Two couples.  Active matures.  (They use that term when they sell you insurance)  Going to fly into Kalispell.  Air BB in Columbia Falls.

We supposedly have a car rented.

Any ideas?  Drinks.  Eats.  Activities.  Is there prairie dog shooting within a couple of hours?  Gun stores?

Things, places to avoid?

Anybody want to volunteer an emergency number in case we get in a jam?

Thanks

Ken

First.  Thanks to everyone who responded.  Now kinda disjointed, but figured better sooner than later.

In general, it was a fun trip.  Great scenery, nice folks.  The down side, it was hot, smokey, expensive.

It was 99 one day.  Hard to have fun hiking when you are on the edge of heat stroke.

Cheeseburgers are $16.  Craft beer $6.  I like to tip when appropriate.  $25 lunch.

We saw good outdoor live music at Gunsite in C Falls.  Nice to see kids roaming loose.

Gunsite in C Falls..odd setup.  Order food at one place.  Order drinks another.  Same facility.  Start here on the theme.........there was a bar tender there who was a mean looking guy sorta thing.  I believe it was a she.  She was not nice.  She was slow.  She did not like me.   There was also a skimpy dressed tattooed chick bar tender with a lot of skin.  I liked her.  She liked me.  Guess who got the cash.  Point here.. there are some confused young people roaming around the area.  You can't help them.  Don't try.

Restaurants and bars close at 8p.  Except 3 forks in C Falls.  I think they are open till 9.  Plan accordingly.

We did the raft thing at Wild River Adventures.  Solid outfit.  Relaxed fun.  Very pretty.

Went to Army Navy store in Whitefish.  I guessed $5 mil in inventory.  They said $7.  Worth a stop.  Not much surplus but a lot of higher end outdoor gear.  At least $500,000 in knives alone.

Stopped at Evergreen Tactical in you guessed it, Evergreen.  Nice small store with the owner standing right there.  Lots of higher end parts there.  Usual guns but I liked the part department.  Hard to find the place.  Stopped at Big Fork Guns in Big fork.  Small place.  Lots of inventory.  I liked the vibe.  Dog in the floor.

Flathead brewing in Big Fork was good for beer.  Menu no good.  Beer very good.  Beware of their parking entrance.  Probably not in compliance with standard road building code.  (Whatever that is)

If you think you are going to get a parking place at Logan Pass, you better get there, I mean get there, before 6 am.  If you can't park there, or down the road, you are not going to hike from there.  If you do a shuttle, get a reservation.  Long in advance.

We did the Blackfeet Indian Museum in Browning.  Interesting museum if you are curious.  Excellent wardrobe.  Lock you car.  The area is a shit hole.

Drove highway 2 south of the park Browning to C Falls.  Nice drive.  Saw a buffalo herd.  Hundreds.  Not 3 or 4.  Hundreds on the plains.

Ate at Backslide in C Falls.  They are still covid crazy.  Decent beer.  Not great.  Food was good.

Ate at 3 Forks in C Falls.  Excellent service and food.  $$$.  Their burger costs the same as Gunsite across the street and is better.  Restaurant like.  Not bar like.  Great salads.

Mc Kenzie pizza in Whitefish was good.  No staff.  Slow.  All meat pizza was excellent

Rental car selection is zero.  Ours had a dent in it.  Enterprise did not even look at it before they gave us the keys.  Order long in advance.

You gotta get a pass to do the park road.  And if you are .mil you get a discount on the entrance.

We went up to Lake Bowman and Kintla.  Smooth dirt road.  Then last 10 miles rough.  Loose a lot of people.  Great spots.  Few people on the trails.  My regret is not bringing fishing gear.  I think a guy might kill the lake trout there with a little thinking.  Flat back canoe, down rigger, fish finder and trolling motor.

Lots of wild berries on the trail.  We gobbled them before the bears got em.

Whitefish is interesting.  Reminds me of living in Southern California.  That is because a lot women are from S. Cal.  And Dallas.  I know it when I see and hear it.  Black leotards.  Loose tops.  Botox lips.  Silly cone tits.  No brains.  Saw about 100 of them.

We hiked Lake Bowman shoreline.  Nice.  John's Lake.  Also one 10 west of Whitefish.  Nobody there.  Totally different vibe.  The park is just jammed.

Lessons learned..........go when school is back in session.   Go when the fires are out so you can see things.  We had about 2-4 miles visibility.  We stayed in an air BB.  Expensive.  Maybe rent a class b or small trailer next time.  Go to alltrails web site.  Pick you trails carefully, then do what you gotta do to get a parking place.  If you can't park, u can't hike.

That's about it.

Thanks to everyone and if anyone has a question, let me know.

Cheers.

There aren’t any prairie dogs that close...but there are a lot of gophers on the east side of the mountains.  Much smaller, but just as satisfying with the .17 HMR or HM2.

If you’re going to be doing glacier, make sure you are on the website to get a pass, as you have to have a pass to do the going to the sun thing.

Polebridge and the n fork of the Flathead is pretty cool...lots of good hikes...pretty scenery...some back doors into glacier at bowman and kintla lake.

How long are you here, and what are you planning on doing?

C Falls has a farmers market on Thursday evenings. Tons of food trucks, etc. Haven't been to it yet but drove past on my way home from Glacier yesterday afternoon. My wife and I plan to hit it as some point. There is a Cidery in Kalispell that has legitimately one of the best burgers I've ever had, pizza, and 10 plus different types of cider. We got a flight of 4 and they were pretty good.

