Howdy, Beacon readers! It’s mid-July and we are officially hitting the apex of summer chaos, with visitors already here for one of the busiest weekends in the Flathead Valley. The annual equestrian competition known as The Event at Rebecca Farm started yesterday and has brought 600 horse people and their four-legged counterparts to Kalispell. Meanwhile in Whitefish, Under the Big Sky music festival launches tomorrow night when an estimated 20,000 country and Americana fans wearing cowboy hats will converge at Big Mountain Ranch through the weekend.
To keep the peace inside the festival grounds over the busy weekend, Flathead County Sheriff Brian Heino said there will be several deputies staged at Under the Big Sky to keep the riff raff at bay as he warns traffic congestion will be dense across the valley.
Last rehabilitated in 2009, the main runway was showing visible signs of distress prior to its reconstruction and was expected to reach the end of its expected lifespan this summer. Postponing the work would have posed serious safety risks, increased costs and complexity that would have jeopardize critical federal funding.
Construction crews’ dreams came true so far during the runway project and temperatures are only dropping into the 60s over the next few days, with highs in the 90s, according to the National Weather Service.
I’m Maggie Dresser, here to hype everyone up about the Flathead Valley’s current travel conditions.
While data is still being collected for July 2026, June boarding numbers show a 10.9% year-over-year increase with 68,051 boardings while deplanements were up 18.2% with 73,473 passengers last month.
As part of a rolling schedule that began on July 6, the runway is closed from Monday at 6 p.m. through Friday at 10 a.m. The airport, however, is still operating at 60% capacity throughout the month.
During the project’s first week, crews demolished 10,000 square yards of existing pavement, placed 14,500 tons of asphalt and hauled more than 1,100 truckloads of material with no accidents or injuries.
The warm, dry temperatures allowed crews to maintain an “aggressive schedule” and reopen the primary runway ahead of schedule last Friday.
Nearing the end of phase two, GPIA Director Rob Ratkowski said this week also went smooth and the airport is on track to reopen on Friday morning as scheduled.
“The second phase went wonderfully,” Ratkowski said. “They are probably going to be done paving this evening and they will move on to the striping phase.”
While the primary runway is closed, GPIA continues to use its crosswind runway, which is supporting more than 170 medical, cargo, private, charter and flight training opportunities.
Ratkowski said the airport is extra busy on the weekends due to the weekday closure and travelers should arrive two hours ahead of flight departures and expect 30-minute wait times in the TSA line.
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