Great Falls — Charlie Russell's Studio & the Falls of the Missouri

Three hours north of Bozeman, where the Rocky Mountain Front gives way to the high plains, the Missouri River tumbles over the great falls that stopped Lewis and Clark in their tracks for a month-long portage in 1805. The city that grew beside them became the home of Charles M. Russell, the self-taught 'cowboy artist' whose paintings and bronzes did more than any other to fix the image of the Old West in the American imagination. This two-day journey pairs Russell's world with the river's history. Day one explores the superb C.M. Russell Museum and the artist's own log studio, then follows the River's Edge Trail to the falls themselves. Day two dives into the Corps of Discovery at the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center and climbs the sacred cliffs of First Peoples Buffalo Jump before the long return south. It is art, exploration, and Indigenous history on the northern plains.