Mountains, Music and Cowboys

Looking pretty for the Roundup.

The Fourth of July in Montana proved to be the most patriotic event of my life. Eighty guests and staff from Mountain Sky headed down to the Livingston Roundup, one of the largest rodeos in Montana, to watch some cowboys wrestle some calves and be thrown from bulls. It was great to be in Livingston surrounded by a huge group of people I knew, it felt like home to walk around and say hi to everyone. The patriotism was intense and awesome. First of all, merely being in Montana, a very land-devoted, ranch-heavy state, makes a person appreciate the US in a new way, but the fourth of July was a completely new level. The cowgirls running around the arena on their horses with American flags and practically every American themed country song playing in the background, followed by the announcer going on about America being the shinning light of freedom for the rest of the world, and the semi-constant shouts from spectators saying “Aaamerricaa,” made it abundantly clear I was not in the Pacific Northwest. And it was FUN. It was really fun to be surrounded by 5,000 people all stoked for the rodeo and the Fourth.


Emigrant Peak from the ranch.

In addition, we sat four people over from Dennis Quaid, one of many celebrities who own property in the valley. We then saw Rebecca Romijn Stamos at the after-rodeo-dance, which also proved to be a blast. Every person between the ages 18 and 35 from the valley seemed to be at this barn dance. A band played, drinks were served, and the Mountain Sky staff went crazy on the dance floor. I’m becoming pro at the Two Step and am slowly starting to blend with the other Montana ladies. Katie Rouse came up for the holiday and got to see the shenanigans for herself, which of course was amazing. It was quite possibly the best Fourth of July ever.


Standing on the peak!

For my days off this weekend I set my alarm 15 minutes earlier than my usual 5:15am to head off the ranch with three of my fellow staff members to tame the mountain we look at every day, Emigrant Peak. At 11,000 feet we gained 6,000 in three hours – straight up hill. Apparently when the trail was formed switchbacks were not in fashion. After two miles of this we entered a meadow so steep we had to either go onto all fours or create our own switchbacks. At this point we thought we were getting pretty close to the summit, but alas, we still had another hour and a half hike over loose rock and deceiving peaks. Thankfully the sun wasn’t on our backs until we reached the summit, where we took an amazing nap in the sun. It was a tough hike, but its pretty cool to be able to look over at Emigrant everyday and know that we stood at the top.


Emigrant is the highest mountain in the Beartooth range.

On Saturday I headed with my pal Alyssa up to Butte, Montana for the National Folk Festival. While Butte is quite possibly the ugliest and most dangerous town in Montana (they have an acidic lake where a man’s sole job is to scare off birds with a shotgun). The festival was awesome! There were over 50,000 people there, four stages and music from all over the place. We saw a straight bluegrass band, an Irish band, and a Cuban band. When we got back from the festival we walked into the lodge to find our little gang of rowdy friends dancing to Bruce Springsteen and drinking some mystery concoction called “Bruce Juice” provided by the Al-Sharifs. The Al-Sharifs are composed of an older English woman and her daughter who come for 11 weeks to the ranch from Bahrain, where her husband owns the largest oil transport company in the world. They are completely prim and proper on the exterior, but they love to hang out with the crazy staff and buy us drinks. Leslie, the mother, even got up to do a lap around the bar dancing. It proved to be a super fun night.


Hiking back down in 85 degree weather - it was too steep to not run.

As of late the ranch has had some exciting guests. Last week was very much government week; we had the U.S. Secretary under the Clinton here and a few bigwigs from the Pentagon. And this week is Hollywood week; with the President of HBO and her husband a writer for The Simpsons, Comedy Central, and SNL, along with a half dozen other producers and writers. Its fun because we are so isolated out here they can have a really relaxing vacation without anyone bothering them... except for staff obviously. Dana Gould, the writer/actor/producer man, said, “showbiz is all just a carnival. My job is no different than. what the guy running the tilt-a-whirl does.”

Mountain Sky: continuing to provide endless entertainment.

July... already?

Guest: “Boy, it’s really nice to get up here and away from reality for a bit.”
Chef Brian: “It’s only bad when you start to think this is reality.”
Guest: “Oh, I’m not that far gone yet.”
Chef Brian: “Have you met my staff.”

Too true Bri Bri. Too true. For example, a Police report for Livingston, Montana:
“A moose was sited on E Finch St around 7:30 am yesterday, apparently trapped in a man’s backyard. The police were unable to find the moose.”

