Ranger station construction at Wayfarers moves forward

Improvements to Wayfarers State Park are moving forward. 

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks plans to build a ranger station, with a disabled accessible public restroom in Harry Horn day use area, expand the maintenance shed and convert the current restrooms into a seasonal park host site.

The first part of the project for the ranger station and maintenance shed opened to bids last week.

Park manager Amy Grout said they hope to award the contract in mid-May, and have the shed and ranger station completed in August.

The decision to add a ranger station to Wayfarers State Park stemmed from increased use of Montana state parks around Flathead Lake. Currently all park staff offices are in Kalispell.

They hope by building the ranger station and relocating the park ranger from Kalispell to Wayfarers they will create more efficiency.

“At a busy park like Wayfarers we will be able to respond more quickly with any needs the park might have,” Grout said.

Wayfarers State Park is one of five state parks that provides public access to Flathead Lake, and is one of the busiest, seeing over 100,00 visitors annually. The majority of the visitors come in peak season between May and September, but Fish, Wildlife and Parks estimates Wayfarers gets almost 50,000 visitors in the off season, between October and April.

The ranger station will be staffed year round, though hours of operation have not yet been determined. While it will not be a “full-blown” visitors center with interpretive displays, information will be available for visitors.

Additionally the ranger station will have disabled accessible public restrooms, which will replace the existing public restrooms near the park entrance, which are not disabled accessible.

Once the ranger station and new restrooms are built, the existing restrooms will be removed and converted into a park host site. Any bids for that project will be separate.

Though construction is occurring during the parks busy season, Grout said they will do their best to limit any disruption.

“Unfortunately the best time to build coincides with when people want to be in the park,” she said.

She said they plan to restrict the hours for construction on the maintenance shed, which is near the campground, to business hours on weekdays. She anticipates expansion to the shed to go quickly. The shed is being expanded from about the size of a single care garage, to that of a double car garage, adding more room for maintenance equipment.

The ranger station in the Harry Horn Day Use area, which will be about 900 square feet, is the bigger piece of the project.

When the project was initially proposed last February the community members expressed concerns about the wishes of the Harry Horn family.

Harry Horn donated about six acres of land to the Montana Department of Transportation in the mid-1990s, which was later transferred to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. He stipulated that the land be used for a children’s playground and rest area.

The playground equipment will remain where it is, Grout said. The ranger station will be built to the front of it. 

“It’s going to be far enough away from the playground equipment where we won’t have to move an adjust any of that,” she said.

Though there may be times during construction they need to close the playground for safety reasons, it will be open and unchanged when the station is complete.

During construction some parking in the day use are and the shelter will also be available for use.

Fish, Wildlife and Parks received support on the project from the Horn Family last year.

Grout, who lives in Bigfork, said she is looking forward to the completion of the ranger station for the community.

“I think the citizens of Bigfork will find that it’s a benefit to have the ranger and the manager right there,” she said. “It’s really exciting for me to be able to live and work in the same community.”