Bob Marshall Wilderness & Rocky Mountain Front
When defining quadrants of a state, Montana’s southwest visitor’s region extends beyond the usual geographic bounds. Lewis and Clark and Powell counties, both in this visitation area, reach well into the Bob Marshall complex, into what would usually be referred to as northwest Montana.
At least 50% or more of these wildlands, called Bob Marshall Country consisting of 1.6 million acres of federally designated wilderness, the Bob Marshall, Scapegoat and Great Bear and more than 1million acres of public lands managed as wilderness - are our part of a national treasure and this tourism province.
Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front is included in this geography. Here the northern Great Plains surge toward the sunset is halted by the immediate rise of the Northern Rockies. Augusta, a colorful ranching town often called the gateway to the Bob, and the Sun River, within the shadow of these towering reefs and mountains, are claimed by Southwest Montana.
Two iconic limestone massifs, the Chinese Wall and Scapegoat Mountain are part of this gathering of historic and famed topography. Headwaters of the North and South Forks of Sun River, the Dearborn, North Fork of the Blackfoot, Monture Creek and the Danaher are born here. And this far-reaching piece of Southwest Montana carries about 180 miles of the Continental Divide Trail.
