The Last Best Place
The magic mountains of Bozeman, MT
Hello from our first few days in Denver! As usual, we’re a bit behind on keeping this travelogue up to date — August was a whirlwind, to say the least. We spent an entire half of our month with visitors, plus a 4.5-day trip up to Glacier National Park (which you’ll hear about in our next post), and two back-to-back last-minute work trips. We’ve been busy! And frankly, I’m not sure that’s going to change until the trip ends!
But amidst the whirlwind, we had a wonderful month staying in Bozeman, Montana, which you’ll hear about across these next few posts. It’s officially fall — school has started (the students were back at Montana State during our last weekend in Bozeman!) and we’ve had our first whiff of colder weather — but for now, we'll pretend it’s still summer and we’re still in Bozeman!
The Magic of Montana
As we mapped out our potential route last spring, we had a sense that we wanted to include a few weeks in Montana (and definitely in the summer). Not only did it make geographical sense from Seattle, but we were both really excited to spend some time taking in the beauty of this part of the country.
The outdoorsy beauty of Montana feels like a thing of poetry — and it does seem to possess a fairytale, outdoorsy, pastoral magic for many people. I’ve encountered a whole bunch of famous quotes to this effect, but this one is my favorite:
“It seems to me Montana is a great splash of grandeur. The scale is huge but not overpowering. The land is rich with grass and color, and the mountains are the kind I would create if mountains were ever put on my agenda.”
-John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley
Another famous one is attributed to Abraham Lincoln, who signed the Montana Organic Act into law in 1864 to make it a territory, saying “My favorite state has not yet been invented. It will be called Montana, and it will be perfect.” These days, it’s referred to endearingly as “The Last Best Place.” It feels mountain-y, it feels western, it feels empty and big and connected to the beauty of the land, and it was a wonderful place to be in August.
Frankly, it wasn’t until much later that we settled for sure on Bozeman as the spot for our stay — partially because we weren’t all that familiar with the cities we were choosing between, and partially because we weren’t sure Bozeman would fit in our budget (thankfully it did). And in retrospect, knowing what I do now, I’m so glad we chose Bozeman as our temporary home!
A Small City with Big Mountains
To us, Bozeman has a distinct feel of a small city — we lived about a 15min walk from Main Street, in a lovely tree-lined neighborhood that was peacefully dark and quiet at night (only a few of the streets had street lights). Its population is about 55k, so roughly half the size of Columbia, MD (our home town). Some of my best memories will be our frequent walk through our neighborhood to reach my favorite coffee shop, or to the nearby walking/running/biking trail that wound up through the hills to the park.
In the center of town, Bozeman’s Main Street is full of restaurants, tourist-y souvenir shops, bookstores and outdoorsy gear shops, and a bunch of bars with a surprisingly happening nightlife! It’s clearly a college town, and clearly a community, despite the obvious summer rush of tourists. And the best part is the view of the Bridgers (aka the Bridger Mountains, a range of the Rockies) above.
Only a few blocks off of Main Street, things turn quickly into quiet neighborhoods with (at least in some directions) big, old, expensive houses. A short drive later, you’ve entirely left the town behind (with the exception of the sprawling developments of townhomes and apartments popping up on the fringes), and find yourself among enormous wheat fields, farms with picturesque hay bales and herds of cattle, and still the Bridgers rising above it all in the distance. It’s a pastoral scene, with the tree-covered mountains of Hyalite Canyon to the south (more on this in a bit) and the Bridgers towering to the northeast. Dotting the countryside are ranches that offer horseback riding, event spaces (anybody looking for a Montanan wedding venue?), guided tours of the Montana outdoors, and camping (or glamping — this is an expensive tourist haven, after all).
The Core of a Montana Outdoor Summer
It didn’t take long after our arrival for us to understand how great Bozeman is for its great access to beautiful nature; there’s a lot nearby, and also ‘nearby’ is relative if you’re in a place like Montana (Toto, we’re not in the northeast I-95 corridor anymore!). We learned quickly that summer in Montana revolves around three key pieces of outdoorsy life: fishing, floating, and hiking.
