As General Manager of Gallatin River Lodge, I wake each morning to a view that still steals my breath—where the Gallatin River winds quietly through golden fields and the Bridger Mountains rise like a painted backdrop to something timeless, ancient and unbothered by time. The sun spills gold over the valley, elk rise from the riverbanks like ghosts from a dream. Here you can feel it — this is a land that still breathes deeply. A place where you can too.
This land holds a certain magic, not the kind found in postcards, but the kind that stirs your soul when you hear the wind move through cottonwoods or watch the sun set fire to the sky over the Spanish Peaks. It’s the same magic that stirred the voices of Montana’s cowboy poets—like Paul Zarzyski, who wrote of rodeos and road dust with a reverence usually reserved for church, or Wallace McRae, whose words braided humor and heartache into every stanza.
At Gallatin River Lodge, we carry that spirit in everything we do. Our lodge is more than a place to stay—it’s a place to settle into. To rest between your adventures. To swap stories over a locally-sourced meal or sip whiskey on the porch while the sky opens wide above you. We’re your home base for fly fishing the legendary Gallatin, hiking wildflower-laced trails, horseback riding into the hills, or just breathing deep and letting the landscape do its quiet, healing work.
There’s a certain grace to this part of the world, an invitation to live more slowly and more fully. Here, you gather with friends around a firepit under a canopy of stars so bright it feels like the universe is leaning in to listen. You find yourself rising with the sun, not out of obligation but because it feels like a blessing to witness the morning.
We believe Montana is not just a destination—it’s a feeling. It’s the scent of pine and sage in the air after a summer storm. It’s the sound of boots on old wooden floorboards and laughter carried on a breeze. So come stay with us at Gallatin River Lodge where we are honoring the tradition of the West—not just in aesthetics or artifacts, but in the deeper sense of hospitality, solitude, grit, and gratitude. Let Bozeman be your doorway to discovery. Let the land write its poetry into your bones. Under this big Montana sky, there is room for your soul to stretch out and breathe.
And maybe, just maybe, you’ll leave with a little piece of this place tucked into your heart—forever whispering you back….
These are three of my favorite cowboy poems:
The Cowboy’s Life
The bawl of a steer,
To a cowboy’s ear,
Is music of sweetest strain;
And the yelping notes
Of the gray coyotes
To him are a glad refrain.
And his jolly songs
Speed him along,
As he thinks of the little gal
With golden hair
Who is waiting there
At the bars of the home corral.
For a kingly crown
In the noisy town
His saddle he wouldn’t change;
No life so free
As the life we see
Way out on the Yaso range.
His eyes are bright
And his heart as light
As the smoke of his cigarette;
There’s never a care
For his soul to bear,
No trouble to make him fret.
The rapid beat
Of his bronco’s feet
On the sod as he speeds along,
Keeps living time
To the ringing rhyme
Of his rollicking cowboy song.
Hike it, cowboys,
For the range away
On the back of a bronc’ of steel,
With a careless flirt
Of the rawhide quirt
And a dig of a roweled heel!
The winds may blow
And the thunder growl
Or the breezes may safely moan;
A cowboy’s life
Is a royal life,
His saddle his kingly throne.
Saddle up, boys,
For the work is play
When love’s in the cowboy’s eyes —
When his heart is light
As the clouds of white
That swim in the summer skies.
A Cowboy’s Prayer
(Written for Mother)
Oh Lord, I’ve never lived where churches
grow.
I love creation better as it stood
That day You finished it so long ago
And looked upon Your work and called it
good.
I know that others find You in the light
That’s sifted down through tinted window
panes,
And yet I seem to feel You near tonight
In this dim, quiet starlight on the plains.
I thank You, Lord, that I am placed so well,
That You have made my freedom so com-
plete;
That I’m no slave of whistle, clock or bell,
Nor weak-eyed prisoner of wall and street.
Just let me live my life as I’ve begun
And give me work that’s open to the sky;
Make me a pardner of the wind and sun,
And I won’t ask a life that’s soft or high.
Let me be easy on the man that’s down;
Let me be square and generous with all.
I’m careless sometimes, Lord, when I’m in
town,
But never let ’em say I’m mean or small!
Make me as big and open as the plains,
As honest as the hawse between my knees,
Clean as the wind that blows behind the rains,
Free as the hawk that circles down the
breeze!
