Every spring, the International Wildlife Film Festival, which was founded in Missoula in 1977 and today is the longest-running wildlife film festival in the world, takes over the historic Roxy Theater. The rest of the year, the Roxy shows foreign, independent and classic films to audiences who are there as much to see movies like \u201cPee-wee\u2019s Big Adventure\u201d as they are to eat hot, buttery popcorn served in giant aluminum bowls.<\/p>\n
Catch concerts at the Wilma, a theater built in downtown in 1921 in the elaborately ornamented Sullivanesque style and renovated in 2015, or the KettleHouse Amphitheater, an outdoor venue adjacent to the KettleHouse craft brewery and on the banks of the Blackfoot River.<\/p>\n University of Montana forestry students cut the first switchbacks for a trail up Mount Sentinel at the eastern side of the school\u2019s campus in the early 1900s. (The university opened in 1895.) In 1909, students gave Sentinel hikers an easier destination than the peak\u2019s 5,158-foot summit: a giant \u201cM\u201d only 620 feet and three-quarters of a mile from the valley floor. Originally made from whitewashed rocks, today the M \u2013 120-feet long and 100-feet wide \u2013 is concrete.<\/p>\n Hiking the 13 switchbacks to it is a workout, but if you want more expansive views of the five valleys surrounding Missoula, continue another mile and 1,300 vertical feet to Mount Sentinel\u2019s summit. Just across Interstate 90 from Sentinel is Mount Jumbo. The trail to its summit is similar in distance and vertical feet to that of Sentinel, but instead of an \u201cM\u201d it is decorated with an \u201cL\u201d (for Loyola Sacred Heart High School) and it\u2019s less busy. Find 2 miles of flat hiking trails in the Rattlesnake Greenway, an urban oasis home to about 100 species of birds.<\/p>\n The West is a mecca for fly-fishermen. \u201cIt\u2019s the place you want to make a pilgrimage to,\u201d says Chris Dombrowski, who has guided fly-fishermen in Montana for 21 seasons. \u201cWithin the West, I don\u2019t think you can beat Missoula.\u201d<\/p>\n Especially if you go with a guide. \u201cWithin an hour\u2019s drive we have something like 52 different floats on four separate rivers, and if you peel out to 70 miles, that number doubles,\u201d says Dombrowski, who, when not guiding, writes poetry and nonfiction. (A review in the Wall Street Journal<\/em> compared his 2016 nonfiction book, \u201cBody of Water: A Sage, A Seeker, and the World\u2019s Most Alluring Fish,\u201d to the writing of Gary Snyder and John McPhee). \u201cThe diversity of our watershed is completely unmatched in the West, and we have way fewer boats and fishing pressure up here than the rest of the Western meccas. I get a little grouchy if I see two or three other boats at the put-in.\u201d<\/p>\n For close-to-town fishing, guides bring clients to the Kona Bridge Fishing Access Site, where they launch a drift boat into the Clark Fork River and there is also wade fishing. \u201cIt\u2019s known for its picky but big rainbow and cutthroat,\u201d Dombrowski says.<\/p>\n Walking into the ready room at the Missoula Smokejumper Visitor Center, home to 50 of about 400 highly trained firefighters across the country who parachute from low-flying planes to fight wildland fires in rugged and remote areas, feels like you\u2019re invading the smoke jumpers\u2019 privacy.<\/p>\n Dog-eared photos of kids and pets are tucked into the edges of lockers and battle-scarred helmets. Harnesses and heat- and flame-resistant flight suits hang everywhere. But the ready room is an official stop on a free, hourlong tour of the center, which is the oldest (and largest) of the nine smokejumper bases in the country. While it humanizes these seeming superheroes \u2013 on the tour you learn that the physical requirements of the job include walking 3 miles in under 90 minutes \u2026 while carrying 110 pounds \u2013 other stops are more surprising. The biggest room is dedicated to repacking parachutes, and there is a sewing room. (Smoke jumpers make and maintain all of their jumpsuits, harnesses and gear bags.) The tour ends outside, next to the planes from which these men and women jump.<\/p>\n Because Charlie Baumgartner wouldn\u2019t talk to a reporter, I\u2019m not sure how the tiny cafe in the back of the bar he\u2019s owned since 1980, Charlie B\u2019s, came to be called the Dinosaur Cafe and serve Cajun and Creole food. I do know that, after getting over my hesitation of being a single woman walking into an almost windowless, unmarked bar that is open from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m., I had the Dinosaur\u2019s \u201cgumbolaya,\u201d a combo of jambalaya and gumbo, three times in four days.<\/p>\n I also came to see why Charlie B\u2019s, with black and white portraits of grizzled regulars covering its walls and actual grizzled regulars sitting in high-backed pleather bar stools chatting, arguing and reading the Missoulan<\/em> daily newspaper, shooting pool and watching one of several flat-screen TVs, was named \u201cBest Bar in Montana\u201d by the Daily Meal<\/em>. Think \u201cCheers,\u201d but with ranchers, loggers, former miners and railroad workers, cowboys and writers. Order a sour beer, Prosecco or Aperol spritz at your own peril.