Big Arm Birthday

June 29, 2020

by Jed Dunn

In keeping with tradition for our family we went camping for my birthday this year. We have lived in Montana for over three years now and have been loving all of the outdoor opportunities for our family. With 2020 being the crazy year it has been we feel extra lucky to live where we do and are taking full advantage of every weekend to check out as many state parks near Missoula as possible this year. Montana has about 55 state parks so we are concentrating our efforts in a three hour driving distance from Missoula.

Camping is a great way to spend the summer while social distancing, its outdoors, we don’t have direct contact with people outside our family unit, we can travel, fish, swim, hike, ect… So the plan for this year is we will review the campgrounds we visit, we will try to note some things that are important to us as a family with younger kids, and what makes the park special. We will also be keeping an eye out for the best sites in each campground for tents and trailers. There are plenty of resources out there on campgrounds in MT such as Camping Montana by Falcon Guides, which is a great resource, but we will be making our reviews and recommendations from a family perspective.

Big Arm is right on Flathead Lake and all of the reservable sites (Recreation.gov) are right on the water.

We were really happy with our site for tent camping, which is good because it was the only one left to reserve for the weekend! It was site A15 and it had a path leading right up to the rock beach and the lake.

We walked the loop of campgrounds and found the best sites which were B15 and B12 though all of the reservable ones are on the water in some fashion. There are also 3 yurts .