Flathead Lake – Wayfarer’s Unit

We had met another Altoiste at St. Mary and she told us lots of very helpful information. Altoistes rock. One important thing, that neither Google Maps nor Honda Navigation had any idea about, was the five mile very roughly unpaved pilot-car-guided construction stretch on Highway 89. I will give them points for managing multiple groups of cars, going in each direction simultaneously, and never getting into an impassable tangle. That must take coordination to know where to bunch and stop the groups so the huge earth mover machines can do their thing. We were glad to only have to do that once.

We took Highway 2 all along the bottom of Glacier National Park and that is just beautiful. I would be happy to drive that stretch again any time. Our aim was Kalispell for a shopping stop and that all worked very well. Then it was just a short shot to our on-the-way destination at Flathead Lake.

This area could be a whole vacation all on its own and our visit does not do it justice. We chose the campground at the northeast end of the lake, called Wayfarer’s Unit. We saw at least two other state park campgrounds along the east side of the lake, all packed full of people aiming to take advantage of the access to cool water on a hot day. I think our campground wins, solely based on its location near to Burger Town where they sell the best damn Huckleberry Shakes ever. It doesn’t matter that these are the only Huckleberry Shakes we have ever had. We are prepared to declare the winner.

The sites in the campground are mostly nicely spaced with some shade. Ours was a bit tippy and maybe better suited to an RV for the location of the picnic table area. We were able to level, but only by going way back into the site. The RV campground on the southern end of the state park is at Finley Point and also looked nice, with paved sites and a boat launch. Ours had a boat launch too, but the parking area gets packed in early. So does the other one. Actually, all of the lake access points we saw looked really busy.

It was getting up there in temps and we had no hookups here, but it was a one nighter, so not a huge problem. Some day I’ll get my boat in the water again. Some day. But not this day. Keeping swimming as we make our way toward Yellowstone….

Total miles from St. Mary: 156.3, 18.4 mpg, 5 hours 14 min with shopping stop in Kalispell. Site 27. No hookups, shade, not much solar. Ok cell for both of us. Good dump and potable water. Tight campground road and busy day use parking area.