To sum up Montana, it is a wild place full of adventure and interesting people. The location could not be better, about 45 minutes from west glacier, in the foothills of the swan mountains right up against the north east of Flathead Lake. The hills were the playground to horseback ride in, swan mountains a short drive for incredible hikes with a few peaks, beautiful lakes, and the amazing jewel basin. Then Glacier national park gifting the incredible mountains, dwarfing anything you’ve seen before. Huge, grand, and towering above crystal blue rivers and high alpine lakes.

The wildlife added a whole other dimension of wild! Anytime you went outside you were bound to see some sort of willdife, whether it be a chipmonk squirring on the ground, an eagle sauring above, a black bear picking through bushes for berries, or elk herds watching you intently. Then there are the big guys, massive grizzly bears powering through the mountain sides of glacier’s massive mountains, or mountain lions slithering stealthily through the bush of the foothills below rocky hill sides.

I was blessed to be able to work among them riding horses and guiding trails through the foothills of the swan mountains. Riding through the open grassy meadows, to the rolling hill peaks opening to views of the incredible large flathead lake, to the incredibly thick dense bush wacking areas. Getting lost was the best part of it all. With over 2500 acres, all of it available to explore, you couldn’t help but wonder off the trail and see what is over a bushy hillside, sometimes leading to an open grassy meadow overlooking the snow capped rocky mountains, or you continued to get bushed out and had to turn around and re track.

This was real Montana! Everyday was another adventure, experience, good, bad, ugly, all of it. I walk away with too many stories to recall but a new sense of pride in how the natural landscape shapes the history and type of people that reside there.