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About Northwest Montana and the Flathead Valley Above photos by Jon Alper:
left - St. Mary Lake, Glacier National Park;
center - sunset over the Flathead Valley;
right - Swan Mountain Range from Middle Road, Columbia Falls.
About Northwest Montana and the Flathead Valley – a wonderful place to live if you love the great outdoors and the majesty of Mother Nature. Hiking, skiing, camping, fishing, hunting, golfing, rafting, boating, Glacier National Park, the Bob Marshall Wilderness, Flathead Lake – this area has it all. For those of you who may not be familiar with this part of Montana:
This is where the real mountains are – in Glacier National Park (scroll down with the bar on the left and click the “Glacier Park” page button to see our photos of Glacier National Park, which is just 45 minutes from downtown Kalispell). This park encompasses over one million acres, and combined with the Flathead National Forest, the Bob Marshall Wilderness and other wilderness areas includes almost 10,000 square miles.
We are 70 miles from the Canadian border.
The population of the Flathead Valley is about 75,000, and our biggest town, Kalispell has about 12,000 residents.
Flathead Lake is the largest body of fresh water west of the Mississippi, 27 miles long and 15 miles wide.
The temperature in the Flathead Valley, unlike some of the nationally publicized cold spots in state, like Yellowstone National Park or towns in eastern Montana, is relatively mild. The average temperature in the coldest months is in the 20’s and only two to three weeks in the summer will have extremely hot, but dry temperatures, – high 80’s to low 90’s during the day. For more information on our climate, scroll down to the end of this section.
Unlike Colorado, our elevations are moderate. At the Valley floor, it is about 3,000 feet. At the top of Big Mountain Ski Resort, it is only 7,000 feet, as is the highest pass on the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park. There the high mountain peaks rise to 10,000 to 11,000 feet.
For skiers, the Big Mountain Ski Resort, in the process of being renamed to Whitefish Resort, is a world class ski area just north of Whitefish. Blacktail Mountain Ski Area at the northwest side of Flathead Lake also offers excellent skiing.
For golfers, there are 10 excellent golf courses in the Flathead Valley with amazingly low fees.
The town of Kalispell, the county seat for Flathead County, was named the “Best Mountain Town in America” by Mountain Sports and Living magazine in their January, 1999 issue.
Our medical facilities are excellent here in the Flathead Valley. (Doctors, like others, are attracted to the area by all that it has to offer). Our major hospital, the Kalispell Regional Medical Center , ranked in the “Top 100 Hospitals in the Country” by Newsweek in 1996, offers the latest in medical procedures, including open heart surgery, and is currently going through a major expansion program. Our medical helicopter operates 24/7 to ensure that medical assistance is available quickly to the more distant areas of the Valley.
The nearest large city is Spokane, Washington, a 4 hour drive from Kalispell. Spokane and the surrounding area has a population of close to 500,000. Missoula, Montana, home of the University of Montana, is a 2 1/4 hour drive from Kalispell. It is an upscale university town with a population of 75,000.
About driving in Montana - it is probably very different from what you are used to. There is very little traffic on our roads and highways, and you can expect to drive 65 to 75 mph when on clear, dry surfaces. Most traveling is done on two-lane roads. I90, our one east-west four lane Interstate is routed about in the center of the state, passing through Missoula. The only north-south Interstate starts from I 90 in the north several hours driving time east of Missoula.
For airline service, Delta and Northwest have five flights a day to and from our Glacier International Airport, and there are other airlines with flights to Spokane, Calgary, Salt Lake and other towns in Montana.
The real estate business is very dynamic in this area, with people relocating or retiring here or establishing second homes.
Kalispell / Flathead Valley Climate
The climate of Kalispell and the Flathead Valley is relatively mild and can best be described as an area of climatic transition between coastal and continental. The high mountains of the Continental Divide to the east provide protection from the Great Plains Climate while the mountains to the west interrupt passage of the Great Basin Climate found in Spokane. Also, water surfaces from the many lakes and rivers in the valley tend to moderate temperatures in both winter and summer. The weather ranges from moderately dry summer and autumn to moderately wet winter and spring. Precipitation ranges from 16 inches on the valley bottoms to more that 100 inches on the mountain tops. On the valley bottoms about half of the annual precipitation falls as snow, while up to 60 percent of the precipitation at the higher elevations is snow. The average temperature is 27 degrees Fahrenheit in January and 74 degrees in July. Average wind velocities range from 5 to 6.8 mph, with the highest average in April and May.
Average temperatures, Daily High - Low.
January: 27 - 11 .
February: 34 - 16 .
March: 41 - 20 .
April: 54 - 30 .
May: 64 -38 .
June: 70 - 44 .
July: 81 - 48 .
August: 79 - 46 .
September: 68 - 39 .
October: 54 - 31 .
November: 39 - 23 .
December: 31 - 17 .
Zero degree days: 17 .
90+ degree days: 15 .
Precipitation days: 131 .
Storm days: 23 .
Source: Kalispell Chamber of Commerce .
Please remember that the temperatures can vary dramatically within the Flathead Valley from areas that are only a few miles apart. Precipitation varies accordingly. For example, flowers can be in bloom in Columbia Falls while Whitefish will have several feet of snow still on the ground.
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