We are vacationing here from Oklahoma looking for a good lake to fish/swim/camp at that's not overly crowded, also to serve as a base camp for some backpacking trails. Looking in the McDonald Lake/St. Mary region. We visited Flathead lake and although gorgeous, too crowded and commercial for us. I have a small off roadish camper and a 4x4 expedition to haul it so rough roads like forest service roads are no problem. I'm self contained with a very healthy deep cycle battery and solar set up, so as long as water is close I'm good to go. Any help is appreciated guys.

Totally depends on the time of year as to seclusion.  Are you set on any particular hiking trails?  

Off the top of my head I would say look at the east side. Perhaps Two Medicine Campground or something on the South Fork of the Teton.  Also, I haven't been there (actually, was hoping to go this weekend) but Rock City north of Valier looks like a cool unknown spot for an interesting day hike.

If you are looking for a place with no crowds, then Glacier is not it, we are already setting records this year and Going to the Sun is not even fully open yet, the last couple of years Glacier and Yellowstone has become very popular and setting records for visitors every single month they are open.

I have been watching the daily reports for both Apgar and Fish Creek and they are both full by noon everyday.

I was in town today(Kalispell) and there is already a ton of traffic, it won't get better after the 4th of July, so east or west, you are going to have to arrive at a campground early and possibly wait for someone to pull out, so you can snatch their spot as they vacate it.

I would actually recommend seeing if you can reserve a spot outside of the park, or see if you can get a reservation at Fish Creek for the days you want to visit, then just driving into the park during the day and finding a spot to park, so you can hike the various trails you want.

I have lived about 30 miles from the park for over 20 years now and it is busier now than it has ever been.

Good luck and have fun.

Check out the Seeley-Swan Valley.  There's many USFS trails & campgrounds on either the Flathead NF (Swan portion) and Lolo NF (Seeley Lake portion).. Check out the Holland Lake area. You can camp and hike from there. With our snowy winter and wet/cool spring spring the high country areas/opportunities are not accessible yet.

Next week is supposed to be warmer & drier.

Hungry Horse might make a good base camp...I found several at Flathead lake today, just more crowded than I want.

I'm currently staying in Missoula looking for a good spot. I'll check out the areas you mentioned.

If you're still in Missoula on Monday and have time, stop by Ft. Missoula (south end of town adjacent to the golf course) and visit the Lolo NF headquarters. They have USFS maps of the Seeley-Swan area and can give you info if you check out that area.

Or go on Hwy 200 northeast of Missoula up to Clearwater Jct. and turn left on to Hwy 83 to go to Seeley Lake, and beyond.  There's a USFS ranger station just north of town on the left heading north.  The ranger station might be open over the weekend, for the same maps & info.

Note everything in the Seeley-Swan and Glacier areas is griz country and I'm not talking about the UM football team.

A local mentioned the drive up 200, sounds like plenty of places to hit. Do you know if the Ranger station will have forest service roads clearlyt marked (maybe a dumb question)?

Grizzly don't bother me, I've spent years around black bears and understanding and respecting dangerous animals, would welcome the chance to spot some.

I put a few random notes in your thread in the outdoors survival forum.

There is also good backpacking in the Pintlars - near Anaconda, and in the Selway Bitterroot area south of Missoula.  

One of these years before I tip over I'd like to take off from the trail head at the west end of Lindberg lake and climb into Grey Wolf lake and the Angels Bathing Pools.

Any of the areas in the Missions, The Bob Marshall, GNP have bears.  Be prepared.

I appreciate it man, you don't happen to know the name of that trail head do you? I'm mapping it, but until I get a good local map I want to be sure...

Any Ranger District map and travel plan map will have roads clearly marked on them as well as road number signs.

If you're up by Hungry Horse there's a USFS ranger district office there.

There's a big difference between black bears and grizzlys.  A USFS employee was killed by a griz last year up by West Glacier.

Also, with all the rain & snow melt all the streams are running high in case you try to cross something without a bridge. A couple folks have died already this year in the woods in the western MT area.  All from out of town.

