I know Montana is full but…

[muleybowhunter]

Been a long time member, thank you for all of the great info you all have provided.

My wife and I have decided to jump in the deep end and sell our house in Washington and move to Montana, a long time dream. Our house sold in four days and closes escrow on Monday, Although we have 3 weeks to stay and move our belongings and horses. Which leaves me a few questions I hope the Montana locals can help with.

We will initially be locating within reasonable distance of Bozeman (have job lined up there) while we explore some other areas and decide where to buy property and build or buy a house. Will probably be either Helena, Great Falls or Billings because of affordability.

But in the meantime, we are moving our stuff out in the next couple weeks to a storage unit and will be concentrating on finding a rental and finding boarding for our horses until we get to settle down with our own place.
So,
1. Any recommendations on places to board horses in the Gallatin valley?
2. We are traveling back and forth with our LQ horse trailer, recommendations on where to camp with it while in the area would be great. If anyone happens to have property to stay on for a few days we are happy to pay or trade hunting gear
3. Any rental possibilities you may know of.

I know the go to response is Montana is full, we are leaving Washington for a reason and we will do our best to become part of the Montana community, we chose to move their because of the people and the way of life and do not plan on trying to change anything. Just my wife, I and our GSP and horses looking for a better quality of life.

Thank you all,

Dan

 

[Doublecluck]

I wouldn’t try to discourage you because I did the same thing for probably some of the same reasons 10 years ago. But I can tell you it won’t be easy. Look on Bozeman Facebook pages,about 5 posts a day from people moving from somewhere wanting to come to Bozeman with no idea that the median household price tag is now north of 700k, it’s absolutely impossible to find a rental and there are several areas where encampments of people living in recreational trailers have popped up because they can’t find homes. It’s easy to find a job in Bozeman but nowhere to live. Everything has spilled right over in to Livingston, Three forks , Manhattan etc. maybe slightly better but pretty much same chit. Personally I don’t think Gallatin county is recognizable as the place I moved to any more. Helena you can still find inventory but it’s pretty low as well. Billings is really the only place left where you could consider just moving to and maybe finding a rental or buying something. If your set on Bozeman I would make sure you got something lined up that’s solid, I’m currently stuck in Billings after selling in Belgrade and Three forks, we are building in a small town and it’s the only place we could find something in the mean time. No idea on the horses but I would guess it’s the same.

Good luck

 

[Straight Arrow]

Doublecluck offers solid advice. It would be prudent to find a place for the horses and trailer before arriving here. I believe there are more horses in the Gallatin Valley than ever before in history.

Contact the Gallatin County Fairgrounds as there are temporary spaces for livestock and trailers sometimes available.

Welcome to Montana ... and the thriving, growing, traffic-dense Boz Angeles.

We live near Gallatin Gateway, 15 mi SW of Bozeman, and I now dread having to go to Bozeman for any reason. But Gateway is about to explode with six hundred living units under development, so there is little relief in sight.

BTW, I have lived here since coming from Great Falls for college in 1963. Echoing Doublecluck, this valley is dramatically different from what I moved to back then. Some improvements, but much more urbanization with the commensurate problems.

 

[diamond hitch]

It's been nearly 40 years since I moved back but I faintly remember a series of things I had to do to move horses. I know a coggins was in there somewhere but I'm sure things have gotton a lot worst. You might have better luck with boarding them in a smaller town on the west side. Hay is kinda tight.

 

[OntarioHunter]

Yes, Montana is getting wrecked fast. Not much of "the Last Best Place" left. Great Falls seems to be the slowest exploder of the lot you named. I suspect you would find more opportunities for keeping horses in that area. Back in my day the Blackfoot Reservation was well known for wintering horses on the range. Many of the West Side outfitters hauled their stock over there. An hour and a half or so from Great Falls as I recall? I think the wind in Great Falls blows away a lot of the foreigners. I honestly don't know how the college kids at MSU get by these days. No place to live and everything is so expensive. That whole area for a hundred miles around is nuts. Bozeman isn't even a faint resemblance of the place it was when I went to school there back in the seventies.

I would love to move "back home" to Montana but I just can't bring myself to be a part of the invasion. I'll put up with the twenty-four hour commute as long as my almost 69 year-old body holds out.

Stay away from Sidney. I hear the oil boom has made it very unpleasant as well as expensive. Lewistown is also being swarmed by invaders. Public hunting, especially for uplands, has really dried up in that area. A school chum (1st grade to college) has lived in Lewistown for thirty years. He comes up to Malta to hunt pheasants with me because nothing available down there. Billings is too big for me. Not cheap either I'm told. Very high crime rate. If I did move back to Montana I would live in one of the smaller communities on the East Side. A lot of city-life Montana invaders can't handle living in a small town where everyone knows what's going on in their life. Unless you're dealing drugs or screwing around on your wife, who cares? There's no place in any community worth living in for those types anyway. Even the small communities on the West Side are screwed. The Flathead and Bitteroot Valleys are a zoo! So where would I go if I moved back? I have scoped out two towns over the years. They have enough amenities, cheap real estate (very cheap!), great publicly accessible outdoors opportunities, and just near and far enough from metropolitan centre to not be infected with transplants but still have shopping and health care available. Where are these idyllic places? Real enough ... but I'm not telling anyone. I just hope Robert Redford doesn't make a movie there and start another land rush.

 

[texwest44]

Montana is full in the sense there's a super limited amount of housing. And as someone who fell for the Montana propaganda and moved from another state, I'm looking to leave after only being here a few years. Mileage varies here for sure. Make sure you do more research than just what you need to make sure your horses are happy!

Don't get me wrong, Montana is great and all, but it ain't what it looks to be from the outside.

