Across Flathead Lake from the Big Arm campsites, the Mission Mountains stand straight up out of the far shore, catching the last light while the water in front of the pad goes still. Families come down US-93 from Kalispell for a week of that, with the motorhome parked at a state park on the shore and the days spent in and on the lake. The rig moves once or twice, around the south end at Polson, and the rest of the time it's a kitchen, a bunkroom and a place to hang wet towels.
Four state parks sit on the lake, and a week usually strings together two or three of them, a couple of nights at each. The west shore comes first on the way south, then Polson, then the east shore back north.
The west shore on US-93, West Shore to Big Arm
West Shore is the first lake night south of Kalispell, and its dolomite outcrops along the water turn into the family's swimming rock by the second afternoon. It's also a comfortable place to settle in, because West Shore has electrical hookups on its RV sites and the air conditioning or the space heater can run all night.
Farther down US-93, Big Arm faces the Missions head-on and looks out at Wild Horse Island, 2,163 acres off the west shore that you can only reach by boat. A boat day out to the island is the best day of the lake week for a family that can arrange one, and it's the reason Big Arm earns a night even without power. Big Arm lists no hookups and books through ReserveAmerica, so treat it as the dry night and roll in with a full fresh tank and charged batteries.
Finley Point, Polson and the east shore
Around the south end at Polson, the east shore road reaches Finley Point, a small campground under ponderosa pines out on its point in the lake. Finley Point has 18 RV sites, all with electricity, which makes it the powered night to reserve before anything else. Polson itself has private RV parks, including the Polson / Flathead Lake KOA Holiday, for the nights when the state sites are full.
Heading back north toward Kalispell, Wayfarers has an RV dump station, the place to empty the tanks after the dry night at Big Arm and a few days on the water. Lock the lake nights before the rental, since the site you get decides what length of rig you can bring.
Glacier's west side from a Kalispell RV park
Glacier's west entrance is the other half of a Kalispell week, and a full-size rig handles it best as a day trip from a park in town, back to a level site each night. Spruce Park on the River has pull-through sites about 30 minutes from the West Entrance, and Glacier Pines RV Park is the other close-in choice in Kalispell, handy as a first night when you roll out late. Whitefish's RV parks are the other base on this side of the park.
Going-to-the-Sun Road closes its alpine stretch to vehicles longer than 21 feet, which rules out a family-size motorhome on the climb over the top. The Glacier National Park RV page covers which park campgrounds take a rig this size and how the road rules work. For two people in a smaller rig, the Kalispell campervan page covers Lake McDonald, Hungry Horse Reservoir, Lone Pine State Park and a lighter run around both shores of Flathead.
