Since we found Apgar Campground and Apgar Village a bit hectic, we decided to try one of the more off-the-beaten-path campgrounds and headed out to Bowman Lake. It is 30 miles north of Apgar and involves about 15 miles of unpaved road, the last six being rather rough and only one lane wide.
To get there, you leave the park and head up the Outer North Fork Road, along the North Fork of the Flathead River, to a little hamlet called Polebridge. It is paved until you leave the park and also through some private land on the way, but it is mostly in National Forest land. There is also an inside the park route, Inner North Fork Road, but it is all unpaved and rough. What's more, it's currently closed due to several washouts this past spring.
There is a ranger station at Polebridge to re-enter the park, but more interestingly, there is the Polebridge Mercantile, a tiny general store and bakery. It is the best bakery we've found in Montana. It seems to be in an area with a number of high-end summer places including some big ranches. Apparently the summer population and the park visitors can support a bakery that makes tens of dozens of pastries and breads each day. Ellen picked up a Huckleberry Bearclaw and I chose a huge ricotta-filled pastry covered with chocolate chips and icing (sort of a mega-danish). We also got a few cream cheese sugar cookies for later and sampled a feta-spinach biscuit. We'll be back.
After that, it was off to the ranger station for a passport stamp and to check back into the park. This was the beginning of the six-mile, narrow, rough road to the Bowman campground. The campground is just back from the lake, so there are no lakeside sites and it is pretty simple. It is a single loop with 48 campsites. There is water available and vault toilets, a camp host and a mule deer (a least one) who seems to continually loop through the camp. It has a boat ramp at the lake as well for those who'd dare trailer a small boat along the road (and people do). Powered boats are limited to 10 horsepower and must have a permit.
There is also a ranger station and a black bear. Well...they aren't really related. There was a bear wandering through the campground last night and was seen beyond the last site and on the Bowman Lake Trail today, but, as usual, we haven't seen it.
About half the sites were filled today, but there were an awful lot of day visitors. After we found a site and set up camp, we wandered down to the lake, assuming it would be a peaceful place to just relax—it seemed crowded (not by Apgar standards but certainly with more people than we expected). So, we just wandered around the campground a bit, mostly tents and small campers, a big RV couldn't get out that road. There was a solo motorcycle camper on a KTM 990 Adventure. He rode by several times, but was not around when we passed by his site. We heard him come back when it was very nearly dark which must have been a challenge on that road.
After a lazy afternoon, sitting in our Kermit chairs reading, we had a good dinner and wandered back down to the lake to watch the setting sun illuminate the mountains beyond. It was much less crowded, just us an a couple of other campers with cameras. The fish were jumping and all was good.
Photos
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