Wild West Smackdown: Montana Versus Wyoming
Each week, Yahoo Travel pits rival destinations against each other to determine once and for all which place is the best. This week it’s Montana vs. Wyoming in a duel of the vacation states.
The Case for Montana
This is, as it’s often called, “the Last Best Place.” Drink in the purest air, look up at the biggest sky, read the dozen great local writers, and in a sense you don’t need much else. There is a simplicity and self-confidence that Wyoming could never match, not with its bi-polar obsession over ranching on one side and those fancy pants ski slopes on the other. Plus, Montana’s got the Yellowstone River, the last free-flowing undammed river in the Lower 48, one of the greatest trout streams. From Paradise Valley, Montana, where the Yellowstone comes out of the mountains, it runs for 200 miles to Big Timber.
Glacier National Park, Montana. (Photo: Getty Images)
Unlike its neighbor (um, hello Wyoming), with whom it shares history, geography, and Yellowstone Park, Montana, with all its diversity of landscape — glaciers, mountains, high plains, buttes and rivers, vast lakes — knows who it is. Even the rich and famous who live on enormous ranches are hard to recognize in their dusty jeans and cowboy boots.
Population: It just hit a million, making Montana the 4th biggest state, with the 44th smallest population.
Related: A Scenic Trip Through Montana’s Big Sky Country
(Photo: Getty Images)
Getting Around: Not since stagecoach days has there been much in the way of public transport, so you’ll need a car. Four wheel is best, unless you can pick up a, well, pick-up. Another way to get around: Charlie Russell’s Chew Choo dinner train, which starts out in Lewiston, serving up dinner and drink and three-and-a-half hours of dazzling Big Sky scenery.
(Photo: Getty Images)
Weather: “If you don’t like it, wait a minute and it will change.” That’s the Montana motto. In general, summer — which is short — is warm and sometimes hot, and almost always glorious. Winters can be brutal on the plains, cold and bleak and beautiful, especially in the mountains.
Joe Montana, not from Montana. (Photo: Getty Images)
Famous Faces: Natives include Gary Cooper, Michelle Williams, David Lynch, General George Custer, the author Wallace Stegner. Tom Brokaw, Michael Keaton, and Ted Turner all live in the state. Joe Montana? Not. Though the little town of Ismay did change its name to Joe, Montana hoping to cash in on the quarterback’s fame back in the day. He was not amused. Movies filmed here includeMissouri Breaks, the Horse Whisperer, A River Runs Through It, Legends of the Fall, and Little Big Man.
Robert Redford filming The Horse Whisperer, 1998. (Photo: The Everett Collection)
What To Do: Trout fishing is the thing in Montana, but there’s terrific hunting, hiking, camping, and glamping, too. Drive the Going to the Sun Highway, which goes across Glacier National Park, and do it before the glaciers disappear. Or take the Dinosaur Trail — Montana is one of the great sites of dinosaur bone finds, and there are always new discoveries of the bones of the big boys. More? The Montana State Fair. Bear Tooth Highway. A trip to one of the evocative little western towns of Philipsburg or Virginia City, perfect as movie sets. Or up to Bannock; high in the mountains, it’s an utterly haunting ghost town where the silver boom went bust, leaving behind opera house, brothels, schools, and a town hall. Or, just be — Montana is so big and so beautiful that every corner has a river, a lake, a hill, a mountain range for camping or walking, or a field of wild flowers for lying around and doing nothing at all.
Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman. (Photo: Tim Evanson/Flickr)
Cities and Culture: You don’t come to Montana for city life, but if you want a break for a night on the town Montana has it all — unlike Wyoming, where so-called big towns are very small town indeed. Missoula has charm and the top notch University of Montana, but it’s Bozeman that seduces with a good symphony, first-class ballet, the Museum of the Rockies, and a couple of world-class bookshops: the indie Country Book Shelf and Vargo’s Jazz City & Books (does Wyoming even read books?). Go early to Granny’s Gourmet Donuts, where you better go early to grab the Heisenberg, named for Walter White’s alter ego and topped with crunchy blue rock candy and Pop Rocks.
Related: Adventures in Montana You Don’t Want to Miss This Fall
Chico Hot Springs Lodge. (Photo: Chico Hot Springs Resort and Day Spa)
Luxe on the Range: If you like your wilds tamed, there’s a quartet of lovely and luxurious hotels that, unlike the overwrought resorts of, say Jackson Hole, sit perfectly in their locations. The Resort at Paws Up is the place for glamping. The Ranch at Rock Creek is an all-inclusive high-end spot. Near Darby is the Triple Creek Ranch, which was voted the top hotel in the world this year by Travel + Leisure readers. And outside Livingston, there’s Chico Hot Springs Lodge, which is the height of rustic-luxe accommodations.
Moose Drool and Cold Smoke Scotch Ale, both born and bred Montana brews. (Photo: The Q Speaks/Flickr)
The Wild West Meter: The old saloons in Montana are the real thing, with long mahogany bars and guys in big hats sampling a brew (try Moose Drool). Some of the best are in Miles City, Harlowtown, and Livingston. At Chico Hot Springs, there’s the Old Saloon — just outside is a pool fed by hot springs where cowboys used to rest their weary limbs.
Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. (Photo: Kent Kanouse/Flickr)
The Most Moving and Terrible of All the Historic Sites Is: Little Big Horn (known as “Custer’s Last Stand), where General Custer lost the battle against Crazy Horse. But the old West was gone by then, surviving mostly as a neon bucking bronco outside the Cowboy Saloon in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
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The Case for Wyoming
On the Bridger gondola you’re high over the Tetons, perhaps on your way for a moonlit dinner at Couloir, almost 10,000 feet up. Or you’ve spent the day on the slopes. Wild West? Sure, in a way, and Jackson is only part of the story, but great powder is the thing where the economy is concerned.
With the smallest population of any state, Wyoming is an empty place, with ranches the sizes of small European countries in the eastern plains, and some of the most ravishing mountains in the west.
Wyoming isn’t bi-polar, it’s two different places — ranches and ski slopes. Here, you get double.
(Photo: Getty Images)
Yeah, there are old mining towns, some of them desolate now, but Montana is full of snobs; the residents look down at Wyoming. Still, Wyoming has the goods: oil, coal, methane, diamonds, uranium. And although Wyoming was the first territory to give women the vote, this is a state that has moved right, especially compared to Montana’s weird libertarian stance. Wyoming also has the outlaws — Butch and Sundance, Jesse James. There’s culture, too, in Cody’s Smithsonian-run museums. About those books? Wyoming’s got Craig Johnson, author of the Longmire novels.
Population: 582,658 (and the state needs every one of them).
Harrison Ford flying his helicopter over Jackson, Wyoming. (Photo: Getty Images)
Famous Faces: Over the years, everyone from Sitting Bull to Jackson Pollock, the great Abstract Expressionist was born in Wyoming, has called the state home. These days you might see Harrison Ford (and Calista) near Jackson. Movies filmed here includeButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (and it doesn’t get any better), Heaven’s Gate, the finale of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the Cheyenne Social Club, the Virginian, all four versions of Owen Wister’s huge best-seller, Shane, and Unforgiven.
Horseback riding around Kelly, Wyoming. (Photo: Getty Images)
Getting Around: Go by car, or get a horse. (There are plenty of six- and seven-day tours of the state on horseback.)
Wyoming’s weather can be dramatic. (Photo: Getty Images)
Weather: You’ll find summer heat on the eastern plains and freezing winters. In the mountains, the temperature can drop 40 degrees overnight — even in the summer.
Jackson Hole has shopping, too. (Photo: Alan English CPA/Flickr)
What To Do: Wyoming has hunting, shooting, riding, and working ranches all across the state, where you can try your hand at real cowboy stuff. It’s also home to one of the world’s greatest rodeos: Frontier Days in Cheyenne. Then there’s Jackson Hole and Teton Village, not just for skiing but for outdoor sports, shopping, and restaurants galore — plus an airport where you can fly in non-stop from 13 cities. Skiing in Montana? It ain’t like this. And did we mention Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park for camping and watching the animals?
Buffalo Bill Center of the West, in Cody, Wyoming. (Photo: Buffalo Bill Center of the West/Facebook)
Cities and Culture: Who needs cities, when you’ve got places like Buffalo, a classic western town, complete with the Occidental Hotel, where Butch Cassidy often stopped for a drink (as did Calamity Jane and Teddy Roosevelt.) Author Owen Wister wrote what is considered to be the first Western novel, “The Virginian“ while staying at the Occidental. And then there’s Cody, named for Buffalo Bill — it’s a goldmine of culture, with its five museums (run by the Smithsonian) including Draper Natural History Museum, the Museum of the Plains Indian, the Cody Firearms Museum, the Whitney Western Art Museum, and the Buffalo Bill Museum, which chronicles the life of William F. Cody, the real name of Bill himself.
Related: Joan Rivers’ Last Ride: A Visit to a Haunted Wild West Hotel in Wyoming
Amangani, set under the mountains (Photo: Amangani)
Luxe on the Range: Like Montana, Wyoming serves up its share of luxurious digs on the range, complete with an Aman resort: the sleek Amangani. For mere mortals, there’s Jenny Lake Lodge in the Grand Teton National Park; the Rusty Parrot Lodge in Jackson; and Jackson Hole’s historic Wort Hotel. And on Sundays, everyone lines up for huevos rancheros at brunch at Nora’s Fish Creek Inn in Wilson (just outside Jackson).
A guest at the Willow Creek Ranch gets to put her cowhand skills to work. (Photo: Martin Langles/Willow Creek Ranch)
Wild West Meter: Not far outside Buffalo is Willow Creek Ranch, the actual location of the Hole in the Wall Gang’s hideout, where Butch, the Kid, and Jesse James hung their spurs in this almost-hidden valley. And better yet: the Willow Creek Ranch is now a working ranch where you can stay the night and live out your Butch Cassidy fantasies.
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