The first time I drove out of Bozeman airport at five in the afternoon in July, the light on the Spanish Peaks was the kind of thing that ends an argument. The argument, in this case, was whether the Hamptons remain the unquestioned summer of the East Coast client. They do not. The week in Montana now competes — and increasingly wins — for the family with three children and a calendar that begins each year identically.
The Yellowstone Club, the private community south of Big Sky, runs as a different property in summer than the one the world knows in winter. The Warren Miller Lodge stays open. The new Pioneer Mountain hiking program runs guided routes from late June through mid-September. The Rainbow Lodge on the Madison, the club's fly-fishing outpost, is the booking the regulars protect — eight rods on the river, the guides are the best in the state, and the day ends with trout cooked at six in the evening on the porch. Membership is required; non-member access runs through resident sponsors and the Montage Big Sky next door handles the spillover.
The fly-fishing is the heart of the week. The Madison runs cold through the summer, the salmonfly hatch peaks in early July, and a guide-led float from Lyons Bridge to the McAtee takeout is the kind of day that converts the skeptical adult into a buyer of waders. Healing Waters and the Tackle Shop in Ennis are the outfitters. Plan it on the Tuesday and Wednesday of the trip; everyone is calmer by Thursday.
The lunches matter. Buck's T-4 outside Big Sky does the lodge breakfast. The ranch lunch at the Sage Lodge on the Yellowstone River is the long Saturday. Open Range in downtown Bozeman, on the Friday night before you fly out, is the dinner that the families finish with — steak, plain, with the corkage policy that suits a client who travels with their own bottles.
The trip works in seven days. Land Saturday, ranch Sunday through Wednesday, fly out Friday morning. The children come back tanned and exhausted. The adults come back having spent a week without checking the Cap d'Antibes weather. It is the new shape of the American summer for a particular kind of household, and it is not slowing down.
— Camille Vedy
