Let’s face it, if you’re looking for the quintessential cabin experience, just go to Montana. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, just put the pedal down in the state with no speed limits, and live your Western dream.

Newly built log cabins may promise some of the modern luxuries we like, but cabins with a history promise the stories and patinas of simpler lives from the past. Simpler, yet certainly not easier. Lone Mountain Ranch, just outside of Big Sky, is home to a host of such cabins. The ranch celebrates its 100th birthday this year, and the history is rich.

As confirmed by the National Registry of Historic Places, Lone Mountain Ranch is as authentic as they come. It was founded as a working cattle ranch from 1915-1926, after which it was sold to a wealthy family who built many of the still-standing structures as a private vacation homestead. The property then operated as a dude ranch, a ministry camp for boys, a basecamp for both a logging operation, and the development of Big Sky ski area, and finally, a guest ranch.

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Sometimes, finding the real alternative to your fantasy cabin means renting, instead of building it homesteader style. If you must rent, it’s not so bad to be within a few hundred yards of five-star food, 80 kilometers of nordic trails, world class fishing, and a gurgling stream as your noisiest neighbor.

Photos courtesy Lone Mountain Ranch

Weekend Cabin isn’t necessarily about the weekend, or cabins. It’s about the longing for a sense of place, for shelter set in a landscape…for something that speaks to refuge and distance from the everyday. Nostalgic and wistful, it’s about how people create structure in ways to consider the earth and sky and their place in them. It’s not concerned with ownership or real estate, but what people build to fulfill their dreams of escape. The very time-shortened notion of “weekend” reminds that it’s a temporary respite.