Fishing
Fishing — particularly fly fishing — is an integral part of Montana culture. The trout are everywhere! We spotted anglers (i.e., fly fishers, for those who, like me, were unfamiliar with this term) wading in the Gallatin River south of Bozeman along the road to Big Sky, and heard all about locals and tourists alike flocking to nearby rivers. For a while, we debated finding a way to do this ourselves — but without knowledge of the right places to go or any of the necessary gear, our best option would’ve been a chartered outfitter, and all the local guides were charging several hundred dollars for even a half day!
So, we settled for non-fly fishing at Hyalite Reservoir a little ways south of Bozeman. I admit to being a complete fishing newbie (I went ocean fishing once at summer camp in middle school, and it was an utter failure), but Nick’s certainly not. As luck would have it, his parents came through Bozeman on a visit during a road trip of their own, and brought their fishing gear! Thanks to their & Nick’s patience, I got a post-work lesson one day at the reservoir and am officially counting myself with a repertoire of one evening fishing in my adult life! I am even more grateful to have not caught anything, since I’m fairly positive I would have panicked if I’d caught one and not known what to do with it.
Floating
We similarly spotted people floating and rafting along the Gallatin and Missouri rivers near Bozeman, and both looked pretty spectacular! Montana is full of great rivers, and it seems that people really know how to take advantage. This is definitely going on our bucket list for the next time we’re in Montana in the summer — although I think we’re still going to pass on the 2.5-month trip down the Missouri all the way to the Gulf…
Hiking
Finally one we can wholeheartedly say we accomplished! True to our habits and plans (i.e., hike everything), we showed up excited to check out the mountains and trails that Montana had to offer. Stay tuned for our next Montana post about our biggest hiking excursion (to Glacier National Park!) — in the meantime, we’ll keep it local to Bozeman.
It’s worth giving a lay of the land first — as I’ve mentioned a couple of times already, Bozeman sits at the base & southern tip of the Bridger Range, a subrange of the Rocky Mountains (we’re officially in the Mountain West & not the Pacific / West Coast!). Further east lies the Crazy Mountains, and further south lies the Gallatin Range (both also part of the Rockies).
A quick run down of the hikes we enjoyed in the Bozeman area, from smallest to largest:
Small: College M
Remember a couple of blog posts ago, I mentioned that cities and towns in the West all seem to have big letters up in the mountains? Bozeman is no exception; the giant ‘M’ stands for Montana State University, and offers a steep and steeper route to hike up and see it. We took the steeper one up and the less-steep one down, enjoying the views out over Bozeman from the M. It’s short, but was a good reminder that we’re back at higher altitudes!
Small / Medium: Grotto Falls, Hyalite Lake
About 20 minutes south of Bozeman is Hyalite Canyon, in Custer Gallatin National Forest. It’s home to my fishing lesson at Hyalite Reservoir, some great-looking campgrounds, and lots of great hiking trails. We spent an afternoon hiking a couple miles out to Grotto Falls & the Hyalite Creek Trail. Next time, we’ll be back for the longer hike to Hyalite Lake (or if we’re feeling ambitious, then past the lake up to Hyalite Peak).Medium: Lava Lake
Another great Custer Gallatin National Forest hike, this time right along the Gallatin River, which you follow as you drive from Bozeman to Big Sky about an hour away. This one will certainly be up there for memorable hikes — we reached the lake with a few clouds rolling in, got rained on a few minutes later, and had a brief moment of confusion about why the sound of the rain on the lake was getting so loud. Before we knew it, we were getting pelted with hail and running for tree cover! I think we’ll never forget this gorgeous view, the enormous chipmunks, the downpour on the way down, and the simultaneous panic and delight at catching hail in our hands.
Large: Sacagawea Peak
Before leaving Bozeman, we knew we wanted to get ourselves up into the Bridgers. The Bridgers have roughly 10 prominent peaks (this Washington artist’s work is a really lovely view of them), with a variety of difficult trails to reach them. We opted for Sacagawea Peak — the tallest at 9,596’, although not the most difficult of the trails. It’s less than 5 miles round trip, but this was a STEEP and rocky hike (though maybe not as difficult as getting our non-high-clearance sedan down the very rough gravel road to get to the trailhead — easily the roughest one we’ve driven, and we’ve driven some rough roads this year). By the time we huffed and puffed our way up to the peak, the views of the surrounding peaks were absolutely stunning. An incredibly rewarding, incredibly beautiful hike, and we loved it. Shoutout to the guy we saw at the top who made it up in his crocs!
