We all love the version of the Fourth of July in a backyard, with something cold in a koozie and a decent view of distant fireworks. But there is also a wilder Fourth—a version on horseback in Montana, with the Absaroka Range stacked up behind you, hair blowing in the wind under your Stetson. It’s all so Ralph Lauren that a barbecue by the pool may never be enough again.
If you've been looking to do something spectacularly American this summer—not just festive, but mythic—the answer is the Old West. Elizabeth Walsh, a Charlotte-based luxury travel advisor, recommends Paradise Valley, Montana, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming, stitched together into a six-day journey that covers Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons and enough wide-open sky to recalibrate your sense of scale.
Walsh has worked with the team at EXP Journeys, a luxury adventure travel company with a gift for turning destinations into experiences, to build itineraries for travelers eager to celebrate a country with landscapes like these.
The adventure begins in Bozeman, where a private guide meets you at the airport for your transfer to Paradise Valley. From here, you’ll finish the journey the way it was always meant to be taken: on horseback, climbing through the hilly Montana terrain to a private luxury camp tucked into the National Forest near Yellowstone. As you hop out of the saddle, don’t worry about saying goodbye to your new riding partner—the horses stay at camp for the duration, so you can ride at any point.
Paradise Valley Luxury Camp was designed to provide access to the most remote, spectacular landscapes in the West and is set up and fully-staffed exclusively for your group. Your accommodations include a purpose-built canvas tent with a king bed, down comforter, hot shower, and private en-suite. Meals are designed by award-winning Executive Chef Shon Foster, tailored to your preferences and whatever the season has to offer.
In the evenings, the impossibly dark night sky becomes the backdrop for stories around the fire, camp games, and, on the second night, a private stargazing session with a local astronomer who will make you feel both small and astonished in equal measure.
Once the sun rises again, the days belong to the land. You might ride out on a cattle drive, pushing a herd across the open range, learning the rodeo skills that have defined this landscape for more than a century. You may get to “cut” an individual from the herd, and you will almost certainly walk away a little bowlegged, with a bit of ranch-hand swagger, knowing something new about both the romance and the challenges of life in this place.
In the afternoon, you’ll harvest honey from local hives as you learn about the agricultural life of the valley. That evening, you’ll hear about the local wolfpacks from a naturalist who has spent years studying predator dynamics in the Yellowstone ecosystem. By the time you fall asleep under a star-spangled sky, you will have lived more of this country's story in 12 hours than most people manage in a lifetime of patriotic holidays.
On the morning of day three, your guide will collect you before sunrise to depart for Lamar Valley, the crown jewel of Yellowstone's wildlife corridor. This living diorama is the best place in North America to spot wolves in the wild. Bison move through the valley in unhurried masses, and grizzlies materialize at the edges of tree lines, while pronghorn antelope streak across the sagebrush flats. Later in the day, you’ll come to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, where the Lower Falls drop 308 feet—more than twice the height of Niagara—into a gorge painted in shades of ochre and cream.
From Yellowstone, you’ll head south to Jackson Hole to spend the remaining nights at Amangani, which reopens this summer after an extensive reimagination. Perched nearly 7,000 feet above sea level on the edge of East Gros Ventre Butte, the property takes its name from the Shoshone word for “peaceful home.” Superior Suites come with private balconies with views across the valley to the snow-capped Tetons.
Learn more by contacting locally based luxury travel consultant Elizabeth Walsh @thelocalforeigner.