Middle Fork Flathead River Dispersed Camping

This a beautiful campsite right on the Middle Fork Flathead River, about 15 minutes from the West entrance of Glacier National Park. Unfortunately, there's only 3 nights allowed, or I would stay much longer! The bright side, there, is that it is very clean from lower impact, and not remarkably busy, especially on weekdays.

Coming from US-2, make sure you cross the bridge, and the camping area will then be on the left. All 3 other "sides" are not available for camping. The small road down to the camping area from there is probably the worst part of it all. I have seen small 2WD sedans and minivans make it down, but it wasn't particularly easy. If you're towing a trailer or have a larger rig, you might want to scope it out before trying to take it down. I did see someone with a small trailer down here, so it is possible, but I'll leave that one up to others to decide the risks on!

Once you're on the beach, it's pretty easy. You can camp along the rocks, with a great view of the river. Or, you can go past the rocks and into the trees, on the far side, where there is quite a bit of previously used campsites available to work with. There's a ton of space, really.

The regulations state that you need some kind of self-contained toilet system, no matter what you're camping in (RV's are good to go with your toilets, as long as you don't try to dump on the land anywhere). You need to pack out all of your waste with you. There is a $5000 fine for leaving your waste behind here, even in a cathole. There is a vault toilet literally across the street, but they don't seem too keen on saying that's an acceptable thing for you to rely on, as it is not even owned/operated by the USFS over there--seems to be some kind of city/county park, by the signs. Those toilets are pretty nasty anyway, while I was here, but since they're not part of this site, I'm not including them in how I rate this site at all.

One day I was here, I actually saw some people, who appeared to either be USFS workers or volunteers around cleaning up some trash left by others. That could be why it is so clean, but PLEASE don't rely on them! Keep it clean, and we can keep coming back!

As for the noise, it was hit and miss. Some people would come here to fish in the river, and there would be some occasional noise associated with the different kinds of people there. Sometimes, that would be enough for me to complain about the noise at this spot. Otherwise, it was very very quiet and lovely, though, so I almost didn't even want to take off the one star I did on the Noise. Not enough for me to dock a star from the overall rating at all!

This is Grizzly Bear territory, and there are mosquitoes plenty on the river. You're also camping on the high-water area of the river, more-or-less. All of the dangers of everything involved there require some thought. Some good mosquito repellent and bear spray are really necessary, and you probably want to watch the weather and water levels in case there's any possible flooding or something (didn't seem to be a problem, even with some good rainfall and thunderstorms coming through on me, but this could be different some years, possibly).

Verizon LTE signal is strong at 3-4 bars without a booster. Speeds can be hit or miss. Sometimes, I got great speeds, sometimes it was a little slow, but overall consistently faster than I was getting in Glacier nearby. TMobile was roaming on AT&T's networks with 3-4 bars also, but I didn't use it to know about speeds.

If you come in from the West on Hwy 2 it 100% paved until you turn off into the camping area. If you come from the East there is a few miles of OK dirty roads before you get to the bridge. Once you turn off the road there is about 50 yards of dirt that is pretty rutted out. The ruts will be filled with water, but luckily they the bottoms are all rock, so even in our 20' long van with RWD, we had no issues even after four straight days of rain. I'm not sure what has changed since the first review, but I saw everything from a 25' trailer to a Toyota Prius make it back here.

Once you are on the beach you have your choice of the open rocky beach or going a bit further into the trees and having some privacy. The cost of the privacy is that you are a little further from the water and the ground is dirt/sand instead of rocks. I like the rocks because I can walk around barefoot and not track dirt into my rig.

There are easily 10-13 spots at this location.

Lots of river traffic during the day, the bridge seems to be a very popular take out location. Most of that will happen across the river and on the other side of the bridge, but there is some noise.

I had great 4G reception with Verizon. I didn't do speed tests, but I was browsing the internet with no delays.

This is probably the best free camping for access to Glacier. It is only 8 miles from the West Glacier entrance. Also within 20 minutes of grocery stores, breweries, restaurants.

Perfect spot to spend a free night near Glacier, or to camp for a few days. Access is a bit tough as of 10/16 the 200 yard stretch of "road" from the main road to the river front is in real bad shape, think water over the license plate in some of the bigger holes. We made it in (and out) fine in a 4x4 truck camper, but definitely not a good idea with a towed rig or low clearance right now!

We were so excited to stay here for a few nights on the riverfront while visiting Glacier National Park. That is until our 28ft travel trailer bottomed out on the first 50ft of the entrance. Given our trailer is only a few years old we chose not to risk it anymore and backed out. If your trailer is more than 21ft long this is probably not the spot for you unless you don’t mind scraping the ground most of the way in as the entrance is extremely unlevel. However if you have a small trailer, pop up tent or otherwise it would be a great choice! Only 15 minutes from West Glacier entrance.

The access road looks daunting upon arrival with a trailer, but all the holes are rock bottom so we took it slow and made it through without any problems. LOVED our stay here and met some really great people. We had a loud truck ride through really late our first night, but otherwise it was pretty quiet. We were the only ones there when we arrived early in the day during the week, and we never saw the place fill up. Easy access into Glacier. Highly recommend if you’re up for a little adventure.

When you’re looking for free campsites you never know what you’re going to get, but this one is a gem.

I would suggest having a high clearance vehicle as the road down to the river bank is very rutted.

Once you’re on the river bank the camping is everywhere. Just note that most of it is on river rock, and probably not the most comfortable in a tent (unless you have an elevated sleeping platform).

Working situation...
- Once again Verizon strikes out with 3-4 bars of “LTE” but less than 1mb/second down.
- AT&T has 3 bars and is fluctuating between 2mb/second down and 11mb/second down.

Excellent location, but unfortunately the dirt road is impassable unless you have a 4x4 with some serious clearance. I made it a few yards in with a Ford Transit Connect and gave up.

Camping is allowed on the south west side of the bridge. The road down was a bit rough, but totally doable in an stock Honda CRV. Looked intimidating, but puddles were filled with rocks so we were just fine. We parked on the river rocks, but we saw someone who had driven further in to a more wooded area. Beautiful and fairly quite spot!

My favorite place to camp in the entire country. Spent 6 days 2 summers ago and about to spend 8 days in July. It’s amazing.

An amazing free spot right on the river rocks. Love this spot! A great alternative to the busy campsites in Glacier. No reservation needed just clean up after yourselves and be kind to your neighbors as this is a site that has become well known and loved by many. Unfortunately, the terrible slow speeds of Verizon’s network (doesn't really work even with bars) make this an unsuitable spot for any long term stays. Still, I would stay here as long as our busy lives would allow.