Compass American Guides: Montana, 4th Edition

Land and Space, Mountains and Sky

Driving across eastern Montana -- from, say, Sidney to Lewistown -- can be an uneasy, or an exhilarating, experience. Uneasy if you find comfort in crowds; exhilarating if space is what you seek. The trip will take the better part of a day, and still you will be only halfway across the state. You will travel through all or part of five counties (roughly the equivalent of driving from Maine to New York) with a total population of fewer than 30,000. Of those counties, Garfield has 1,410 residents scattered over an area about the same size as Connecticut, with its 3.3 million people.


If you are open to a new perception of beauty, the lunar landscapes of eastern Montana can be endlessly absorbing. This is the Earth itself speaking, but if you have been conditioned to the babel of humanity, you may not hear it. So pack along a cassette tape of High Plains Music by Montana native, Phil Aaberg. His high-spirited and haunting piano celebrates the landscape and beckons you to the uninterrupted stretch of highway ahead. Soon, you will realize that you are surrounded not by emptiness, but by space. In Montana, there is a difference. Eastern Montana space is filled with the subtlest forms of beauty. Shifting light and shadow play on coulees, badlands, and breaks. Western meadowlarks remind you with one astonishing trill that it's good to be alive. Neutral earth tones of ocher and sage magnify a 180-degree backdrop of sky that broods and shimmers in primary colors.


Driving south from Lewistown, the space becomes more immediate, more dramatic. It is defined by solitary mountain ranges that appear as islands in an ocean of grass -- the Big Snowies, the Little Belts, the Castles, and the Crazies. Keeping to themselves in the distance, these isolated ranges are your signal that the landscape is about to change dramatically.


From Plains to Mountains

Turning west at Big Timber, you might as well be in a different state. In fact, you have reached Montana's mid-point. Yet to come are the mountains that gave Montana its name. First, the Absarokas and the Bridgers, then the Madison Range, the Tobacco Roots, the Pioneers, the Sapphires, and on and on, range after range, until they meld into one hazy ridge floating on the horizon. These views need no introduction; you've seen them on movie screens and travel posters. This is the Montana that outsiders know about: the mountains and trout streams, guest ranches and ski resorts, national parks and wilderness areas. You may have missed where the Dakota plains ended and the plains of eastern Montana began, but the imprint of the Northern Rockies will stay with you forever.


Scooped out of each range of mountains is a glaciated valley fed by rivers and streams that begin as snowfall on peaks that range from 7,000 to 12,000 feet  above sea level. But for an occasional town or small city, these timbered valleys and granite ranges are the domain of wildlife -- abundant populations of elk, deer, moose, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, waterfowl, upland birds, and trout. The roster includes endangered and threatened species like the bald eagle, gray wolf, and grizzly bear. A popular Montana guest ranch offers this comparison to illustrate the company Montanans keep and the space they enjoy:

Per Square Mile in Montana
1.4 elk or antelope
3.3 deer
896 catchable-size trout
6 people

The conventional view of a remote, sparsely populated state like Montana is that there is nothing going on out here. Just land and space. In his Montana: High, Wide, and Handsome, Joseph Kinsey Howard wrote: "Montana is a remote hinterland about as well known to the average eastern seaboard citizen as East or West Africa. But it is this space that defines Montana and shapes the outlook of its residents." The newsman and historian also said of this place:


"This sums up what I want in life -- room to swing my arms and to swing my mind. Where is there more opportunity than in Montana for creation of these broad margins, physical and intellectual? Where is there more opportunity to enjoy the elemental values of living, bright sun and clean air and space? We have room. We can be neighbors without getting in each other's hair. We can be individuals."


The fact that there is still a place like Montana, where humanity does not dominate the landscape, is immensely important in a world that is overrun with people and their impact. Space and an unspoiled landscape are increasingly hard to come by, and herein lies Montana's appeal.


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