Huckleberry Everything. EVERYTHING.
If you’ve spent any time in Montana in the summer, or if you know anyone that has, you might know that Montana is huckleberry country. Huckleberry jams, soaps, lotions, and candies fill the souvenir shops (this turns out to be true as you go further south into the mountains in WY and CO too). Local ice cream shops have huckleberry as a year-round classic flavor (and good thing!). Bars serve huckleberry cocktails, and a distillery in Bozeman makes huckleberry vodka.
But, what’s a huckleberry? It turns out it’s a little complicated. In doing a bit of research for this blog entry, I came across this article by Oregon Public Broadcasting that interviews a professor of horticulture at Oregon State about this question. Turns out that the several berry species found in the Pacific and Mountain Northwest US are actually native blueberries (unlike the true ‘huckleberry’ which is a different species altogether, and actually grows in the Northeast), but because of their small size and larger skin-to-inside ratio, they have a more intense flavor.
Anyway… Montana is ALL about its huckleberries, and they’re a precious find. They grow wild in subalpine mountain slopes (commercial farmers have tried to grow them, and even if they can replicate the climate, the plants don’t bear fruit in the same way), so the only way to get them is to forage for them. That means they’re super expensive, and you’re unlikely to find pints of the berries for sale in the way that you’d find commercial blueberries (if you do, you’ll pay a LOT for them) — instead, you’ll find them in smaller quantities in dishes.
And we did! We tried them in EVERYTHING. (For science, of course.) And when I say everything, I mean it — we tried huckleberry shakes, cocktails, kombucha, beer, latte and chai latte, fudge, scone and muffin and turnover, pie and cobbler, gummy bears and licorice, syrup and jam and sauce on waffles, lemonade, balsamic, bbq sauce, ice cream, and fresh ones right off the bush while hiking in Glacier National Park! Our verdict: unsurprisingly, delicious. Also delightfully purple. Would happily return for more huckleberry summers.
Other than that, a few other notes about the Bozeman food scene:
Frankly, food was a bit less of a focus during this month, although we did have some great bites. We showed up with less of a foodie agenda (the list of restaurants is a lot smaller!), which I think turned out to be a good thing — we were super busy as it was, so it gave us one less thing to accomplish! Restaurants in town tended to lean towards pizza and tacos, and a lot of beef (this is ranching country, after all) — or bison and elk.
My favorite surprise of this stop: flathead cherries! I’ve never been a huge cherry fan, and we joke that this year we’re becoming regional snobs of the country’s best produce. I enjoyed the Rainier cherries we had in Seattle, but discovered Montana flathead cherries (grown by Flathead Lake in Western Montana) when we arrived in Bozeman, and they were unbelievable. They’re also such a fleeting summer joy, with a short season and limited supply, but I enjoyed every bite.
My other favorite surprise: the cornbread ice cream! (Bear with me, I know this sounds strange.) If you’ve spent any time with us in the last few years in Boston, there’s a decent chance we took you to Honeycomb Creamery, right near our last place in Porter Square. It’s home to my favorite flavor of all time — sweet corn and blackberry jam — which they have seasonally for about a month every summer, starting right around my birthday. So, when we arrived in Bozeman and learned that BOTH of the two highly recommended ice cream places had a similar flavor, it felt like the universe was on our side! My favorite among these was the River Float at Sweet Peaks Ice Cream, described as “cornbread cooked dutch oven style with extra honey and butter and a fruity swirl of blackberry jam.” Not quite the same as the Honeycomb flavor, but absolutely delicious. The cornbread and huckleberry flavor at Genuine Ice Cream was a close second.
Some places worth mentioning around Bozeman that we really enjoyed:
Wild Crumb Bakery, where we tried more of the pastries and breads than we should probably admit. A selection of their pastries (the berry danishes and the huckleberry scones especially) and a coffee next door is my perfect Sunday morning.
Treeline Coffee, who’s both the “coffee next door” in the bullet above and the Main Street location I walked to from our house, became an easy favorite. We didn’t try these, but their Geo line of single-serve pour over packets also caught my eye for future camping trips - good thing they ship :)
Shan, which was one of the best and most memorable meals of our stop. This restaurant opened in Bozeman only a few months ago, by a husband-and-wife team who moved back to the US during the pandemic after eating and cooking their way through Beijing, Sichuan, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Bangkok (they closed their restaurants in Bangkok and Hong Kong in 2021 to move). These days, Shan serves what they describe as a range of food reflective of their culinary journey through Asia, combined with local lamb, beef, and bison as they’ve formed relationships with Montana ranchers.