 

[Pagosa]

Depending on the number of horses I have self-boarding (you provide feed/hay) available in Kalispell. We have a good stand of fall grasses that could get them into the early winter. Grazing pasture is about 7 acres, you will need electric fencing supplies, and we have a 3/4 acre dry lot with barn. $150 per horse per month.

You couldn't pay me enough to live in Bozeman. Great Falls and/or Billings would be my first choices for a larger cities. Good luck on your move.

 

[Dan O]

I live on the west side of the divide. I was born, raised and worked in Great Falls for 59 years. Great Falls did not change much when the 2008 financial crisis hit. Why because it wasn't doing much before. I think it is the cheapest place to move to but like everywhere else the real estate market is tight. The east side does have a bit of wind year round and warm temps in the winter with many days of frigid weather blowing in. Great Falls has chinooks that will let you thaw out over night until the next below zero stretch. It can switch 60 degree's either way in a day or less.
For retired military MAFB is a draw and there is good medical services in GF's. The big plus is you can get into good hunting and fishing not to far away in any direction. Don't come to Missoula county they have never met a bond issue they didn't like. It's a high property tax area. Real estate prices are nuts currently with low inventory and lack of rentals.

Dan

 

[OntarioHunter]

Montana is full in the sense there's a super limited amount of housing. And as someone who fell for the Montana propaganda and moved from another state, I'm looking to leave after only being here a few years. Mileage varies here for sure. Make sure you do more research than just what you need to make sure your horses are happy!

Don't get me wrong, Montana is great and all, but it ain't what it looks to be from the outside.

99% of the people who currently harp on Montana being such a great place to live are the ones who are ruining that great place at a supersonic pace: contractors and real estate developers. And most of them haven't lived there very long or don't live there year round. They either don't know what they're wrecking ... or don't care. It's all about making enough money to move on and ruin someplace else once they've made their current crime scene unliveable. It really is heartbreaking. I mean that literally.

 

[texwest44]

99% of the people who currently harp on Montana being such a great place to live are the ones who are ruining that great place at a supersonic pace: contractors and real estate developers. And most of them haven't lived there very long or don't live there year round. They either don't know what they're wrecking ... or don't care. It's all about making enough money to move on and ruin someplace else once they've made their current crime scene unliveable. It really is heartbreaking. I mean that literally.

Well stick me in the 1% because that ain't me. I'm here because the state hired me to develop education/career programs and resources for rural and low-economic status youths. I just happened to have fallen for all that "big state, few people, mellow attitudes" stuff that gets projected all over the place. The part where Montana is going down the same hole as a lot of the west coast states gets conveniently left out.

 

[Straight Arrow]

Yes, the traditional Montana standards of attitude, politics, and even usual nomenclature and jargon are swooshing away as though on a steep bobsled trough.
No disrespect meant ... but I just noticed a new Huntalker handle "PizzaKittensGalaxyForce" from a Bozemanite. For a second I thought I had been beamed up to an arcade gamer forum.

 

[muleybowhunter]

Thank you all for the thoughts.

Dan

 

[noharleyyet]

Welcome errabody...

 

[FamilyMan]

No disrespect meant ... but I just noticed a new Huntalker handle "PizzaKittensGalaxyForce" from a Bozemanite. For a second I thought I had been beamed up to an arcade gamer forum.

Actually, from the content of their posts, I think PizzaKittensGalaxyForce is one of Randy's staff.

 

[Straight Arrow]

Actually, from the content of their posts, I think PizzaKittensGalaxyForce is one of Randy's staff.

Oh, Oh!

 

[OntarioHunter]

Sometimes when this subject comes up I feel like an old buffalo hunter screaming against the winds of change a hundred years ago. It was a marvelous place and time to grow up in 1950-60s Montana. A shame we couldn't keep it the way it was.

 

[mtmuley]

99% of the people who currently harp on Montana being such a great place to live are the ones who are ruining that great place at a supersonic pace: contractors and real estate developers. And most of them haven't lived there very long or don't live there year round. They either don't know what they're wrecking ... or don't care. It's all about making enough money to move on and ruin someplace else once they've made their current crime scene unliveable. It really is heartbreaking. I mean that literally.

Have any proof of this? mtmuley

 

[BucksnDucks]

Sometimes when this subject comes up I feel like an old buffalo screaming against the winds of change a hundred years ago. It was a marvelous place and time to grow up in 1950-60s Montana. A shame we couldn't keep it the way it was.

The list of marvelous and affordable places to grow up in the 1950-60s is fairly extensive. I'm a little surprised it didn't happen much earlier

 

[Deleted member 16014]

This is @Nameless Range's queue to write something thoughtful that somehow molds everyone's lost and broken dreams into a glimmer of positivity and hope for both this new resident and the heartless synics alike. You have the gift; I say it lightheartedly, but it's true.

 

[Nameless Range]

This is @Nameless Range's queue to write something thoughtful that somehow molds everyone's lost and broken dreams into a glimmer of positivity and hope for both this new resident and the heartless synics alike. You have the gift; I say it lightheartedly, but it's true.

That’s a nice thing to say.

Sometimes I feel flowery and can say something meaningful and sometimes, like this afternoon, I come home and find out my seven-year-old son got to the leftover pizza in the fridge before me and dammit I’m peeved.

I don’t have any information for you that would help with boarding your horses. But as you know @muleybowhunter, and others have said, many of the passions folks are looking for when they come to Montana have been extirpated from the Gallatin Valley, never to return, and are endangered in many others. A powerful case can be made that in the long run, the chunk of earth we call Montana is doomed. That said, earlier today when I found out there was no pizza for me I drove 15 minutes up the road and shot a limit of blues with my dog in less than an hour, and so for now Montana is still a place where one can forget the previous sentence.

Happy hunting this fall and welcome to Montana.