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t worry if you show up toward the end of the weekend brunch at Scotty\u2019s Table and the bistro is out of Shakshuka (poached eggs in a sauce of caramelized onions, roasted peppers, tomatoes, cumin, paprika and chili flakes, topped with local feta and cilantro) and cerdo con mole (confit pork shoulder served with a seared polenta cake, mole and two over-easy eggs). Order a burger and an espresso, settle into one of the tables on the shaded patio and listen to the music playing at the Carousel for Missoula in adjacent Caras Park; it\u2019s from the largest band organ in continuous use in the United States. If you like the espresso, made with beans from Drum Coffee, visit the roastery\u2019s cafe, where baristas excel at cortados and a Faema espresso machine shares counter space with a turntable. Drum was founded by John Wicks, drummer of the band Fitz and the Tantrums, and his wife, Jenna.<\/p>\n You could spend your entire trip visiting Missoula\u2019s many craft breweries, or hit the Dram Shop, which has beers from almost all of them on tap. Also on tap are local and regional ciders and kombuchas, as well as red, white and ros\u00e9 wine. While it\u2019s got beer covered, the Dram Shop is B.Y.O.F. (bring your own food). Order a burger to go from Wally & Buck, which recently opened a storefront nearby after several years as one of Missoula\u2019s most popular food trucks.<\/p>\n One of Missoula\u2019s best fine-dining restaurants, Pearl Cafe, founded by Pearl Cash, who grew up in the Bitterroot Valley on a subsistence farm where her mom made everything from scratch and cooked on a wood-burning stove, is adjacent to the Dram Shop. Cash created a limited menu of small bites and favorites from her restaurant\u2019s French-inspired menu that can be delivered to the bar.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve made trips to Missoula just to hang out at Break Espresso, a cavernous cafe with worn oak floors, fast Wi-Fi, classic pastries and layer bars, substantial wood tables and chairs, bankers\u2019 lamps, solid baristas (although sometimes moody) and a clientele as diverse as its pie selection. The pie selection includes about a dozen flavors, all of which are baked in the kitchen in the rear of the cafe and several of which are available by the slice. For less eccentricity and fancier pastries, such as almond kouign-amanns, hazelnut lunettes and Earl Grey scones, hit Le Petit Outre.<\/p>\n Missoula native Allison Reaves left the city to study and work in apparel design in Corvallis and Portland, Oregon, for seven years. She returned home in 2016 and immediately started working on a business plan for a boutique \u2013 the General Public opened in April \u2013 that sold ethically-made clothing and accessories designed by small manufacturers (including herself).<\/p>\n \u201cMissoula hasn\u2019t had anything like this store before,\u201d says Reaves, whose quirky-cool clothing line inspired by work wear shares its name with the boutique. \u201cI don\u2019t think a store like this could have survived before. But I think we\u2019re ready now.\u201d<\/p>\n Locals come to Butterfly Herbs for hard-to-find bulk spices. Visitors come to check out the pressed tin ceiling that dates to 1897 and to buy gifts for friends back home: Butterfly, which had Missoula\u2019s first commercial espresso machine when it opened in 1972, today has the city\u2019s largest selection of loose-leaf tea blends from local Montana Tea & Spice Trading. (Montana Tea & Spice was founded by the same man who founded Butterfly Herbs, the late Bruce Lee, who created hundreds of tea blends.) The Evening in Missoula blend includes chamomile, peppermint, rosehips, raspberry leaf, lemongrass and spearmint. Butterfly manager Debby Barberio, who has worked here since 1976, says Montana Gold makes the best iced tea. A cafe in the back serves dozens of flavors of tea, but order a chai milkshake instead; it\u2019s made from Butterfly\u2019s own chai and local Big Dipper cardamom ice cream.<\/p>\n You\u2019ll likely find yourself in downtown\u2019s Trail Head because you need bug spray, a warmer layer for an evening walk on the nearby Ron\u2019s River Trail or a bathing suit to float along the Clark Fork River. You\u2019ll probably leave with whatever it was you needed \u2013 the 10,000-square-foot store is dedicated to everything outdoors \u2013 as well as recommendations of other nearby outdoor adventures to have. Trail Head\u2019s employees, about half of who grew up in Missoula, make the most of the surrounding landscape and happily share their knowledge about trails and paddles. (No angler worth his or her fly shares their favorite fishing spots.) Thanks to an employee here, I knew to hike Mount Sentinel in the morning. \u201cIt\u2019s west-facing and can be brutally hot in the afternoon,\u201d I was told.<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve wondered if destination retail still exists in the age of Internet shopping, a visit to Rockin\u2019 Rudy\u2019s shouts \u201cYes!