A tucked away gem north of Whitefish, Murray Lake’s teal surface will soon glimmer from a new single-track trail like a true end-of-the rainbow destination.  

Whitefish Legacy Partners, the nonprofit that manages the Whitefish Trail, is taking bids from trail builders to complete about 1.5 miles of trail connecting Murray Lake to Rainbow Lake in the Beaver Lakes area.  

The work is proposed to start mid-September with an end-of-October completion.  

The proposed trail section is in the Stillwater State Forest and will be on the Beaver Lakes Public Recreation Use Easement acquired by WLP in 2014.  

Murray Lake is about a mile north of Beaver Lakes Trailhead via Beaver Lease Road. The lake is 43.4 square acres and on average 40 feet deep, maximum 100 feet deep, according to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. It has a small adjacent day site and is popular for fishing and paddleboarding. 

The new trail section would allow trail-users to connect directly from the Beaver Lakes trail by Rainbow Lake, eliminating the need for trail users to circle around on the road to reach Murray Lake.  

“We’re excited to be connecting to the existing trail,” said Heidi Van Everen, director of WLP. “It will have a nice spur trail and go up to a viewpoint with 360-degree views with a bench. The state has done a lot of tree clearing in that area, so it has an open, park-like feel.” 

The new trail will add more options for stacked loops in the Beaver Lakes trail system and will be a good access point in the spring, where the snow will melt off fairly early.  

“We hope down the road, if FWP and DNRC are on board, to also do some improvements at the Murray Lake day-use area, whether it be a fishing access site like at Beaver, or a new boat ramp to prevent erosion damage,” Van Everen said.  

“But what that is, and what it all could be, is bigger than the Whitefish Trail or a Whitefish trailhead,” she added.  

WLP is adopting a couple of new strategies to help build the section of trail.  

“With all the grant funding that’s harder and harder to come by, whether because of less money or more competition at the state and federal levels, we’re trying to come up with new ideas to raise money, to construct and maintain,” Van Everen said.  

Ways to sponsor the trail’s construction include trail builder sponsorships with an in-ground survey marker to recognize donors every tenth of a mile. There is also an opportunity to have a grand sponsorship with a classic legacy bench at the 360-view point. 

Three-year adopt-a-trail sponsorships and crew work commitments are an option for those seeking to help maintain the trail into the future.  

For more information see whitefishlegacy.org.  

    A Whitefish Legacy Partners announcement of the Rainbow Connection.