The last couple of weeks have been awesome. There have definitely been highs and lows, but on the whole Mountain Sky has been really good to me. Family season is in full swing and next week we are at capacity with over 80 guests! That’s a lot of tarts! It’s amazing how much more satisfying it is to hear 25 six to ten year olds tell me that the Dirt (chocolate pudding, oreo crumbs and gummy worms) I made them for dessert is the best dessert they have ever had than having the coach of the Chicago Bears tell me my Basque cake, which took me two hours to make, was pretty good. If I’m ever having a bad day, I know to go look in on the kid’s program eating my cookies. I now only work AM shifts, so I now have every afternoon off to do as I please. Which usually involves hiking, running, sitting by the pool, and long naps. We only go into town about once a week, either to get dinner at the Rib & Chop House (local steak restaurant where they serve fish bowl margaritas) or peruse Padmina, a store worse than K-mart that sells awesome American themed clothing and carhartts.
Dance night shenanigans.

My days off for the past two weeks have been fantastic. I headed up to Helena, which really felt like going home, to see my cousin and all of her crazy friends. We stayed up late, hung out with some good people, drank a lot of beer, and went to an extremely sketchy bar where a bunch of hicks were rapping, woke up and went to the farmer’s market and had an amazing breakfast. Helena is about two and a half hours northwest of Emigrant, which in Montana is next door. My cousin is crazy and fun and Helena was a blast. I’m so happy to have family so close!

This last weekend I headed down to Pinedale, Wyoming to see Miss Katie Rouse in her little trailer. We went to some music, went on a hike, tried harassing some East Coasters on the phone and just got to hang out. Living out at the ranch is awesome and I love all of the staff and my friends up here, but it was definitely a relief to see someone who knows and loves you completely. And now this weekend Miss Rouse is heading up to me for the Livingston Roundup and some good ole’ Montana fun.
Katie in her wee trailer.

Back at the ranch this week Sous Chef Jeff, the fishing guide Bistis and I headed down to the Yellowstone River to do some fishing. Well, I sat in the back of the drift boat, while they fished, but it turned into quite the evening. Jeff got off work around 7, so we headed down to the river to do an 8-mile float, totally doable in the remaining three hours of light. We’re about a mile into the float and Bear, Jeff’s dog, jumps from the boat and swims to the shore. We were just coming around a bend so we had no idea what he was after, but we get around the corner and boom, two skunks are just hanging out. The three of us look at each other with just looks of total dread. So we’re yelling at Bear to get away from them, but of course he’s ready to eat them and could care less about our yelling. So of course he’s sprayed… three times! And then we were next to the bank trying to get Bear back into the boat, but the skunk is chasing Bear down toward the river, so I start screaming for Jeff to move his boat. Fortunately Bear outruns the skunk and is back in the boat. Back in the boat with us for another 7 miles. Now, this smell is unbelievable. When you smell a skunk on the side of the road, it is NOTHING in comparison to how horrible freshly sprayed skunk smells. All three of us were on the verge of vomiting and of course Bear is totally freaked out and trying to get away from the smell, so he’s running around the boat, rubbing up next to us and getting it everywhere! The wind was blowing the smell right into our faces the entire tim so that Jeff would turn the boat backwards for a stretch just so we could breathe. But at that point all we wanted to do was get to the take out. Bistis tried to fish for a bit, but the smell was so incredibly horrible Jeff just pushed the boat for the next hour and half. Thankfully Bistis and I didn’t have to ride with Jeff and Bear back to the ranch, but I still get whiffs of the skunk every once and awhile. A hilarious story, but not a good night fishing.
The dog who ruined it all.
At least it was pretty.

An Old One...

Yesterday afternoon 56 of the most interesting people showed up at the ranch. The rumors were flying before their arrival – Russian or Danish royalty, European aristocracy, etc. After their staff of 15 arrived, including lighting directors, party planners, florists, personal assistants and all of the necessary entourage members arrived, the truth was out. Andrew Ipkendanz, a very very wealthy Australian businessman, who can literally say, “money is no object,” has rented out the entire ranch for his 50th birthday. After three days in the MGM sky suites in Las Vegas, where one night the men (all 25 of them) were given full Elvis impersonator suits and the women (another 31 of them) were given Marlin Monroe dresses and wigs, the “Ippy” party flew on a private jet to Mountain Sky. Andrew or Ippy, has footed the bill for everything. The base expenses come to around 2.2 million dollars, but he has also opened the gift store here at the ranch and they made a stop at Murdoch’s, a high-end western wear store in Bozeman, where every guest bought wranglers, cowboy boots, some pearl snaps and cowboy hats. The guests are from all over the world – Brazil, Hong Kong, Sydney, London, as well as a smattering of European countries. There is a Russian prince in the mix and plenty of old aristocracy.

