Kalispell, MT
In the Flathead Valley between Flathead Lake and Glacier National Park. Class D, single 7,610ft runway 2/20. The closest commercial airport to Glacier National Park, 30 miles east — Going-to-the-Sun Road begins at the West Entrance about an hour from the field. Flathead Lake, five miles south, is the largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi (191 square miles). The airport opened in 1947 as Kalispell City Airport; renamed Glacier Park International in 1981 to reflect the tourist economy. Commercial service from Alaska, American, Delta, United, and Allegiant. The 2017 Sperry Chalet fire in Glacier was visible from the airport for weeks.
A million acres of glaciated peaks on the Montana-Canada border, often called the "Crown of the Continent" because waters draining from the park reach the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans. Going-to-the-Sun Road, completed in 1932-1933 as an engineering masterpiece, crosses the park east-west over Logan Pass at 6,646 feet. The road has been a National Historic Landmark since 1985. The park's eponymous glaciers are vanishing — there were 150 in 1850; 25 remain today, all expected to be gone by mid-century. Grizzlies, wolves, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, wolverines, and lynx all persist in the park. Adjacent Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta forms the world's first International Peace Park (designated 1932).
On the west side of KMSO sits the largest active smokejumper base in the United States — the Missoula Aerial Fire Depot, established 1954. Smokejumping itself began in 1939-40 when the U.S. Forest Service ran the Aerial Fire Control Experimental Project; on July 12, 1940, Earl Cooley made the first operational smokejumper jump over the Nez Perce National Forest. The Missoula base trains every Forest Service smokejumper recruit in the country, dispatches DC-3s, Twin Otters, and Sherpa C-23s to wildfires across the West, and maintains the only public-access smokejumper visitor center on Earth. The 1949 Mann Gulch fire — in which 13 of 16 jumpers died in twelve minutes, the subject of Norman Maclean's "Young Men and Fire" — was run from this base. The Memorial Wall lists every smokejumper killed in the line of duty.
A 25-mile-long glacial lake in the Idaho panhandle, surrounded by forested mountains. The water is so clear that the bottom is visible from altitude in the shallow bays. The lake's deep blue color against the dark green forest is one of the most striking aerial views in the Pacific Northwest. The floating golf green at the Coeur d'Alene Resort (the only one in the world) is visible from the air. Tubbs Hill, a forested peninsula, juts into the lake near downtown.
The dominant peak northeast of Spokane, rising to 5,883 feet — the highest point in Spokane County. A state park covers most of the mountain, including a ski area, a stone CCC-built vista shelter at the summit, and miles of trails. On clear days, the view from the top stretches into Idaho, Montana, and Canada — six states and a country visible from one rock. The CCC summit shelter (1933) is one of the few remaining original CCC structures in Washington and is on the National Register. From the air, Mount Spokane is the green dome that anchors the eastern horizon for anyone flying around the Spokane area.