Bar W Guest Ranch — Hotel in Whitefish

This review is for the week long Bar W Guest Ranch, not their trail rides. ||Brought 10 family members ranging in ages from 68- 2 years old for one week. Perfect vacation for all if you’re looking for an active, high quality, comfortable-without-being-fussy Dude Ranch.||Riding: It’s why you would choose Bar W. Outstanding equine program with over 100 well cared for horses and an amazing group of wranglers offering trail rides, penning, etc.. You pick what percentage of time you’d like to be on horses: 50%,75% or 100%. ||Children’s program: Superb childcare arrangements giving parents freedom to ride while kids program (kids on horses at age 2!!!) is safe, creative, and teaches the kids excellent horse safety, even painting the ponies! Amazing kiddo rodeo at the end of the week when the kids can show off the skills they’ve learned. Wrangler John emceeing is the highlight! . ||Activities: In addition to the broad range of horseback riding opportunities, there are numerous other activities on the property including SUP/kayaking and swimming on the lake, trap shooting, archery, axe throwing, roping, fly fishing, wagon rides, visiting with the goats and other animals. The central lawn is a great place for the kids to run around with lots of games and bikes and scooters. Offsite entertainment included trip to Whitefish, super fun rodeo in Columbia Falls (with option to stay late for dancing at the Blue Moon), hiking Lion mountain trail, or (for an additional fee) white water rafting. We chose to hire an outside naturalist from Glacier Educational Institute for a 9 hour day trip instead. In hindsight, I would do that as an add-on day so as to not miss one of the great days at Bar W. Fun evening activities as well with all inclusive alcoholic beverages, including a whiskey tasting, trivia night, line dancing, live entertainment hootenanny, and the coolest birds of prey exhibition. Lots of interaction between guests. A very friendly atmosphere. Staff provides schedule for you -be sure to mention if there are specific activities you’d like to do. ||Dining: Wake up in the morning to a campfire with insane cowboy coffee. The bell rings when the meals are ready, which are frequent and plentiful! Lots of bacon and beef ;) the pork tips were a highlight and the huckleberry smash! Oh, and the prime rib! And Mexican day. And, and, and!!! Surprisingly good food with lots of variation— from salad bar to desserts at every meal. Chef accommodates dietary restrictions. Super casual eating environment so you don’t have to worry about the kids running a muck. In addition to three meals a day, the dining hall is stocked with simple snacks for mid meal foraging. ||Accommodations: Toss up as to what’s best!! Family members loved staying in the covered wagons, the glamping tents and the cabin. All were very comfortable. We did not experience the rooms in the lodge. There is a hot tub outside the lodge, but we never got a chance to use it cause there was just so much other fun stuff to do! There is a pool table in the lodge, along with some awesome taxidermy for fun photo ops. Oh, and self serve laundry facility. ||Staff: This is more of a family camp than a resort. From your very first interaction with the marketing rep (the amazing Beth), the attention to detail, patience, and just downright kindness of every staff member is overwhelming. ||Overall: I researched scores of ranches and Bar W ticked every box. Super close to airport (20 minutes Kalispell), super close to Glacier National Park (40 minutes to West entrance). The only ranch I could find with such an impressive children’s program and an on-property lake. The secret sauce is the staff. ...