The ranch was transformed yesterday into a party planner’s dream. We moved all of the dinning room tables so they could put in their own, custom made tables in for the welcome dinner. Gas lanterns were put up everywhere; fresh fruit was strewn across the tables, which had burlap runners and slate placemats. I spent an hour tying new linen napkins with leather cord and a sprig of wheat. A canvas tent was put up on the front lawn for an outdoor bar where $150 bottle champagne was being served alongside vats of mojitos and, hilariously, Coors Light. Every night there was a new party, each more crazy and ridiculous than the last.

The ranch’s biggest event was the Bachelor and Spinster Ball they held out at one of our satellite cabins. It was a “white trash” party, we had a mechanical bull, candle holders were largely 40 oz bottles of beer (which we had to dump out… err… or into water bottles) and the guests wore boas and sequences and blue tuxes and tuxedo shirts, etc. I started work that day at 1 pm and ended around 2 am, only to wake up three hours later for another 9-hour shift. I think I died a little. While an awesome idea, it was raining so hard that the entire cabin area turned into a giant mud pit. We couldn’t get the van out with all of the kitchen equipment, not to mention the kitchen staff. Another Cook and I were left by the sous and executive chefs around 10 because they thought we would be done by 11… which we weren’t obviously. I had to make Pavlova (a meringue cake with fruit that’s very popular in Australia), which of course couldn’t be assembled until right before it was served. So I was in this little tiny kitchen assembling a three-tiered showpiece Pavlova along with 70 individual plated servings. There were plates of meringue everywhere! All over the couch and the bunk beds and the stove. Josh and I just shuffled around the room with raspberry sauce and fruit, literally throwing blueberries onto the cakes. I started doing this around 9, because everything was supposed to be served by 10:30… but they ended up not wanting the cake until 12. By that time almost all of the staff had left the party, leaving about 5 of us to break everything down in the rain and mud at 1 in the morning. It was ridiculous! Looking back it was pretty hilarious in a lot of ways… but I am very glad the crazies have left. As are the rest of the staff. Almost everyone worked 13-hour days, every day, for the entire week they were here. I’m still recovering and they left two days ago!
Making good use of the 40s.

It was pretty awesome to see the ranch transform so much and for all of the staff to rally around this party, but family season is a relief! And family season it now is! We are on to our bread and butter, the heart of the ranch’s season and supposedly the most hectic. Although it was nice for two wonderful days (I even laid out next to the pool), I’m currently listening to a hailstorm destroy the tin roof of my cabin. These are literally golf ball sized. I fear for my car.

Also exciting! I moved into a cabin! No more upstairs in the staff lodge next to crazy old lady (one of the AM cooks who is slightly scary)! So now I have my very own, very cozy cabin, which I love dearly. Yeah Montana!

Another trip into Yellowstone!

Yellowstone National Park

On my day off this week I had the opportunity to tag along with a group of guests on a tour of Yellowstone National Park. Mountain Sky is holding a special program called “Visions of Yellowstone” where everyday the group goes down into Yellowstone with different guides and different focuses. The first guide was Jim Evanoff, the Environmental Sustainability Coordinator for the park. Although I wasn’t able to go on his tour, I was able to listen to his presentation the night before. Jim is a bigwig with green initiatives and quite possibly the most informed person on Yellowstone. He was the guy to initiate the reintroduction of the wolves to Yellowstone, a very successful and highly controversial issue for Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. He has introduced a massive composting program for the waste created by the park’s annual 3.3 million visitors, which in turn has diverted 75% of the waste away from landfills. He spoke about the history of Yellowstone and hopefully where the future is headed. Yellowstone is the United State’s first national park and this initially meant that the Calvary was charged with the task of protecting the natural resources, with no regard for visitor enjoyment. With the creation of the park service in the early 1900s the focus radically shifted to the visitor’s experience, largely at the expense of the natural resources. There was a golf course at the northern entrance, bath houses diverted the geyser ’s hot water into shallow pools, open dumps encouraged wild animals such as bears to become habituated to humans for show, and the most shockingly, all animals considered predators were killed off. Thus the distinction of the wolf from the park. Only animals that could be petted or habituated were tolerated. Even the pelican was killed off because they were eating too many trout and taking away from visitor’s fishing experience. It wasn’t until the 1980s that the park service again shifted the balance to focusing more on the preservation and defense of the wilderness area, something the park still struggles with today.
Mammoth Hot Springs... this square mile of springs creates over 50 tons of new rock every day!

