Montana Field Trip: The Power of Stepping Outside From Executive Life.

There's something that happens to you about an hour into a ride across open country that no amount of meditation apps or long weekends can replicate. The sky gets very big. Your problems get very small. And the woman riding next to you — who you barely knew forty-eight hours ago — is suddenly telling you the thing she's been unable to say out loud for months.

That was the inaugural Wild Duchess field trip to Montana. Three executive women, 35,000 acres of homesteaded ranch land, thunderstorms over the Crazy Mountains, and more honest conversation than I'd had in the previous six months combined.

How it started

I won't pretend it was a carefully planned operation. I had just left my CCO role at the end of May with a burning desire to be on horseback somewhere vast, and a half-formed idea that other women might want to come. So I posted on Instagram. Within twenty-four hours, two women had confirmed. Within thirty-six, they'd sent me their flight details.

The only available dates were five weeks out — not ideal timing with summer holidays approaching. But that's how Wild Duchess works. Not polished, not overproduced. Just the right people, the right place, and enough lead time to get there.

We caught the same flight out of LAX, talked about horses the entire way, and were met at Bozeman airport by my friend Pam — a retired wrangler who spends her summers doing exactly what she wants, which is riding and living well in Montana. The drive to Bonanza Creek Ranch is two hours from Bozeman, and it does most of the work of deprogramming you from city life before you've even arrived.

Lightning storm over the Crazy Mountains, Montana

The ranch

Bonanza Creek sits on 35,000 acres of pristine ranch land, about two hours from Bozeman airport. It's run by fifth-generation homesteaders who are perfectly welcoming. I pestered everyone with history questions about the old cabins scattered across the property on my previous visit, and they haven't held it against me!

The moment you step out of the car, the air is different. Cleaner. Cooler even in July. The Crazy Mountains frame everything. And the collective exhale from a group of women who have been sitting in offices and on Zoom calls for months is almost audible.

Riding through homestead history

We spent our days on horseback across terrain that looks the way the American West is supposed to look — streams, forests, long stretches of open pasture, and the kind of silence that doesn't feel empty. We rode past dilapidated cabins from the turn of the last century and up to my favourite spot on the property: a long-abandoned two-storey homestead house that sits unreachably distant from everything else. I've been dreaming of renovating it since I first saw it two summers ago, which says everything about me and my decision-making process.

Between the silences, the conversations happened naturally. Career crossroads. What we're building next. The specific loneliness of being senior enough that there aren't many people you can say the uncomfortable thing to. The afternoon thunderstorms would roll in across the Crazy Mountains — you could stay up all night watching them move across the Crazy Mountains, the sky so vast and unobstructed that you could follow their entire path.

Pulling up to my dream abandoned homestead house, Montana.

Equine Gestalt therapy with June Voldseth

The main reason I chose Bonanza Creek above any other ranch in Montana is June Voldseth, the ranch's owner and equine gestalt therapist and the reason I came back the year before as a complete stranger with a lot of questions and some unresolved grief.

June is a graduate of the Touched By a Horse programme — a comprehensive two-year equine coaching certification. Gestalt therapy focuses on present-moment awareness, helping you notice what you're actually feeling rather than what you think you should be feeling. In an arena with horses, that process becomes visceral in a way that's difficult to explain until you've experienced it. The horses respond to your emotional state before you've consciously registered it yourself.

I didn't want to do a session the first time I visited. I'm private about that kind of thing outside a therapist's office, and the outdoors setting felt exposed. I did it anyway because June is the kind of person you trust on instinct. That session was the day I understood I couldn't keep living the way I was living.

Each session is private and entirely your own. What they share is a quality of honesty that the combination of landscape, horses, and June's guidance creates almost without effort. 

You can book directly with June at Bonanza Creek. She offers sessions on Zoom too, though without the horses.

The conversations that matter

Between us, we had decades of music industry experience — artist management, record labels, A&R, live touring. Most of us were at a point of transition: consulting, building something new, figuring out what the next chapter looks like after a career spent entirely inside someone else's structure.

Over home-cooked dinners at the long table, around the fire pit at night, and on horseback through the pastures, we offered each other what we couldn't easily get anywhere else: direct feedback from people with comparable experience who had nothing to gain from telling you what you wanted to hear.

One artist manager put questions to me over dinner that I'd been carefully avoiding asking myself. It was uncomfortable in the way that useful things often are. I left with more clarity about my next steps than I'd had in months.

That, more than anything else, is what Wild Duchess is for.

Sharing Insights and Journeys

Sharing our personal insights and journeys became a cornerstone of the retreat experience. Each woman's story contributed to a tapestry of wisdom and heart from which we all gained. On horseback, by the fire pit, or over dinner, we filled each other with encouragement and suggestions. In my case, I was presented with pivotal questions I'd been avoiding asking myself when one artist manager's brain kicked into gear as she questioned me on my sticking points and goals. It was so supportive, and dare I say, even beautiful?

For those seeking similar experiences in nature with other women, Wild Roots Collective offers a range of women's retreats that combine outdoor adventure with women's circles. I’ve not been to a Wild Roots retreat yet, but it looks pretty interesting and worth checking out.

As our Montana adventure drew to a close, we left the ranch with new friendships and rekindled old ones, expanded networks both in and beyond our careers, and found the clarity needed to return to our lives with renewed passion and purpose. By the time we left the ranch, each of us had clarity on our next steps and had already moved something pivotal forward toward our goals. The conversations (and some tears) shared among us, with shared decades in our industry and a sense of adventure and curiosity, proved profoundly valuable; something I personally found overwhelming and heartfelt to be a part of.

For me, the retreat reinforced my passion for creating spaces where women can connect, grow, and support each other. It solidified my commitment to organizing more Wild Duchess field trips in the future, not just so I can share beautiful spaces with interesting women, but mostly selfish reasons, because I personally gather so much from these intimate circles.

If traveling further afield for a women’s retreat isn’t on the cards for you just yet, HikerKind is another excellent resource for outdoorsy women seeking community in various locations.

Feral executive women on horseback in Montana

What we came back with

Not a certificate. Not a summary document. Not a set of key takeaways.

New friendships. Rekindled old ones. Expanded networks that crossed outside the industry most of us had been embedded in for years. A renewed commitment to being outside more — not as a lifestyle aspiration, but as an actual practice.

And the specific kind of reset that only happens when you've been somewhere extraordinary with a small group of interesting women who showed up with honesty and without an agenda.

Montana returns in 2026

We're taking women back to Montana in summer 2026, and to Exmoor in Somerset, UK in spring 2026. Both are small groups. Both will fill quickly.

If you want to be among the first to hear about dates and spots:join the Wild Duchess mailing list. We announce there first, always.

🌿 For more from the moors, the mountains, and the occasional dispatch from a watermill in Somerset — I writeMoors & Mountains on Substack.