Printer friendly format - Endless Skies and Open Roads

By David Hanson

Endless Skies and Open Roads

Southwest Montana, with its western-modern towns and wide valleys, might be the country's best fall road trip.

Yes, it's bigger, but that's not why Montana is better. Rarely have I met someone without a fascination for this state. For some it's the "big sky" country where seemingly endless horizons make massive mountain ranges look like backyard foothills. For others, it's the crystal-clear rivers coursing through vast valleys, deep canyons, and, in October, parades of vibrant yellow cottonwood trees. Some folks just remember the days, now gone, of highway driving sans speed limit. All in all, the possibility of so much open land, the sublime scenery, and a bit of frontier lawlessness make a Montana road trip the great American escape. But we're not on a wagon train or in a BMW blasting 105 m.p.h. with the radar detector tucked away. We're Cottage Living-cruising, so we want the best Montana has to offer with a touch of down-home, a dollop of surprise, and a handful of relaxing places to kick back in this land of plenty.

photography: Andrew Geiger

Enter Bozeman. Located at the midpoint between two of Montana's most stunning valleys—Paradise Valley and the Gallatin Valley—Bozeman is the cleaned-up ski bum of Montana towns. Walk down Main Street, with its facade of western-style shops and restaurants, and notice the fit, beautifully unkempt people sipping lattes with fit, beautifully unkempt dogs at their feet, or greet the second homers in designer cowboy hats and boots. Bozeman has recently gained a reputation as being a little more California than Montana, an unsurprising evolution in a place so well situated. But beneath the new sheen, in places like the popular and practical store Corral West Ranchwear, the simple, no-frills Montana lifestyle remains, solid as the Bridger and Gallatin mountains rising around the town.

I stick around Bozeman for a day enjoying this mix of new and old, but soon I must get out and explore. I choose the Gallatin Valley first, heading south through 90 miles of river-cooled golden grasses hemmed in by snow-capped mountains that run smack into touristy West Yellowstone. I hang a left, pay a park fee, and pass some geysers, hot springs, elk, buffalo, grizzlies (not really, they're a rare sight), and lines of RVs filming it all. Then it's back north through Paradise Valley.

photography: Andrew Geiger
Under a big sky, the Yellowstone River flows smoothly in its wide valley below the massive snow-capped peaks of the Gallatin and Absaroka mountains.

Both valleys offer a buffet of Montana indulgences: picnic-inspired hikes into Yellowstone's "secret" northwest corner (for our complete online guide, see "Explore Yellowstone for a Day" at cottageliving.com), cook-your-own steaks on the Eino's Tavern deck overlooking Hebgen Lake with views of the Gallatin Mountains, a soak in hot springs outside your rental cottage's backdoor at Paradise Valley's Chico Hot Springs, horseback trail rides, rafting on the glistening Yellowstone, or fly-fishing the river (Gallatin) that made the sport famous.

On my last day I'm driving north to Livingston. The morning light is still low and soft, the Yellowstone River's chill mist lingers over its surface, a thin layer of gauze mingling the water with the cottonwoods lining the river edge. A backlit figure stands in a few feet of water, an arm arcing a wand back and forth. I imagine Brad Pitt fly-fishing in A River Runs Through It. Or is that local ranch owner Ted Turner out there in rubber waders, his line a snaking flash of light against the dark water backdrop? Ah, no matter; I'm hallucinating. Maybe it's that California influence from Bozeman. After a couple of days of wide-open, big-sky driving, anything seems possible. As I pass the figure, in my rear-view mirror I see it's no celebrity, just a woman with a fly rod and a piece of river all to herself this morning. Lucky.

After a hike up part of the steep Pine Creek Trail, mainly to generate the appetite necessary to take full advantage of lunch at Pine Creek Lodge & Café, I drive into Livingston. Perhaps what Bozeman used to be like, Livingston looks like storybook Montana: railroad tracks, a nearby river, some old warehouses and a grain silo, dusty cowboy hats on sidewalk pedestrians, and a small downtown center of modest, practical stores and meat-and-potatoes restaurants/bars. Here and there, however, you'll find a western-chic clothing store or a hipster coffee shop with real lattes and Wi-Fi.

I can't resist the vertical neon sign marking The Murray Hotel. After a warm day by the river and a crisp fall evening walking off the dinner steak under downtown streetlights, The Murray calls to me as it's done to Calamity Jane, Buffalo Bill, and Will Rogers . . . as Montana has done to so many who've come for a while to find something different and left wondering why the rest of the country is so the same.