\u201d by sending you into sensory overload as soon as you walk through its front door. The 15,000-square-foot store\u2019s sense of place and purpose come from its hundreds of Montana-made products \u2013 my first stop is always the locally made jewelry \u2013 and the state\u2019s largest selection of new and used vinyl and CDs. (The store was founded, in 1982, as a record shop.)<\/p>\n Rockin\u2019 Rudy\u2019s branded merchandise includes T-shirts, stickers and patches with a graphic of a Bigfoot walking a unicorn on a lead rope. Additional personality comes from shop cats Jolene and Johnny Cash, strays from nearby Hamilton adopted through Missoula County Animal Control. Jolene and Johnny, both domestic longhairs, are only the third and fourth felines to hold the position of shop cat. Preceding them were Bubba, 1991-2011, and Saul, 2012-2018. When Saul died suddenly in November 2018, the outpouring of grief on social media almost broke the local Internet.<\/p>\n Even if you\u2019re not into fly-fishing, you\u2019ll appreciate the Dry Fly Apartments for their downtown location, proximity to the Clark Fork River and riverfront trails and parks and the 120-year-old exposed interior brick walls. If you are an angler, staying here is a no-brainer: The five two-bedroom apartments are above the Grizzly Hackle Fly Shop, which has been voted Missoula\u2019s best fly shop numerous times and is so confident in its guides that it offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee.<\/p>\n Public spaces in the apartment building feature oil paintings of fish by Derek DeYoung, who is the artist behind Montana\u2019s \u201cwild trout\u201d license plates. Apartments have fish posters and photos, but don\u2019t overwhelm with a fish theme. Shelves above each bed are made from rough-cut and original two-by-fours repurposed when these apartments were remodeled last winter and spring.<\/p>\n Although the developers of the newly opened, 175-suite Marriott Residence Inn Missoula Downtown weren\u2019t able to restore and remodel the National Historic Landmark Missoula Mercantile Building, they built new on the site where it formerly stood. They honored the past of the merc and Missoula with prints of historic photos sourced from the University of Montana\u2019s Mansfield Library and new black-and-white photos of artifacts retrieved from the merc before it was demolished. Across from the lobby elevators, a diamond-shaped sculpture, \u201cProse and Connotations\u201d by Jack Boyd, pays homage to Montana writers. Look closely at the books that were used in the artwork and you\u2019ll find that the most prominently displayed ones are by writers including Thomas McGuane and Norman Maclean.<\/p>\n Garden City Brewery opened in the Northside, one of Missoula\u2019s oldest neighborhoods, in 1895 and kept locals happy until it closed in 1965. The neighborhood was without a brewery until 2009, when KettleHouse Brewing Co. opened a production facility and tasting room here. Now, breweries, and even a cidery, are renovating the area\u2019s abandoned warehouses and factories faster than you can say \u201cPropinquity Reconciliatory Robust Porter,\u201d one of the beers brewed by community activism-minded Imagine Nation Brewing Co. (and named to honor those who brought about the 1998 Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland).<\/p>\n Draught Works, voted Missoula\u2019s \u201cBest Brewery\u201d and \u201cBest Brew\u201d two years running in the Missoulan<\/em>\u2019s annual Best of Missoula survey, transformed a Northside warehouse with open, barrel-vaulted ceilings into its production facility and tasting room. A former tannery and tire shop on the bank of the Clark Fork River became the production facility and tasting room for Western Cider, which produces ciders using apples grown in the Pacific Northwest and its own orchards in Stevensville, Montana, and has a riverside patio shaded by 50 young apple trees.<\/p>\n The Clark Fork River cuts right through the center of Missoula, and the section between Ben Hughes Park and the Orange Street Bridge is the site of the city\u2019s biggest traffic jams. Every day between June and September, hundreds of people float this part of the Clark Fork. The watercraft of choice? Everything from normal tire tubes to air mattresses made to look like a giant slice of pizza and inner tubes shaped like unicorns.<\/p>\n Anything goes, so long as you\u2019ve got enough control to paddle clear of any wading fly-fisherman working a riffle along the riverbank and of the kayakers and surfers playing in Brennan\u2019s Wave. This man-made standing white-water feature named in honor of a local professional kayaker who died while paddling a river in Chile is just past the Higgins Avenue Bridge. Both sides of the river have paved pathways, collectively called the Riverfront Trails you can use to walk back to where you started; this trail system is worth exploring on its own, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A mecca for outdoor pursuits, Missoula is rich in culture, too<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":66413,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-66412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66412"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=66412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}