Hungry Horse a great area,  I hunt, fish and camp up in the area quite a bit, of course the campground I love it 22 miles from town on the reservoir, but it is a nice one, but once again, unless you are early to get there, it is difficult to get a spot, it is called Murry Bay.  I have camped in most of the campgrounds on the east shore of Hungry Horse and Murry is one of the nicest.  One thing good about it being NFS land, there are lots of little spots you can actually get off the main road and camp, just don't block anything and make sure you are very bear aware and keep your camp CLEAN, some of the biggest Grizz I have ever seen in NW Montana have been that way.

Another option, is there is a couple of NFS campgrounds along the North Fork Road, heading North from Columbia Falls that are nice and normally not hard to get a spot in.  Big Creek is a decent one and it is only located about 1.4 miles from the Camas entrance to Glacier, it is situated on the North fork of the Flathead River, the Camas road in Glacier is actually a pretty good place to see wildlife and there are a couple of nice trails on that road, one it he Huckleberry Mountain Hike, but I don't recommend that hike unless you are bear aware and carrying bear spray.

https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/flathead/recreation/ohv/recarea/?recid=77578&actid=29

We have camped at Big Creek and it is pretty quiet and it is nice that you have close access to the park, the Camas road leads right into the main village of the park and you can also exit through the entrance and get supplies in West Glacier.

Either Crystal Lake trailhead or Beaver Creek Trailhead.

IIRC it's 11 or 13 miles into Grey Wolf.

Crystal Lake trailhead looses a lot of elevation right off the bat while you drop into Crystal Lake, then its a steady climb up into Grey Wolf.

I've never been in there - It's a bucket list trip for me.  

Packed a small pontoon boat into Crystal one year.  Must have caught about 50 little cutthroats in just 3-4 hours.  It was a blast, but nothing over about 8-10".

Bring lots of mosquito repellant.  They can be bad in the Swan River drainage.   Spent a day or two stuck in a tent on one of the Crescent - Island - Heart lakes Mosquitos were bad and we forgot the juice.


Crescent - Island - Heart used to have one of the only populations of Golden Trout in the state.  I have no idea if there are any of the little buggers left though.

Thanks for the tips.

Great info, also another vote for Hungry Horse.

Crystal is close to the Angel bathing pool trail that was mentioned earlier, the 200-83 loop is looking like a good one!

Close in air miles.

Study the topography carefully.  High Park sits in a high cirque.

Same general area I meant, I've done some backpacking and understand short spaces can easily turn into long days.

In Montana more often than not, what looks to be a short jaunt, turns into very long days, been there done that way more times than I want to remember!

Rock City is very cool.  It is literally just east of my house and you can see it from where I am hosting a match TODAY!  My kids love going there and we will spend a good half day to a day just playing in the rocks or hiking down to the water to mess around.

Just remember keep heading North don't follow Rock City road to the east.  It's through the Farm Field road going North.

Thanks for the tips. We'll listen for the shooting.  Maybe we can hear it over the wind.

Packing up right now. Been trying to find some low key spots like this for the Mrs as she is still on light duty.  We're through the worst of it but she still has a long road ahead. She wants one more excursion before her next surgery which comes next week.  Fuck cancer..

I hope you guys had fun and it wasn't too tough of a day.  The match yesterday was a good one, but still rough with the wind through the canyon.  The scores weren't as high as I'd hoped for because of the wind and this guys ability to make the targets too small.  Next math will be July 3rd and I am going to make it a touch easier.

Good luck to your wife!  She'll beat it.

We had a blast!  That place kicks ass.



It looked and sounded like you guys were haveing fun despite the wind.  

OP - did you find a place to base camp?

Ha!  That was the unknown distance stage.  It was a butt kicker for some of my competitors.  The winds did mess with folks' minds.

Rock City is very fun.  Some of the places where I had stages were in mini-rock cities that are scattered along the cliff.  So many wonderful places to shoot through there it's hard to decide which rock or loop hole will be best!

I'm glad you guys had a good time.  Let me know the next time you head that way and maybe we can get you to take a detour and stretch the legs of something of yours.  The farthest target at this match was 1250.  The last match was 1400.