If you are heading to the Flathead National Forest or Glacier National Park for some biking or bike-packing adventures, make Whitefish Bike Retreat your basecamp! The Dean family and staff will provide a first-class destination for your biking needs.

We spent nine days bike-packing at Flathead National Forest and Glacier National Park. While there, we used the bike retreat's shuttle service and bike lodge as base camp.

The lodge accommodation includes a fully equipped kitchen that you can use to whip up some local Montana cuisine, a bike shop with tools and stands for assembling/disassembling your bike for shipping (we also stored our boxes and other bike-packing gear that we didn't need during our biking in the shop), a bike wash station cleaning up the bike before packing it up for shipping, clothes washer/dryer for your clothes cleaning needs, grill and fire pit on the back deck, and last but not least outdoor firewood fueled sauna for easing those sore muscles after a long day of biking. Is all of this included in the nightly lodging rate? Absolutely!

Just down the hill from the lodge, the office sells basic camping needs (freeze-dried meals, camp stove fuel, locally brewed beers, etc.)

The retreat also offers some challenging mountain bike single-track trails on the property and camp sites you can use if you like roughing it (although I highly recommend you spend one night at the lodge)

Thanks to the Dean family, Nicole, Lucy, Phil, and Lynn, for taking care of us and providing us with the latest local knowledge on the bike packing trails we were taking on. If we are ever back in the area, we will definitely be staying with you again.