Who can actually get on this river?

The Flathead Rivers Alliance collected the data at each site and DREAM Adaptive Recreation is committed to breaking down barriers to ensure all users can access outdoor spaces. This guide has been developed to bring these two things together. It will show you what the access sites look like and what to expect when you arrive.

Partners since 2022 22 sites surveyed 17 captured in 360

Working in partnership

The partnership, in their own words

Since 2022, FRA and DREAM have partnered to improve the accessibility of access sites along the three forks of the Flathead and improve the avenues in which information is available for trip planning. They are committed to the protection and stewardship of these rivers to ensure that users of all abilities can enjoy the recreational opportunities and remarkable values that the rivers have to offer.

Through community engagement, engineering surveys, and planning with agency partners, FRA and DREAM have identified river access sites that are in need of facility and engineering improvements to ensure that users of all abilities can recreate on the Flathead Wild and Scenic river system. These two organizations remain dedicated to implementing these improvements for the benefit of all users seeking to enjoy the three forks of the Flathead.

Flathead Rivers Alliance and DREAM Adaptive Recreation

Flathead Rivers Alliance

Flathead Rivers Alliance is a nonprofit organization formed in 2019 dedicated to safeguarding the future of the Flathead River system together.

FRA, in their own words

FRA brings community members, volunteers and agency partners together to care for the Three Forks. For this guide, FRA collected field information and wrote the access-site descriptions. Its river work includes education, safety, stewardship and projects to improve access.

What they do

Removing barriers for accessibility
Recreate Responsibly
Life jacket stations
Water quality monitoring
River Youth Program
Large hazard removal
Annual stewardship events

About Flathead Rivers Alliance River alerts + trip planning hub Volunteer with FRA Donate at flatheadrivers.org

DREAM Adaptive Recreation

Since 2022 DREAM has been working with FRA to collect data, participate in community discussions, and through grant funding, provide this guide to the public. At DREAM we break down barriers for all community members and visitors to the area, we are committed to ensuring the outdoor spaces in the Flathead Valley become more accessible.

DREAM, in their own words

DREAM commissioned this guide.

What they do

Year-round outdoor recreation programs
Access projects
Community outreach
Partnerships

Visit DREAM Adaptive Recreation

From Flathead Rivers Alliance

3 photographs

Photos of the work behind the guide from The Flathead Rivers Alliance: the meetings where access is prioritized, the programs to increase education, safety, and stewardship, and the water it all serves.

A planning meeting around long tables in a community room, a wheelchair pulled up to the table alongside the other seats, with printed Flathead river access reports open in the foreground. — Planning with agency partners and the river community.

Two people in a drift boat on clear water, one standing in the bow and one at the oars, with a cobble bar in the foreground and a pale cut bank rising behind them. — Floating the Flathead.

A life jacket loaner station at the head of a gravel access road: a timber kiosk hung with red life jackets under a sign reading Borrow and Return Here, with turquoise water visible through the cedars below. — A life jacket loaner station at the head of an access road.

Courtesy Flathead Rivers Alliance

What the partnership produced

Counted from the survey and capture records

22 access sites surveyed by FRA

11 of those with full measurements

17 sites photographed in 360

2022 the partnership begins

The measurements are FRA's, taken in the field on their access survey sheets. The 360 imagery is Terrain360's, photographed from the water over two days in July 2026. 11 of the survey sheets carry no statistics yet, and the site pages say so rather than filling the gap.

How the measurements work Browse every site Open the full map

Keep access open

Support the Flathead Rivers Alliance

River access sites are maintained by their responsible agencies and land managers, including the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service. FRA volunteers give their time to river education, safety and stewardship, while FRA works with partners to improve access. Donations and volunteer support help sustain this work.

Donate at flatheadrivers.org Volunteer

Outdoor recreation for all

Support DREAM Adaptive Recreation

DREAM Adaptive provides year-round adaptive recreation programs across northwest Montana for people aged five and up with a permanent disability. In addition to running programs they work extensively with local, state, and federal partners on various access projects.

Support DREAM Volunteer

Homelands

The river system flows through the traditional homelands of the Ql'ispe (Kalispel or Pend d' Orielle) Ktunaxa/Ksanka (Kootenai), and Séliš (Salish or "Flathead") Nations, who have long cared for this landscape, and the Amskapii Pikuni (Blackfeet) Peoples who often traveled in the river corridor.

About the homelands FRA's own acknowledgment language appears here verbatim.