Robinson Crusoe was thunderstruck to come upon the footprints of another human being. We were not amazed, but amused, to find these Budweiser flip-flops abandoned near the remains of a fire on the nearby island.
Shortly after we arrived at our cabin on the Yellowstone River outside Park City on Saturday afternoon, my wife and I went for a short walk.
Lisa and I strolled along the riverbank and then poked around an upstream island reached by a narrow, dry channel before heading back to the cabin. On the point of the island, I laid myself down on the warm sand and listened to the wind spilling through the towering cottonwood trees.
That might have been the best moment of the day — just lying there looking up at the green and yellow cottonwood leaves shimmering in the wind, while across the river even stronger winds swept a thick carpet of grass atop the sandstone bluffs, making the grass look like a sheet of pale yellow flame.
The next morning — we awoke to see a cow moose in the meadow not 50 feet from our picture window — it occurred to me that for all the time I’ve spent on the Yellowstone River over the years, I had almost always been in transit.
I had been either rowing down the river or biking or walking along its banks. There had been plenty of opportunities to stop and enjoy the scenery, but I had never lingered for more than an hour or two in one spot.
And what a spot where we spent most of Saturday and Sunday morning!
Ed Kemmick/Last Best News
The three cabins at Yellowstone River Lodge. We stayed in the one at left.
The cabin we stayed in is part of the Yellowstone River Lodge, which also has a bed-and-breakfast in the main house, located 8½ miles west of Park City off the frontage road. We had first seen the lodge’s three cabins from the river about a month earlier, during an all-day float from Columbus to Buffalo Mirage, a little upstream of Laurel.
I thought I remembered reading something about cabins for rent on that stretch of river, and when we got home and confirmed that I had, we decided we had to try the place ourselves.
By the time I called and spoke with Jan Sayer, who owns the business with her husband, Dan, the earliest date we could reserve a cabin was this past weekend. We fretted a bit, given the wildly variable weather we’ve had this fall, but we couldn’t have asked for a finer day.
It was cloudy in the morning, but by the time we arrived early Saturday afternoon we had blue skies, scattered clouds and temperatures in the low 70s. Fairly strong winds blew in for most of the afternoon, but we didn’t mind.
We stayed in one of the long, rectangular cabins that were designed by the Sayers’ son and daughter-in-law, Josh and Coral Sayer, both of them architects in Billings. The 450-square-foot cabins look a bit like repurposed shipping containers, with lots of windows and set up on 3-foot concrete piers. Those are for times of high water, but they also make the viewing even better.
Ed Kemmick/Last Best News
Dan and Jan Sayer on the second floor of their house, which doubles as a B&B.
Jan said she was initially offended when one visitor mentioned that the cabins looked like chicken coops. But when Jan relayed the comment to Josh, he didn’t mind a bit. The cabins were meant to mimic rural buildings and blend in with the surroundings, he said, so a chicken coop was fine.
A newer, 650-square-foot cabin was recently added and is fully accessible to people with disabilities. All three cabins are about 100 yards from the river, and directly across the river is huge sandstone bluff with sheer cliffs. It sits right on the edge of a sharp bend in the river, with hills behind it stretching off into the distance.
Standing on the riverbank, looking up and down the Yellowstone, about the only sign of civilization you can see is an old iron bridge leading to a downstream island. If there is a prettier spot on the whole Yellowstone River, this must be a close second.
The Sayers think so, too. They’re Montana natives who spent many years in Billings running Sayer Paint. They always wanted to build a house somewhere on the river between Park City and Columbus, and when they finally found some property it happened to be almost exactly in the middle.
And it wasn’t until they bought the land that Dan discovered that his great-grandfather, John J. Walk, a very early pioneer in the valley, had run cattle not far from where they ended up.
They built their five-bedroom house themselves, putting a bathroom next to each room. Dan thought that when he retired he might want to do some guiding on the river.
But after three neck surgeries, he decided to get out of the construction business early, so in 2006 they went into the lodging business full time, adding the cabins later on. Business has been so good that they’re building a four-plex near the cabins. They own more than 70 acres, and with public access to the upstream island, visitors can stroll up and down about a mile of riverbank.
Jan said they’ve had visitors from all over the world, and she estimated that 90 percent of the people who stay there are going to or coming from Yellowstone National Park.
“My friends thought I was nuts building cabins here,” Dan said, but not anymore.
“Even my own family was amazed at how secluded it was,” he said.
Ed Kemmick/Last Best News
Cabin windows reflect images of cottonwoods at sunset.
It is hard to believe, sitting on the deck of our cabin, looking out at that beautiful stretch of river, that you’re just half an hour from Billings. You can sometimes hear trucks on the interstate and the rumble of passing trains, and when trains blow their horns it can be jarring.
But welcome to the Yellowstone River, which parallels the highway and the railroad for most of its length. Those distractions did little to detract from the quiet beauty of the place, and as afternoon lengthened into evening the most common sound we heard was the chattering of countless birds.
The cabins are equipped with microwave ovens, coffeemakers and refrigerators, but we took the short drive to Laurel for dinner. We’d been meaning to visit Café Mabel’s for a long time, especially after reading Scott McMillion’s article about it in the most recent issue of Montana Quarterly. (Not available online; you’d better get out and buy a copy.)
The Mexican restaurant lived up to its rave reviews. And because Mabel’s doesn’t have a beer-and-wine license, we stopped in at the Beartooth Grill for pre-dinner drinks. From the looks of it, Laurel residents are loving one of their newest restaurants. It was packed the whole time we were there.
Ed Kemmick/Last Best News
An interior view of the larger, newer cabin.
Back at the cabin, we had a fine, quiet evening. There’s no Wi-Fi, which is probably a good thing, and we promised each other that we wouldn’t look at our phones while we were there, and we didn’t.
We got up early to find the aforementioned moose out in front of our cabin, and I went for a walk along the river just as the sun was prying an opening in the clouds over the hills to the southeast. We made a simple breakfast of a baguette, huckleberry jam and Gruyere cheese, then spent the morning reading on the deck and walking some more by the river.
At one point, I was actually oppressed by the thought that it was somehow unfair, or absurd, that I had spent so little of my life enjoying something as beautiful and so near as that stretch of river.
But it was too gorgeous for regrets. And there’s always next time.
Details: Our cabin was $145 for one night. The B&B costs a little less and the larger cabin a little more. You can visit the Yellowstone River Lodge website for more information.