Forgive me, Lord, if sometimes I forget.
You know about the reasons that are hid.
You understand the things that gall and fret;
You know me better than my mother did.
Just keep an eye on all that’s done and said
And right me, sometimes, when I turn
aside,
And guide me on the long, dim, trail ahead
That stretches upward toward the Great
Divide.
When They’ve Finished Shipping Cattle in the Fall
Though you’re not exactly blue,
Yet you don’t feel like you do
In the winter, or the long hot summer days.
For your feelin’s and the weather
Seem to sort of go together,
And you’re quiet in the dreamy autumn haze.
When the last big steer is goaded
Down the chute, and safely loaded;
And the summer crew has ceased to hit the ball;
When a fellow starts to draggin’
To the home ranch with the wagon —
When they’ve finished shipping cattle in the fall.
Only two men left a standin’
On the job for winter brandin’,
And your pardner, he’s a loafing by your side.
With a bran-new saddle creakin’,
But you never hear him speakin’,
And you feel it’s goin’ to be a quiet ride.
But you savvy one another
For you know him like a brother—
He is friendly but he’s quiet, that is all;
For he’ thinkin’ while he’s draggin’
To the home ranch with the wagon—
When they’ve finished shippin’ cattle in the fall.
And the saddle hosses stringin’
At an easy walk a swingin’
In behind the old chuck wagon movin’ slow.
They are weary gaunt and jaded
With the mud and brush they’ve waded,
And they settled down to business long ago.
Not a hoss is feelin’ sporty,
Not a hoss is actin’ snorty;
In the spring the brutes was full of buck and bawl;
But they ‘re gentle, when they’re draggin’
To the home ranch with the wagon —
When they’ve finished shippin’ cattle in the fall.
And the cook leads the retreat
Perched high upon his wagon seat,
With his hat pulled ‘way down furr’wd on his head.
Used to make that old team hustle,
Now he hardly moves a muscle,
And a feller might imagine he was dead,
‘Cept his old cob pipe is smokin’
As he lets his team go pokin’,
Hittin’ all the humps and hollers in the road.
No, the cook has not been drinkin’—
He’s just settin’ there and thinkin’
‘Bout the places and the people that he knowed
And you watch the dust a trailin’
And two little clouds a sailin’,
And a big mirage like lakes and timber tall.
And you’re lonesome when you’re draggin’
To the home ranch with the wagon—
When they’ve finished shippin’ cattle in the fall.
When you make the camp that night,
Though the fire is burnin’ bright,
Yet nobody seems to have a lot to say,
In the spring you sung and hollered,
Now you git your supper swallered
And you crawl into your blankets right away.
Then you watch the stars a shinin’
Up there in the soft blue linin’
And you sniff the frosty night air clear and cool.
You can hear the night hoss shiftin’
As your memory starts driftin’
To the little village where you went to school.
With its narrow gravel streets
And the kids you used to meet,
And the common where you used to play baseball.
Now you’re far away and draggin’
To the home ranch with the wagon
For they’ve finished shippin’ cattle in the fall.
And your school-boy sweetheart too,
With her eyes of honest blue—
Best performer in the old home talent show.
You were nothin’ but a kid
But you liked her, sure you did—
Lord! And that was over thirty years ago.
Then your memory starts to roam
From Old Mexico to Nome.
From the Rio Grande to the Powder River,
Of the things you seen and done—
Some of them was lots of fun
And a lot of other things they make you shiver.
‘Bout that boy by name of Reid
That was killed in a stampede—
‘Twas away up north, you helped ’em dig his grave,
And your old friend Jim the boss
That got tangled with a hoss,
And the fellers couldn’t reach in time to save.
You was there when Ed got his’n—
Boy that killed him’s still in prison,
And old Lucky George, he’s rich and livin’ high.
Poor old Tom, he come off worst,
Got his leg broke, died of thirst
Lord but that must be an awful way to die.
Then them winters at the ranches,
And the old time country dances—
Everybody there was sociable and gay.
Used to lead ’em down the middle
Jest a prancin’ to the fiddle—
Never thought of goin’ home till the break of day.
No! there ain’t no chance for sleepin’,
For the memories come a creepin’,
And sometimes you think you hear the voices call;
When a feller starts a draggin’
To the home ranch with the wagon—
When they’ve finished shippin’ cattle in the fall.
