L&C State Park is about a day's drive to Kalispell. Not what I would call convenient.
About 3 hours to Missoula, 2 hours to Helena only an hour to Bozeman though.
Have you ever spent a winter, a real winter, someplace.
One of my ol college chums became a real estate agent in Bozeman and she loved selling a home to someone from Calf/Texas/etc because she figured about 80% of the time she would get to sell it again the next summer.
Of the places you list Kalispell would have the mildest winters, Bozeman the hardest (I've seen days there where the high was -40, also 3 ft of snow over night).
All four areas are "demand" areas, that is places where the housing demand exceeds the supply. I know both Bozeman and Missoula are having problems with housing that the students at MSU and UM can afford (actually Missoula is softer as their enrollment has gone down 25% in recent years, while Bozeman has gone up about the same amount)