Glacier Country spans high art and high adventure
Don’t you love it when a destination is even more than you expected? That’s the revelation of a recent trip to Glacier Country, Montana, with its jaw-dropping backdrops of craggy mountains and wildflower-bedecked meadows. Read on to find out why.
Meet and Stay
Missoula has long been a Big Sky refuge for writers, artists, musicians and even Hollywood types—actor Michael Keaton and rocker Huey Lewis, for starters. It’s a place edged by imposing peaks and wilderness where you can also get a fancy meal and shop at hip boutiques.
Residence Inn Missoula Downtown was basecamp the first few nights. Its building dates to 1866 as The Mercantile, an emporium for just about everything, including wagons and farm equipment. Now, the hotel offers 175 guest rooms and cozy meeting space. It connects to today’s Mercantile, with shops and restaurants.
Another solid option for smaller meetings: AC Hotel Missoula Downtown, with 105 guest rooms.
About a half-hour’s drive east is Greenough and The Resort at Paws Up, on a vast working cattle ranch. No main lodge, but it’s cowpoke chic, with 28 luxury homes and cabins and 36 glamping-style tents. For incentives and team-building retreats, gather in gussied-up barns, in the cook yard or lots of other options. That is, when you’re not on horseback, on an ATV, in a canoe, casting a fly line into a stream, shooting clays, mountain biking—the list goes on, and I’m ready for some Rocky Mountain trout and other Montana fine dining just writing about it.
In a timbered edge of the ranch, they’ve also built 12 luxury double accommodations—including a tree house option—“searching for the perfect blend of adventure and serenity” known collectively as the green o.
In Whitefish, a resort town at the edge of Glacier National Park, two meetings-worthy lodging options share ownership: Firebrand Hotel (86 guest rooms, 1,098 sq. ft. of meeting space) is downtown, and The Lodge at Whitefish Lake (125 guest rooms, and 6,000 sq. ft. at the Conference Center/Grand Ballroom), is a premier Montana lakeside property.
Eat & Experience
In Missoula, 1889 Steakhouse pays homage to the state’s founding year with seriously good grilled meats and delightfully refined accompaniments; the private dining room seats 14. Pangea Bar & Restaurant serves Missoula fare with global flavors.
Conrad Mansion Museum, a restored home in Kalispell dating to 1895, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and its manicured lawns are made for catered dining. While in town, and lest you think the craft cocktail has skipped over Montana, head for The Ritzy Salon & Lounge.
Who would have guessed Missoula is also where you can get a hit of high culture? Montana Museum of Art & Culture’s collection has been growing since 1895, thanks in large part to wealthy mining dynasties, to over 11,000 objects—from Rembrandt to Warhol, to works by Native American and Western artists.
And then, of course, get outdoors. Glacier Park Boat Company hosts tours of Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park on a historic wooden vessel. Glacier Guides is locally owned and leads all manner of adventures in nature.
This article appears in the September 2024 issue. You can subscribe to the magazine here.
