Architecture JLF Architects Construction Dovetail Construction Interior Design Sanctuary Interior Design Specialty Lumber Montana Reclaimed Lumber The couple were empty nesters living in northern California when they started looking at land in the Rockies. Although they had always dreamed of retiring to the mountains, when they did purchase a house outside of Bozeman,...
I avoid crowds, rather than seek them, when fly fishing. Yet there I was, standing on the timbered, rocky banks of the Yellowstone River for the trout opener in Yellowstone National Park. After my guide, Marty Mononi, had floated me down the upper South Fork...
The chief problem for the grasshopper, in terms of its status among fly fishers, is the mayfly. The mayfly — delicate, slender, standing quietly on a river, the soft peaks of its full wings angling high — is the insect that, to trout-stream fly fishers,...
When you drift down the Yellowstone in a wooden boat, you know it: The momentum is different. There’s a glide through the waves instead of a pull. On a July afternoon, it can smell like the trunk of a sun-warmed cedar. A wooden boat sounds...
We gaped from our cabin deck as thunder roared and lightning stung the high peaks of southwest Montana’s Gravelly and Madison ranges, 10,000-foot monoliths like Sphinx and Helmet. Rain strafed our roof — a deluge unseen in months — dousing intense July heat and wildfire...
With a nearly imperceptible disturbance of the water’s surface, the fly disappeared. I quickly and firmly — but without too much force — lifted my rod upward with one hand, while pulling in some line with the other. The line went taut and I could...
Decades ago, I drew a coveted Shiras moose tag for the mountains north of Cooke City. A friend and I headed uphill by vehicle until I thought the habitat looked right, and then packed into a nearby lake. Most lakes on the Beartooth Plateau contain...
It was the second week of October, just on the edge of turning weather. A cold rain had arrived a few days earlier, taking down leaves all over town. Rows and rows of damp brown mounds dotted the street gutters like small mountain ranges. The...
Gnarled, rugged expanses of black and gray lava rock, dotted with muted green sagebrush, define Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve in eastern Idaho during snow-free seasons. Miles before reaching the visitor center, a field of hardened lava appears south of the highway,...
A performer walks on stage, acoustic guitar in hand, and a hush falls across the audience. Approaching the mic, the performer — who signed up just a little over an hour ago and has never performed at this venue before — begins strumming and singing....