A world class dude ranch !||The Bar W Ranch is located in beautiful Whitefish, Montana. In this special region of “big sky country” it is possible to experience the very best of riding adventures.||The Bar W Ranch embraces a set of important and powerful core values. Everyone is dedicated to creating a positive environment where guests and staff have fun, laugh and provide support for each other. This is a ranch where people get to make new and meaningful connections. Staff and guests share common and unique experiences and quickly form new friendships. Everyone at the ranch is committed to “doing what we say!” From our first moment we were greeted and made to feel very welcome and special! Personal conversations and text communications from the staff encouraged us to participate in special events and to feel more than free to let the staff know if we had any questions or requests.||The facilities of the Bar W Ranch are of really high quality! The staff are taking great care of everything and everyone. The ranch is located in a wonderful lakeside valley surrounded by the mountains. Guests are able to walk or hike to fishing ponds, canoe the lake and ride to high vistas.||The first morning orientation in the large main arena was purposeful, fun and effective. The ranch and wranglers ensure that there is a great match and bond formed between rider and horse(s). We enjoyed riding our favorite horse and also riding different horses! All the horses are responsive, well trained and eager to work and do their job! The best compliment that can be given to the wranglers of the Bar W is the claims made by every guest that she or he was riding “the best horse” on the ranch! Everyone gets to ride a BEST horse!!!!||We enjoyed the opportunity to work as a team with new friends in our efforts to sort cattle and have a friendly competition of team penning! The all-day cattle drive on an amazing ranch near Grave Creek was an exceptionally enjoyable experience! Several of the all-day trail rides allowed us to explore forest trails, cross streams and rivers and travel through tall grass pastures! If you want to ride, a lot, at the ranch book the Swisher package! It is perfect for guests who love to ride great horses!||There are also lots of activities for everyone to enjoy before or after riding the horses. The ranch provides a wonderful opportunity to attend an evening rodeo and watch very young and very experienced older rodeo cowboys and cowgirls compete in all of the rodeo events!||The chef and dining staff provided us with great breakfasts, lunches [including packed lunches for trail rides] and dinners [including a great BBQ]. Gatherings at the firepit and activities near the lodge provided lots of reasons to laugh and smile1||Cowboy coffee at the firepit was a great way to start every morning! An evening branding party is also held and allows guests to have a favorite belt, hat, chaps or other item personalized with the Bar W Ranch brand! Smores and favorite beverages make the evening a fun gathering!||Everyone at the ranch made us feel special and very welcome to enjoy our week at the Bar W Ranch. They live by the core values and “do what they say!” The Bar W Ranch is a great world-class dude ranch located in one of the best regions of northwest Montana!||Everyday provided the opportunity to create special memories. We were very happy with all of our experiences at the Bar W Ranch!!!! Thanks to Beth, Paul and the entire Bar W Ranch family and team! ...

Just got back and don't know if I have enough room here to rave about how wonderful this place was. I would even say it was close to perfect! We shopped for months for a dude ranch and ultimately picked Bar W which I do not regret. So much so, that I would never look elsewhere. What made this week so wonderful was the amazing staff. They are truly like a big, extended family that gets along, works together and help each other out. They truly love their jobs (they would tell us daily), and would tell us how wonderful they are treated. Every single employee (kitchen, maintenance, housekeeping, wranglers, guest relations) was friendly, happy, extremely knowledgeable, extremely hardworking and team players. Every single thing, meals and all activities, went off without a hitch and were always on time. This place runs like a well-oiled machine. Every guest is set up with texting so, upon arrival at the airport, all we had to do was text and our shuttle arrived. Our room was perfect, clean, and quiet. The lodge was beautiful and we had pretty much the whole house to ourselves, along with a couple of other guests in other rooms. The lodge had plenty of places to lounge on couches in the sunshine. It also had a laundry room, kitchen, hot tub and pool table. The meals were delicious with plenty (too much) of food and choices and they made an extra effort to accommodate any special diet requirements. The schedule kept us very busy which was great. We wanted the full experience and wanted to do and try everything. We were in the saddle 4hrs every day which was great with me but you always had a choice to not do any activity if you didn't want to. Our package included the usual orientation, a lesson if we wanted, 2 all day trail rides, a team penning day, and a cattle drive day. We also got a wagon ride, skeet shooting, archery and hatchet throwing. I was the happiest ever, couldn't stop smiling and never wanted it to end. I seriously wanted to stay and work there. Every single wrangler was amazing. Everyone was so polite and they were so knowledgeable and willing to share their knowledge. The list of amazing employees include Lillie, Rodly, Jose, Rey, Sydni, Joe, Maddie, Ang, John, Quintin, Jami, Fred and every single kitchen, maintenance and housekeeping member. When we reported the hot tub was off, it was fixed that day. And housekeeping regularly checked in with us on whether we needed anything. The daily texts kept us posted about all activities and whether anything had changed, such us weather affecting moving the activity inside. We also had a cookout, line dancing, whiskey tasting, and a birds of prey presentation. I didn't have a single complaint and really don't know how it could have been more perfect. Like I said, the staff was amazing so they are definitely doing something right! I hope this staff is there forever. I totally want to go back, sooner than later. I only wish I could afford to live there. If I can, I plan on returning as often as possible. Thank you Bar W for making my lifetime dream come true!...