Exploring around Whitefish, MT

After spending the past few weeks in Glacier National Park, we have to restock supplies and get some maintenance items accomplished. We choose Whitefish, MT for this purpose. It’s just north of Kalispell and offers easy access to the stores we need, as well as some new recreational opportunities.

Whitefish Lake State Park

This small park on the southwest shore of Whitefish Lake offers a lot of day use water recreation opportunities as well as a small campground.

Campground

The campground is very beautiful and the lake is only a few steps away from the campsites. Sounds perfect right? That’s what we thought too! But beware, it borders an exceptionally busy set of train tracks that are in use all night long. Some of these trains are so loud, they shake the camper and sound like they’re going to come through it at any moment.

Whitefish Lake

Downtown Whitefish

We managed to get almost all our chores done in one afternoon, so today we head into downtown Whitefish to explore. This small mountain town offers a vibrant downtown area full of shops, restaurants, and art galleries interspersed with old buildings, and a very large and active Train Depot.

We also found some very unique stained glass windows depicting the local activities for each season.

Columbia Falls, MT

Afterwards, we head to the neighboring town of Columbia Falls to access one of our favorite stores. And across the street, is this building completely encompassed by an incredible mural.

Whitefish Trail System

Day two exploring the area we decide to experience some of the Whitefish Trails. Established in 2010 this trail system extends over 55 miles through Whitefish and Whitefish Lake. The trails traverse through beautiful forests, prime wildlife habitats, around serene lakes, and up to sweeping vistas. The trails are intended to be used year round with hiking & biking in the warmer months, transitioning to skiing & snow shoeing in the winter.

Trail

There are 15 trailheads to choose from, and we opted to head west from Whitefish Lake and begin our hike at the Woods Lake Trailhead deep in the Stillwater State Forest. From here we joined several trails together to make a ~5 mile loop to four different lakes.

Woods Lake

Little Beaver Lake

Beaver Lake

Dollar Lake

We also decide to stop and explore two of the lakes we pass on the way out.

Rainbow Lake

Murray Lake

What a beautiful area! There’s so much to offer that we barely scratched the surface in our few days here.

Next Stop… Scenic Stops along US 2 (MT-ID border)