Lake Frances Campground

The Great Outdoors

Lake Frances may be out on the plains, but you won’t need to take your RV rental very far to find spectacular outdoor adventure when you’re motorhome camping here. Glacier National Park is just under an hour's drive from the campground and is one of America’s most visited national parks. Driving the park’s Going to the Sun Road is a right of passage for RV travelers, and offers spectacular views of Glacier’s unique landscapes.One of the best parts of RV camping at Lake Frances Campground is the exquisite views of the Rocky Mountain Front, which is just 30 miles away. Behind that visage of craggy peaks is the Bob Marshall Wilderness, the second largest piece of roadless territory in the lower 48 states. While Glacier National Park gets most of the publicity when it comes to hiking, "the Bob," as locals call it, is a hidden gem ignored by most tourists. You could easily spend an entire summer hiking the Bob, but for a good day trip, drive up to Gibson Reservoir and trek along its north shore.One of the more interesting outdoor adventures in the Valier area is the Rock City Hoodoos. The sandstone towers near the Two Medicine River looks like something from an alien planet, but have also been used as a place of worship for the local Blackfoot tribe. This is an excellent place to sit down for a picnic with the family.

Exploring the City

Valier’s proximity to Lake Frances makes picking up supplies or getting a bite to eat pretty easy, but it’s a very small town without much to offer tourists. Fortunately, road trips are an integral part of Montana vacations, and there are plenty of excellent attractions that can be visited on a day trip when you camp in an RV near Valier. The closest big city is Great Falls, about an hour's drive to the south, though the definition of a city is somewhat relative in Montana. However, you’ll find a much larger selection of restaurants, a shopping mall, and at least some nightlife if you take a trip down there.Two of Montana’s dozen or so Dinosaur Trail museums are located close by in Bynum and Choteau. This region along the Rocky Mountain Front is one of the most productive areas when it comes to finding dinosaur fossils. While both of the museums look fairly unassuming from the outside, they’re loaded with fascinating dinosaur skeleton models and are staffed by paleontologists.If you want to delve into Montana’s Native American history, consider visiting the Museum of the Plains Indian on the Blackfoot Reservation in nearby Browning. It’s not very large, but offers a unique historical perspective on the tribe and their lands, particularly as it relates to the adjacent Glacier National Park. Much of the park’s land belonged to Montana tribes but was annexed by the federal government to build the park.