From Wayfarer’s State Park on a sunny Winter’s Day

By Liz on March 3, 2018

Wayfarer’s State Park is located on the northeast shore of Flathead Lake, just south of Bigfork and Bigfork Bay. It is about 7 miles south of where I live.

On the capture above (Google Map Satellite), the entrance is from Hwy 35 just south of where Hwy 209 meets Hwy 35. A lower picnic area is the JH Horn Memorial Park. You can park there and walk a loop trail to the lake, up to an overlook and back through woods and meadow to JH Horn. There are also several short loop walks in the woods around the picnic areas at JH Horn.

Wayfarer’s has a campground with beautiful campsites from tent sites up to large motorhome sites and many have views of the lake. There are picnic areas along a rocky beach that looks to the bay and a boat launch at the lake end of the beach. South of the boat launch is a cliff area with benches to sit and enjoy the view or you can walk over the cliffs and find wildflowers growing in the cracks of the cliff rock plus more trails that join up to the campsites.

It is a beautiful park and although it can be very busy 4th of July through mid-August and summer weekends, other times I’ve been and feel like I’m the only person there. Karl and I went there often and outside of summer, I was able to allow him off leash on the trail and beach. It was a bit much for Bear and we went only a few times for walks, but we often drove in and down to the beach and back to see and smell (Bear)!

I went today for the first time in over a year. I wanted to see what the trails looked like for snowshoeing and it was such a gorgeous day, I also just wanted to walk along the lake a bit and enjoy the scenery, the sunshine, blue sky and fresh air.

The photos below are taken near the spot marked Wayfarers Campground. It is faint, but there is a line like the road lines extending into the lake. That is a large dock and I walked to the end to take the photos: the first 2 are looking the direction the arrow points – toward Bigfork Bay. The second 2 are looking south toward Polson, Montana.