You probably need to know someone to find a place to shoot gophers. I shoot them from my front porch. Or my back porch, if one of them is a big enough asshole as to dig in my fire pit. There are places up along the north fork where you can find them. I was at a public shooting spot up there and one gopher was dumb enough to stand on the first berm. So I introduced him to the joy of 6.5mm. He took a sudden interest in the sky.

I rarely go to Chlamydia Falls, so I don’t know a lot of what’s in town. Northwest Shooters is along US Hwy 2, haven’t been in there in years but I remember them being pretty proud of everything in there back in 2015/2016 ish. Doubt their prices have gotten any better.

Murdoch’s north is up there, right along the highway. They’re hit or miss. Same goes for the south store in Kalispell.

Extreme Tactical is in Evergreen. It’s on a back street and it’s a small shop but the owner fits a lot of stuff in there somehow. And his prices are pretty decent. I’ve looked online and it’s hard to beat his prices on mags when you factor in shipping and the discount he gives veterans.

There’s a place in Big Fork that my friends love. I wasn’t impressed with their prices or the selection of things you can actually buy (hanging post-86 samples on the wall doesn’t impress me, and is actually a good way to make me want to not buy anything).

Avoid Machineguns Montana like the plague. The prices suck and the owner is an absolute prick asshole. There have only been two handicap guys I’ve ever truly wanted to beat the living dogshit out of, and he’s one of them.

Avoid Whitefish unless you’re from Seattle, Portland, or Denver, and starting to feel homesick.

If you fish, there are a lot of places in the area to drop a line or a crawdad trap.

There’s a taco stand a bit west of West Glacier, one of my coworkers really likes it. I don’t care for mexican food so I can’t tell you if it’s good or not. They do well enough to stay in business.

Mudman Burger is/was owned by a slaver cult. Some wicked shit went down a while back and they closed all their stores here, but now they’re back. I don’t personally feel the need to support cults, charity for Africans when there are poor kids in the US that need shoes too, or enslaving your employees, so I’ve never gone there. Obviously you have to make your own decisions.

Glacier Grill in Coram used to have pretty good food but it got bought by someone else who decided they were only worried about tourist dollars so it’s only open during tourist season. I haven’t been there since, so the food might not be as good any more.

Are you bringing any firearms with you?

Thanks a million for the tips.

I would travel to shoot gophers.  I grew up shooting prairie dogs in TX and miss it.  My buddy has never shot gophers or PDs.

We have the pass.

Will check into Polebridge.  One of the gals we are with is hard-over to lay eyes on a glacier.  She is worried that global warming is going to melt them before she gets a chance.  We are all pretty good hikers.

We are there 5 whole days.  2 partial travel days.  

We are doing a boat trip of some kind.  Road to the sun pass.  Hiking.  Local beers and eats.

Thanks again.

Will keep the farmer's market in mind.  We have them here and there are always interesting characters floating around them.  

The Cidery sounds great.  Something different.

Thanks fellow.

Don't know anyone in the area.  I have hunted a lot of BLM and National Forest and have some great experiences.  And some pretty game-free stretches too.  Hit or miss.  But still enjoyed it.

The gun shopping is mainly for my buddy.  He lives in a non-free state so we'll hit all of these places.  I live in a free state so these aren't new to me.  I hit Knob Creek every year.  Have a RDIAS and a HK sear.  Its pretty hard for me to get excited in a gun store.

Crawdads?  Interesting.  I will have to think on that.

Never heard of Mudman Burgers.  But I did a search.  This is what came back, "grueling 60-hour work weeks, low pay, verbal and psychological abuse, untenable schedules, interrogations about sexual behavior, and psychological manipulation."  I had flashbacks of just about every workplace I've ever been in.

I like tacos.  But I lived in West Texas and NM.  I know what a good taco is, and isn't.  Hard to believe there are good tacos 1500 miles from the border.

Firearms.  If I can get a gopher shoot planned I will bring a rifle of some sort.  Depending on the flight plans I might bring a self-defense pistol.  Delta has changed our connections 5 times already.

Really appreciate your input.

Mudman

For food in cfalls, I like Tiens (Asian) and Gunsight Saloon.  The back slope brewery I think is just okay....but I'm kinda over the 8 million micro brew thing.

Sacred waters brewery between cfalls and Kalispell is a really good brewery....I have lots of acquaintances that swear by it, and the lot is always full.

Gunsight is good! Backslope was good when I went while here for work, before moving. However, I'd say it was expensive for what I got (wings and fries).

I agree about tacos. I lived in Colorado for 12 years and we had pretty good mexican food, then the Phoenix area the 2 years before coming here. I can't find a breakfast burrito or GOOD Mexican to save my life, besides making it at home.

I have a meeting at the top of Logan Pass this week, so it'll be nice to go up with only admin travel and not a ton of vehicles! Weather looks to be good too. The one time my wife and I went up while visiting last year it was PACKED, in the clouds with terrible visibility, and raining.

My in-laws just did a half day fishing trip on Flathead Lake and had a bunch of fun. Seemed reasonably priced.

Thanks fellows.  Heading out tomorrow.

k

Hope you realize MT is getting hammered by wildfires right now and the effects will likely last the rest of summer.

I was going to recommend the Hungry Horse Cafe for some good ol town cafe food but I see it’s been bought by a new guy so can’t say as to what it’s like now.    Called the Great Bear Cafe.

Ate there years ago and it was good food.