Mountain Meadows Guest Ranch, Montana

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Mountain Meadows Guest Ranch, Montana

By Kimberly Lisagor


	(courtesy, Mountain Meadows Guest Ranch)

I'D JUST PLUNGED MY FORK into a yolky eggs Benedict when Alex, my seven-year-old breakfast companion, posed a question: "Have you ever seen deer guts? They smell baaaad." In any other setting, this might seem strange. Not so in Mountain Meadows Guest Ranch's corner of Montana, 52 miles south of Bozeman, where elk far outnumber humans and a curious young traveler can collect a lifetime's worth of gross-out facts in a single day.

Alex had spent the previous afternoon poking through buffalo turds while exploring Yellowstone National Park, whose northern boundary is 18 miles from the lodge. Park excursions, horseback riding, mountain biking, and Class II-IV rafting on the Gallatin River quickly fill guests' days (in winter you can snowshoe, and downhill and cross-country ski), but home base is equally appealing. I got a little kick out of the cowboy-chic decorations, like the carved bear lamps that light up the seven-bedroom lodge, but I got an even bigger kick out of the view of the Spanish Peaks through the giant picture windows.

Mountain Meadows Guest Ranch

888-644-6647, www.mountainmeadowsranch.com.
Doubles start at $199 per night per adult, $99 per child, including all meals, activities, and shuttle from Bozeman.

After breakfast, Alex and I took turns distracting the pet goat, Charlie, so a shy llama could eat from our hands. "He'll need a nap after all these cookies," Alex said. Turns out we did, too.

Next Page: Oakland House Seaside Resort, Maine

Kimberly got her first dose of outdoor adrenaline at 14, kayaking the Middle Fork of Idaho's Salmon River. Since then, she has mountain biked, hiked, camped and climbed coast to coast, with occasional hops overseas.