The airport 15 miles southeast of Schafer doesn’t have a control tower. It doesn’t have security or a parking lot, and, well, it’s not really an airport. It’s an airstrip, and it’s one of a few to occupy U.S. Forest Service lands in the state. And in fact, for most of us, it’s much more easily accessed on foot than by plane.
There are two main routes into the airstrip, which sits on the Middle Fork of the Flathead River in the Great Bear Wilderness. One sets out from the Middle Big Bill Trailhead, and travels north before it hits the river and turns to run east alongside the water. The other trail, from the Morrison Creek trailhead, takes hikers southbound along the valley through which its namesake runs.
Alongside the trail, the brush is dense, the ground uneven. It’s a wonder to look at the airstrip and consider how much time and sweat went into clearing and grading the land. Sunsets light up the whole wide-open meadow, and watching moose cross the strip in the honey-golden dusk is enough to inspire cowboy poetry. Nearby day hikes are plentiful, with the region’s mountain ranges being the sort that inspire feelings of sublime human insignificance.