I spent a good part of the day in Whitefish, northwest
Montana’s premier resort town with a ski mountain and a big lake that even has
a sandy municipal beach. As more of a
resort town than the Flathead Valley’s other cities like Kalispell and Columbia
Falls, Whitefish is somewhat more cosmopolitan and upscale. Historically, it was a lumber and railroad
town nicknamed Stumptown with a major depot of the Great Northern
Railroad. Amtrak’s Empire Builder
passenger service stops once a day in Whitefish on its route between Seattle
and Minneapolis/Chicago, so it is actually possible to take the train to go
skiing.
Resort towns in season can be a little rich for my blood. After
many nights of car camping I was ready for a motel room night, and things are
much more affordable in Kalispell, the biggest town in the Flathead
Valley. Kalispell is also an appealing
town and Flathead Valley is a place I seriously considered as somewhere to live
before settling on Bozeman.
2025-05-22