Even in early summer, storms roll over Montana from the Rocky Mountains quicker than Apple Weather can predict. That’s how I find myself halfway up a mountain on a motorcycle in some of the most rotten weather I’ve ever ridden in.
To make matters worse, I’ve forgotten to put on waterproofs, and the gust blowing through my jacket, heavy with rainwater, only emphasises the sinking temperature. The temperature drops to 13°C. Then seven as we climb. Then three. I’m shivering as I get to the peak, 2000m above sea level where there is still ice from winter. My riding buddies and I are desperate for a hot drink and a fireplace, but we’re out of luck: there’s just a gift shop, a throng of people huddling for warmth, and a deer soliciting snacks.
Our only option? Get back on the bikes, grit our teeth and power through, hoping this storm cloud won’t follow us. When we finally arrive back at our cabin, still soaking wet, a friend’s promise of old fashioneds all round and a lasagne is the best sentence I have heard all year.
This is not quite the dreamy, blue-skied ride I had in mind, but as I come to discover over the fortnight I spend exploring Montana, resilience is a defining quality of the state and its people.
Butte, a southwesterly city bordered by the Rockies, embodies this better than anywhere else. Years ago, it housed one of the world’s largest copper mines and many of the same social and environmental issues that plague former mining towns apply here, too.
But the locals are extraordinarily passionate about their home: “Butte Strong” is on T-shirts and in the windows of shops, bars and houses, and Brian, an antiques-store owner, talks warmly about his city – about its significant mining contribution to World War I and II efforts, how it briefly features in John Steinbeck’s Travels With Charley, and its progressiveness in comparison with other areas in the region. ‘It feels different here,’ he says.
Butte’s architecture has been relatively unchanged since its 1900s heyday, making it a prime filming location for Netflix’s 1923. The brick buildings are still decorated with faded paint advertisements for Wrigley’s gum and Coca-Cola, and 14 steel headframes stand as reminders of its industrial heritage. At night, they’re lit in red, white and blue.
Butte is also the birthplace of Evel Knievel, so where better to start a motorcycle trip? We borrow bikes from Maverick Motorsports and make for Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park – that stormy pass I mentioned.
The two-lane ascent curves around the mountain and reveals sweeping valleys blanketed in trees and ice-capped mountains as far as you can see. On the other side where the road crosses the Continental Divide, there are scores of bare black trees stripped either by fire or the harsh winter.
We ride on smooth, wide highways that make hundreds of miles feel like a pootle around the block. They trace lakes and weave through hills, then a thick forest, and as we slow down for deer in the road, I breathe as deeply as I can, hoping to commit the rich pine scent to memory.
Elsewhere in the one million-acre National Park is Polebridge, a historic, off-grid community that could be a western film set and is worth visiting for the views across to Canada, which is just 22 miles away, and for the warm-hearted service at the Northern Lights Saloon. The dirt road there makes for very fun – and sketchy – riding.
After four days in the saddle, Quinn’s, a hot springs resort in Paradise, is a welcome rest, and we spend an afternoon lazing in the pools, quickly acclimatising to the mineral water’s sulphurous aroma.
This luxury is in sharp contrast to the bleak underground swimming pool in a Motel 6 outside Bozeman the next day, where we stop on our drive to Yellowstone – in a car this time because, according to friends, it’s best for appreciating the park’s grandeur. It’s said, “you go to Glacier for the views and Yellowstone for the animals,” which rings true, as what seems like a large brown truck emerges in the distance, only to become a resting bison as we get closer.
I’m continually awestruck by Montana’s vastness and unimpeded views of the horizon. On the road to Ennis, for instance, there are four different storms in sight at once across the plains, and the hazy mountain silhouettes, seen from pretty much anywhere, never fail to impress. I wonder if the locals feel the same and, yes, a riding buddy tells me he’ll sometimes stop work just to gaze at the peaks. It’s easy to understand why, with such astonishing and unspoilt landscapes, there’s a reverence for rural American life and the outdoors everywhere we visit.
This energy is palpable at Ennis Rodeo, which opens with the national anthem while the country and state flags are paraded. When the singer’s microphone fails, the crowd doesn’t hesitate to pick up where she left off, before bowing their heads in a collective prayer for the safety of everyone taking part.
I soon understand why: the impact of the games on the riders’ bodies as they’re ragdolled around, and on the horses and cattle too, is alarming. Behind the arena, cowboys walk on crutches or with legs and arms in plaster casts, while others stretch in preparation. Elsewhere, a man selling beer can’t explain to me the difference between two versions of Coors, but notes that ‘both will get ya drunk’. I pick the one he says he likes best and watch as women on horseback guide visitors to parking spots.
My fortnight in Montana is almost over, and I already feel a longing for it, because how can I possibly go back to skylines peppered with high rises after this? Montana’s nickname is The Last Best Place, after all. I contemplate changing my flight home and am comforted to know I’m not the only one affected by its charm.
“For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection. But with Montana it is love,” wrote Steinbeck. And inside a wood-panelled roadside bar in Wise River, a musician says he left a songwriting career in Nashville for this quiet, sparsely populated place, where, as we leave, the moon rises over the mountains and the sky glows orange and blue.
Amy Miles is a London-based editor who covers fashion, lifestyle and sustainability.
