Vacation Montana!

~ Montana Lodging At Its BEST ~

Skiing...Cross-country style!

The Flathead Valley is a prime cross-country skiing region, offering a great number of places for you and your family or group to cross-country ski on hundreds of miles of trails, many of them groomed, through varied and spectacular scenery.

From your vacation home, the most local places are Blacktail Mountain near Lakeside, Cedar Lake near Columbia Falls, Herron Park near Kalispell, and Jewel Basin near Bigfork. There are also many miles of closed roads in the nearby forests which provide adventurous cross-country opportunities (the closed roads are identified in Forest Service maps). And a snow-covered Echo Lake provides miles of cross-country enjoyment, right outside your vacation home!

Blacktail Mountain is an expansive area providing 25 miles of regularly groomed trails for classic and diagonal-stride skiing. The trails are rated from easiest to most difficult and include trails that are very family friendly, taking you and your family through beautiful alpine scenery. More advanced skiers will enjoy the diverse terrain and moderately steep upgrade and downgrade sections of the more difficult trails.

Cedar Lake provides a nearly 6 mile trail for adventurous skiers. The trail is not groomed or maintained and is more difficult with moderately steep upgrade and downgrade sections. The main advantage of this trail is its proximity to snowmobile trails. During family outings, some family members may want to snowmobile while others want to cross-country ski. Here is a perfect area to meet everyone's needs, as long as the cross-country skiers in the family are fairly advanced in their skills.

Herron Park near Foys Lake provides 7 miles of regularly groomed trails rated from easy to difficult. Herron Park is a great place to "get your feet wet" with cross-country skiing as lessons are available, ski rentals are available on-site, and the easy trails are comparatively flat. You or family members can then "dive into" cross-country skiing at Blacktail Mountain and, with considerable experience, Jewel Basin.

Jewel Basin, in the high ridge areas of the Swan Mountain Range, is a break your own trails backwoods cross-country experience that, if your ready for it, rewards skiers with absolutely breathtaking high-mountain winter scenery and panoramic vistas.

Echo Lake is 725 acres of open water, wooded islands, and many crags and deep coves that becomes iced over and covered by snow early in the Winter season. A snow-covered Echo Lake is ideal for cross-country skiing and exploring through magnificent scenery along the edge of the Swan Mountain Range.

In addition to these cross-country ski areas, hundreds of miles of family friendly and more advanced trails through Glacier National Park provide peaceful solitude and stunningly beautiful cross-country experiences. Although the trails are not maintained, many of the trails, particularly unplowed roads which provide a solid and even surface, are very skiable, ideally suited for family touring, and provide open and smooth passages into the heart of the mountains. Trails are available for skiers from beginners all the way up to highly advanced, including even designing your own trip through the Park.

And don't worry about having cross-country skis. If you already own skis, then your all set and ready to go. But if you don't, well there are several places in the Flathead Valley to rent quality skis, so you'll be on the trails real quick! Cross-country ski lessons are also found throughout the area, including at Herron Park.

Blacktail Mountain and Herron Park are about 20 minutes from your vacation home, Cedar Lake is about 30 minutes away, Jewel Basin is about 5 minutes away, and Echo Lake is right outside your vacation home. Glacier National Park is about 45 minutes from your home.