The high heat shortened the cherry harvest, but huckleberries in the Flathead may just be a little sweeter this year.Typically, huckleberry season kicks off on the Fourth of July. This year the huckleberry harvest began on July 5. Right now, we are in the height of the huckleberry season.

Fresh berries will continue to be picked until the first frost, likely up until October.

The owner of the Apple Barrel in Kalispell, David Cordell, expects this year to be a bumper crop with bumped up revenue.

“The crop looks very clean and we try to really hone in on hand picked stuff, kind of a higher quality than anything torn or any juicy stuff. So they’ve been really…the quality’s been higher, I think,” said Cordell.

Cordell credits the nightly rain and the hot, dry days for the success of this year’s huckleberry harvest.