Of the several breweries on our list, two deserve a food shoutout: Bridger Brewing for their creative and delicious pizzas, and Mountains Walking Brewery for their fantastic bison chili.
Other delicious meals included brunch at Jam (on Main Street), elk sausage choripan sandwiches with fresh chimichurri at Bodhi Farms (outside of town), and a whole trout at Montana Ale Works (also on Main Street).
Summer in Big Sky Country
As you can probably imagine, summers in Montana are short and sweet. Daily high temperatures only break 75 degrees for a couple months of the year, and even then the nights are chilly from the high altitude (over 4800 ft in Bozeman). But that just means that Montanans know how to make the most of this lovely fleeting season (and frankly, that they know how to make the most of the coldest parts of the year too — we just didn’t stick around to see them!).
Whether a function of this local desire to cherish summer, or a function of the influx of summer tourists (honestly, maybe both?), Bozeman was full of fun ways to take advantage of a lovely Montana summer. A few of our favorites that stand out:
the Bozeman Farmers Market. Tuesday nights, this wonderful market pops up in one of the most beautiful settings we’ve seen. It’s in the local park just off of Main Street, but tucked into the trees in a way that feels sort of enchanted forest-y. It gave us the chance to check out some local cider, to get some Flathead cherries and huckleberry fudge and other goodies, and to escape into this lovely wooded paradise for an hour or two. On the way home, we’d walk this lovely community path that wound up the hills and offered perfect golden hour views over the city to the mountains (and a chance to say hi to seemingly every dog in Bozeman!).
Music on Main. One of the only true community events we had a chance to make it to! Several weeks of the summer, they close down several blocks of Main Street, set up a stage with a local band, and fill the streets with food trucks, activities for kids, and patios of the bars lining the street. We caught the second-to-last one of the summer and really enjoyed the band, the atmosphere, and the people watching (who’s a tourist? who’s a college kid? who’s a local?).
Hanging out at breweries! Not an event, but a perfect way to spend some of our summer evenings. There are several breweries in the Bozeman area, with the only challenge being their hours (as we learned, Montana liquor laws require breweries to do last call at 8pm and close at 8:30pm). Some of our favorites: Mountains Walking for the beer, Bridger for the food, and Map Brewing for the view.
Bluegrass. It’s hard to tell how much this is a Montana thing, versus just a function of Nick’s taste in music, but it certainly played a prominent role in our Montana stay, and felt right at home in the mountains. We stopped into a little nondescript bar off of main street one night to discover our first bluegrass show — a local group called North Fork Crossing (check them out, bluegrass fans!) that played a great show and that the crowd loved. A couple weeks later, we went to see a recent favorite of Nick’s, the Kitchen Dwellers, at the Bridger Brewing in nearby Three Forks — with a beautiful outdoor setting and view of the mountains.
Valley View Rodeo. If you’ve been reading since last fall, you’ll know that this wasn’t our first rodeo (I had to) of the trip — we went to a bull-riding event in Austin last fall. Bozeman had a weekly summer rodeo, so we went to check it out one Thursday night. We sat overlooking the mountains with a brightly colored sunset in the distance - such a perfect summer night. Unlike the event in Austin, we got to see a much wider variety of events this time — bronco riding, team roping, breakaway, barrel racing, and bull riding. The whole evening had a distinctive Montana feel, and a cool appreciation for rodeo as a sport / performance — near the end, they introduced several of the Montana State rodeo team who were about to start their season!
Bozeman Hot Springs. I’ve decided on this trip that more places should have natural hot springs… Bozeman’s were about 15min from our house, with several indoor and outdoor pools at varying temperatures up to 104 or 105 degrees. The outdoor pools are in a beautiful setting with lights and landscaping around the perimeter, and live music two nights a week! There’s not much that gets better than soaking in the springs listening to a live band and relaxing after a long weekend of hiking!
Coming soon — more of our adventures in Montana!
Looks awesome!
What a lovely place and a great description of the area and all it has to offer. We loved the Bozeman area and all its wonders