My guide for Wednesday, however, was Tom Murphy, a renowned and world-class nature photographer. He’s on the books for National Geographic, Time, and Life, to name a few. In his mid-60s, graying hair, tall and wiry from his daily hikes and ski trips into the parks, Tom was the perfect guide for my first trip to Yellowstone. He repeatedly spoke about the importance of the history and of the story behind each photograph he takes. With no short answer, Tom explained the geothermal features in just as much detail as he explained bison behavior and photographic tips. He moved to Livingston over 30 years ago and has made a point of spending at least 100 days out of every year in the park.
Tom and I becoming best friends.

An Elk (right next to the road) in velvet.

Yellowstone is spectacular. You travel from valley to valley, go over and follow raging rivers, and summit mountains – and this is only 20 miles into the park! Although Yellowstone is unique as a national park because it has four entrances and more roadways than most parks, you can only see 6% of the park if you stick to the pavement. Which I really like actually, its nice to think that 94% of the park has maintained a truly wild nature. On our trip we saw practically every animal one associates with Yellowstone. Right off we saw a black bear mother and cub, being approached by a very curious bull bison (the bison are about three times the size of the bears). Followed by three buck elks right next to the road way and in velvet, the stage right before they shed their winter coat (their antlers look soft and fuzzy for example). Not to mention the antelope, the big horn sheep, and the endless number of bison and elk with their calves and colts. The most exciting animal sighting, however, were two wolves feeding on a bison carcass, either their own kill or one they took over. These dogs are huge! And dangerous and so beautiful – basically wolves are badass.

Click to enlarge and see the wolf!

In 1995 there were no more wolves in Yellowstone or even in the regions surrounding the park. Now there are over 340. The elk population is back under control, which means vegetation in flatlands has been able to thrive again and the wolf is being seriously considered for delisting as an endangered animal. Cattle ranchers, however, now have to worry about the wolves as predators to their herds and complain that the elk population has been compromised for hunting. (Which isn’t necessarily true; the elk population has largely been re-balanced.) Between 1930 and 1996, the elk really didn’t have any major predators other than bears. The reintroduction of the wolf has forced the elk to revert to defense tactics forgotten by many generations and has reestablished a natural food chain. Ironically, those who used to complain that there were too many elk (so they could hunt more of them) are now the ones on the other side of the fence who complain there aren’t enough of elk so they should be allowed to hunt wolves. It’s a complicated issue.

Big Horn Sheep!

My first trip into Yellowstone was perfect. Tom was probably one of the coolest people I have ever met and we already have a hiking date in July! A week later a few of us were able to return to Yellowstone and do some hiking, truly the best way to see the park. I can’t believe I live so close to such a cool place.

I've decided I really like awkward animals... sheep (big or little), bison, moose, etc.

P.S. The nicer photos are curtesy of RC, the activities director, and his fancy pancy camera.

Graduation and The Real World

The Watershed Boys and Girl

“Welcome to the real world,” they tell me. And truly, Mountain Sky is starting to feel more and more real. The reality of living here in this gorgeous landscape, having to work my butt off in the kitchen, and living away from my closest friends, feels all too real. Bittersweet graduation.

Three of my crazy and wonderful friends

Last weekend I headed back to Walla Walla to see my wonderful friends, clean up my house, and walk in graduation. Graduation from college! How did that already happen? The last 17 years of my life have been dedicated to academics and a clear plan for my life. And now what? I think this is a question every single one of us from the class of 2010 is asking. Do I go on to grad school? Do I try to find my dream job? Can I find my dream job? Or do I ski bum and finally take a breather?

