Cover photo courtesy of Shallan Knowles
If you’re looking for a summer trip with your family that maximizes a wide range of outdoor fun for kids and adults all in one place, Whitefish Mountain Resort is one of the most action-packed destinations in the Northwest. A little over four hours from Spokane in northwest Montana, the resort is a short drive up Big Mountain from the bustling Glacier National Park gateway community of Whitefish.
Last summer, we loaded up the campervan with bikes and hiking gear for a few days of fun at Whitefish Mountain Resort (WMR). For several days, we called the resort’s camping lot home while we crammed as many activities in as possible from sunrise to sunset each day. The last time we had been up at the resort in the summer was nearly a decade ago, so we read up on the latest trails and activities and quickly realized our trip wasn’t long enough to fit it all in.
That first morning, we booked an Aerial Adventure Park tour. After a short gear orientation and safety briefing, we headed out for what I anticipated would be a fun but quick tour before getting to the serious business of mountain biking. Similar to my first zipline experience several years earlier in BC, I was floored by how much fun we had ticking off the courses one by one. The Aerial Adventure Park features over 60 obstacles suspended in the trees, including cable bridges, mini ziplines, rope ladders and other creative challenges that tested our balance and nerve.
Having watched adults and kids flying down the mountain below us on winding slides while we were navigating through the trees in the aerial park, our next stop was to check out the Alpine Slides. After a short chairlift ride, you take your pick from the two slides and hop in a sled (a parent can double up with a child), then launch down the mountain, controlling your speed (or not) through dips and around banked turns with a hand brake. After several laps and a few family races to the bottom, our growling stomachs let us know that we had blown way past lunch and it was about dinner time. Several restaurants and bars are open in summer, and there’s a small market that carries drinks, snacks and some basic grocery items. We hoofed it back to the van for a quick and easy meal before an evening walk.
On our second full day, we got our first taste of the bike park trails. With a network of over 20 miles of lift-accessed and cross-country trails, we barely scratched the surface. The diversity of terrain and trail difficulty make Whitefish ideal for family riding. Beginners or families with young or less experienced riders can start like we did with lift-assisted laps on beginner-friendly, shorter trails like Kansas and Limelight. For a longer ride and more intermediate-level challenge, the nearly 4-mile Summit Trail delivers fast blue- and green-flow trail thrills through forest and open hillsides. Sections with moderate jumps, berms and rock gardens make for a great test to determine which riders in your group may be ready to step it up to more difficult trails.
As we rode our way down the mountain, we crossed paths with several locals pedaling up to the summit. I had high hopes of doing the same that afternoon, but after several hours of family riding, the lodge deck chairs, a snack and drinks were sounding pretty good. Lounging on the deck—listening to the sounds of laughter, hoots and yelps from the trails, aerial park and alpine slide echoing through the trees as we played games of Giant Jenga and cornhole—is a favorite summer memory. We lingered long enough to watch the afternoon light fade across the mountain before retreating back to camp.
A few days shy of the summer solstice, we made the most of the long evening light with a walk on trails through resort neighborhoods up to the resort’s market for provisions. Later, my son and I created our own disc golf course out of trees, rocks and signs around the camping lot, chasing a disc from hole to hole as bats darted above us and the first evening stars pierced the fading twilight.
For our final day, it was clear we didn’t have enough time to fit in everything we wanted to do, but there was definitely time for another run through the aerial park (the clear family favorite) and a chairlift ride to the summit. At the top of Big Mountain, we walked along the 1-mile East Rim Loop trail and ate lunch at the Summit House, enjoying conversations with friendly strangers from all over the U.S. and the panoramic views of towering peaks in every direction. The mind-bending mountain views are the main summit draw and make an awesome backdrop for photos you can have taken by an onsite professional photographer—an opportunity we took full advantage of.
After the chairlift ride back down to the base area, it was time to pack up and head home with a lot of ambitious objectives still on the list for next time. And we already have a packed plan for that yet-to-be-scheduled return trip: a few more days of riding the bike park (including at least one climb to the summit), an afternoon for the 6-line zip tour (Montana’s longest lift-served zipline tour) and a longer hike on the nearly 4-mile Danny On Memorial Trail that climbs over 2,000 feet to the summit.
Whitefish Mountain Resort’s summer season runs roughly from Memorial Day through mid-September. Plan your trip and book activities, lodging or camping at Skiwhitefish.com.
