Montana Hotels & Attractions

MONTANA is Big Sky country. The nickname is no empty cliché: the entire state is blessed with a huge blue roof that both dwarfs the beautiful countryside and complements it perfectly. A magnificent northernmost cap for the US Rockies, this is a region of snowcapped summits, turbulent rivers, spectacular glacial valleys, heavily wooded forests and sparkling blue lakes, at their most dramatic in Glacier National Park. By contrast, the eastern two-thirds is high prairie: sun-parched in summer and wracked by icy blizzards each winter.

Preconceptions of a desolate land populated by cowpokes are soon shattered: each of Montana's small cities has its own proud identity. The university and sawmill community of Missoula, for example, possesses a high-culture feel absent from the heavily Irish, copper-mining town and union stronghold of Butte, while elegant state capital Helena still harks back to its prosperous gold mining years, and Bozeman, just to the south, is one of the hippest mountain towns in the US.