Duncan came for a brief visit at the ranch

Right now my answer is at Mountain Sky, but come October I can do anything. Or try to at least. All very exciting and frightening. The kitchen is proving to be a challenge. I make a lot of errors, or rather, the things that I think should work and that I feel like I do completely right - fail. My cake decorating skills don’t look professional enough, my cheesecakes didn’t rise and then they deflated, I used the wrong pan on my first go for my Basque cake, etc. “Oh la vasche,” as one French cook once told me. On the other hand, my chocolate decadence was great; as were my second try Basque cakes, chocolate peanut butter tortes, and blackberry mousse cakes. So it’s a learning process and a semi-stressful one at that. The kitchen is composed of a good team, fun personalities and hard workers. They’ve largely been here for years and years and have a pretty set way of doing things and while at times I exceed expectations, I still have a lot to learn.

Jordan the wrangler and our guide for the evening

In other news, the staff on a whole seems to be getting really close. Granted there are only 30 of us now and in four days 40 more people are coming, but for now we have become quite the community. Whether it’s sitting in the hot tub or next to the fire outside the bar, hiking, riding, or just having breakfast, we spend a lot of time together and have a pretty good time doing so. Yesterday I not only went on a hike, I even went on my first horseback ride since, well, many years. Although I am definitely very allergic to horses, and broke out in hives despite my pre-medicating, I still managed to have a lot of fun. My horse Brutus did not care what speed I wanted him to go because he was either going to stroll or run, with very little in between. So my first time on a horse meant I had very little control in a few cases. But man is it fun to lope or run.


Until next time, love you all and miss you dearly.

Where I Live

My new running route, where I carry bear spray and yell every 30 seconds... but you can't beat the view!

I’m currently sitting in front of the staff lodge with my computer and six deer are walking across the pathway, obviously not realizing or caring I’m sitting two feet from them. Yeah Montana.


The staff lodge, where I am currently sitting and where my lovely room is.

Another week down! And yet, my week has really just begun. My weekend is Wednesday –Thursday right now so the order of the week has lost some of its meaning. Today was another day alone in the bakeshop, I never know what to expect!


The main lodge and location of the kitchen

The usual order of things is as follows: 5:30 am set up for the day (get butter, eggs out, turn on oven, etc.) by 6:45 I need to have made a dozen muffins for the continental breakfast. By 7:45 two pastries, today was croissants and blueberry turnovers. Of course my croissants went haywire in the proofer (large humidifier) and I had to start over right before time. So that was how my day started, rushed. I spent the rest of the morning making the bread for dinner, challah again, beautiful and easy, ten loaves of banana bread, two types of cookies for lunch, and some sauces and a strawberry coulis for the Marjoline (pistachio meringe, with vanilla, coffee, and chocolate buttercreams) dessert tonight. It’s a crazy feeling to look up at the clock and see that its only 10:30 am, but you’ve been working for five hours already. Although I hit some roadblocks (my crème anglaise got all foamy the first run through) I often found myself smiling today. I loved bringing out a plate of hot banana bread and peanut butter cookies for the staff today, just because I could. And I loved braiding six loaves of challah and watching the breadbaskets come back empty from the dining room. I love the act of baking and the rewards it incurs.


My domain: the bakeshop.

The ranch is putting in a three-hole golf course and driving range, so the owner was out here this past week with some golfing bigwigs. I have no idea who Johnny Miller and Something Macavoy are… but they’re walking around looking very official. This weekend is another Wild West Women group, much younger and much more down-to-earth it seems. I now have an invitation out to North Carolina to bake for a lovely lady named Dottie this winter. I think, however, that I’ll be using Pam’s connection at Bridger Bowl (local ski hill) to slide in as one of the resort’s bakers. Perfect seasonal work!


The hiking is unbelievable... the ranch is just down in that little gulch on Big Creek.

It has finally warmed up here. No more snow at the ranch and big blue skies. Everyone seems to be in good spirits. There’s even a dance tonight up in Whilsal to celebrate the end of branding season. The hiking remains wonderful and the people are great. I’ve finally started to really feel at home here and everyone has really come together, new staff and old alike. So here are some pictures of where I live! Don’t you just want to visit? Please do!


Bear warnings are everywhere and for good reason.


East to the Absaroka Mountains


West to Big Sky

FYI: you can click on any of the photos to enlarge them!

Conde Nast Article

Here's a link to a recent Conde Nast article about the ranch! Very exciting, lots of great pictures of some of the staff and of the beautiful valley!

http://www.cntraveller.com/photos/photo-galleries/ranch-holidays-in-montana

Just copy and paste!