CHOTEAU (AP) – Fire officials Sunday continued to monitor but not fight a 3,682-acre blaze in the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area. The fire that was reported late Wednesday and spread across nearly 6 square miles was attributed to lightning, and brought the closure of several trails. Weather Sunday was conducive to relatively calm burning, but […]

The Glacier Orchestra and Chorale kicked off its 2007-08 season Saturday evening with a Pops concert at Rebecca Farm in Kalispell. About 400 people attended the event, which traditionally is the first event of the season for the Glacier Orchestra. Blue skies, a slight breeze and a large crowd greeted the orchestra and conductor John […]

Planning: a mantra we hear often in the Flathead Valley. If we could only plan better then the growth could somehow be more palatable. I have watched with interest the comments about Block 46 in Whitefish. Finally, an opportunity to plan an entire city block. A block that is an “entrance” to town, one that […]

Northwest Montana’s biggest summer attraction – Glacier National Park – is launching nearly a decade of road improvements to Going-to-the-Sun Road in one of the biggest, longest-term, and most expensive projects the park has undertaken since the road was built 75 years ago. That has regional tourism leaders concerned. “People hear the word ‘construction’ and […]

WEST GLACIER (AP) _ Rangers from Glacier National Park and wardens from Banff National Park and Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada cooperated this week in rescuing an injured Whitefish hiker. Denis Twohig, 68, took a 15-foot pendulum fall at about 5:30 p.m. Monday while leading a technical rock climb on Glacier’s Gendarme, a prominent […]

Drive down Baker Street, and you’ll see two new electric-lime street signs. Not on the sidewalk, or the corner, or painted on asphalt. “They’re not where signs usually are,” laughs Jay Barringer, construction and maintenance supervisor for the City of Whitefish. “They make you use the other side of your brain.” Located on two difficult […]

HELENA (AP) – Montanans may still be reeling from Thursday’s near-record temperatures, but the forecast shows little relief in sight. “We’re expecting a lot of records to be broken (Friday),” said meteorologist Connie Thomson of the National Weather Service’s office in Great Falls. “It’s a little early in the summer for temperatures this hot.” The […]

Montana State Athletic Director Peter Fields likely tensed up last month when some poor sap began another conversation, “Two football players were charged with …” If he did, then his heart rate would have lessened considerably after being told it involved eggs and a police chase through the mayor’s house. If you haven’t heard, it […]

CHOTEAU (AP) _ A wildfire in the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area west of here, sparked by lightning, has grown to roughly 3,100 acres, a forest ranger said late Friday afternoon. “We expected the perimeter to grow, and based on the amount of smoke that it’s producing, it’s continuing to grow,” said Mike Munoz, district ranger […]

Sports that appeal to certain fringes of society develop in unpredictable ways. Take, for example, surfing. In the sport’s early years, surfboards were fiberglass behemoths before they grew shorter, pointier and more maneuverable. In the 1970s, skateboarding spurred off of surfing, spearheaded by a small group in Santa Monica, Calif., who rode pavement like they […]

Hot weather didn’t deter visitors or the community from cheering on, and walking or rolling through, the annual Bigfork Fourth of July Parade. Bigfork’s Parade has five categories with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place ribbons: Animals, Commercial, Youth, Auto, and Open. The open category can include family reunions, churches, charity groups, or anyone else who […]

Later this month, the Flathead County Planning Board will take up the most controversial clauses of the much-debated interim subdivision regulations, including floodplain provisions, fire hazard areas, and the encouragement of “clustering” structures in new subdivisions. But at public comment hearings in recent months, the most ardent and emotional speakers by far have turned out […]

At last year’s Glacier Challenge, Hannah Plumb was a buoy. This year she’s the boss. Plumb is head coordinator for the Glacier Challenge, a 55-mile multi-sport race that’s perennially the biggest fundraiser for the Flathead Attention Home, a non-profit organization dedicated to caring for young people who are at risk or who face family crises. […]

The shortest path from point A to point B is a straight line. Lon Hinkle fully realized this when, in the 1979 U.S. Open, he launched his eighth-hole tee shot through a gap in the trees onto the neighboring fairway, cutting off about 60 yards to the green and giving himself a clear second shot. […]

The president and chief executive officer of Winter Sports, Inc., which owns Whitefish Mountain Resort, formerly known as Big Mountain, announced his retirement today. “It’s something I’ve had under consideration for several months,” Jones, 65, said. “I’m at an age where these things happen, and people decide to go off and do something else with […]