2018 Montana Summer Yoga Retreats

Raise your hand if you have ever dreamed about enjoying a yoga retreat right here in Montana! A yoga retreat is a wonderful way to deepen your practice and experience the natural beauty of Montana. Take some time out of your busy summer this year and enjoy a few days of rest and relaxation. With excellent and experienced teachers guiding your practice, wonderful meals and stunning outdoor adventures, these retreats will help you clear your mind and open your heart. Here are my top 3 retreat picks:

Big Sky Bhakti Bliss: June 16th-22nd

Are you ready for a transformative and inspiring yoga retreat deep in the Rocky Mountains? A chance to mindfully unplug and reconnect with what is truly important - opening the heart and calming the mind? For six nights and seven days - relax, de-stress and give yourself the gift of this all-inclusive yoga retreat. Treat yourself to a week of self-care, tranquility and time to reflect. One breath of Montana mountain air will awaken something deep, a reminder of our connection to this precious earth.

Retreat Leader- Nat Kendall

San Francisco based yoga teacher & student, musician, surfer and lover of life; Montana native Nat Kendall gives reverence to the teachings he has received – helping students nurture their own creative expression and meaningful connection with life. A dedicated student for the last 10+ years, he teaches vinyasa infused with all other limbs of yoga and has studied extensively with Rusty Wells, Janet Stone & Jai Uttal. His devotion-filled classes are invigorating & simultaneously nurturing as he creates a space filled with focus, kindness, laughter, chanting and great music to safely explore the deep benefits of practice.

Yoga and Yellowstone- September 13-16th

Yoga and Yellowstone is a 3-night women’s retreat in the heart of Montana’s Paradise Valley. Enjoy full-run of the B Bar, our own private 9,000-acre ranch and an extension of the Yellowstone National Park ecosystem. Spend your days practicing yoga and exploring the unique, exceptional beauty of one of the nation’s finest national parks. Stay in rustic-yet-luxurious A-frame cabins with private front porches that seem to beckon you to prop up your boots and enjoy the sights and sounds of Paradise Valley. Each double-occupancy cabin has a living room, ground-floor bedroom, loft bedroom, and a shared bath. Traveling alone? We’re happy to match you with a cabin-mate. After three square meals of gourmet delights, and all the down dogs and hiking you can handle, settle in for the evening with a dip in the hot tub, a glass of wine, great conversation, and a breathtaking canopy of stars overhead.

Retreat Leader- Margaret Burns Vap

Margaret is the founder of Big Sky Yoga Retreats and creator of Cowgirl Yoga™. Her relationship with yoga began more than a decade ago, when she began attending Jivamukti Yoga and took up the practice in an attempt to balance her hectic New York City lifestyle and corporate career with cosmetics giant L’Oréal. A few years and several hundred down dogs later, she traded in her designer duds for yoga pants – and moved to Washington DC to open her own studio. She combined her business background and passion for fitness to create Georgetown Yoga, which soon became one of DC’s most popular studios. She practiced at Jivamukti London, when her family relocated to the UK for six months, and studied Ashtanga Yoga under Richard Freeman, David Swenson, and Dave Oliver. Margaret also completed a 200-hour training program with renowned California/New York-based Yoga Works and traveled to Hawaii for Baron Baptiste’s Level 1 Teacher Training Bootcamp. Her belief that yoga can benefit anyone was part of what excited Margaret when her family relocated to Bozeman, Montana in early 2007. It wasn’t long before Margaret felt called to combine her love of yoga with her new-found love for Montana. Her fresh approach to teaching and natural gift for creating nurturing, safe spaces for people to practice yoga inspired the formation of Big Sky Yoga Retreats. With the help of her close-knit team, especially her first Head Wrangler Janice Cartwright from Montana Horse Sense, Margaret developed a one-of-a-kind retreat experience that welcomes women to enjoy calm, refreshing, and vigorous yoga with an unforgettable Montana backdrop.

Great Abiding Yoga Ranch Retreat- September 12-16th

Join Om On and Becky Eschenroeder as we retreat in stunning and wild Southwest Montana.  We will be staying at our own private luxury ranch property set on 5200 acres near the Madison River and nearby to both the quaint town of Bozeman and the wild beauty of Yellowstone National Park.  At Grey Cliffs Ranch you will be afforded incredible panoramic views of the Montana mountains and rolling hills, attentive service, gourmet cuisine prepared for us by our own private chef utilizing ingredients grown right on the farm and sourced locally, as well as, an unforgettable yoga retreat experience!

Retreat Leader- BECKY (TARA) ESCHENROEDER

In 2009, Tara received her 200-hour RYT under Arlene Bjork and Grace Yoga Training Systems. She continued to follow what she knew and trusted her path to be, and she obtained her 500-hour RYT through Om On Yoga under the guidance and wisdom of Jennifer Elliott. Traveling is Tara’s home, as she spends much of her time around the country holding workshops, retreats, and classes. She has also received additional teaching credentials with Project Yoga Richmond and YoKid Stretch Your Limits, as well as serving as a proud Ambassador for Lululemon Athletica. Yet, so much of her teaching is done off of the yoga mat. Tara openly and outwardly lives the teachings she has been inspired to share. Just as she would encourage a student falling out of a pose to take themselves lightly, she does the same as she navigates through challenges. And just as she would encourage a student to trust themselves as they spread their wings into something new on the mat, she is a living example of trusting what she knew was her calling as she spread her own wings. She approaches life with that same love that she used to approach that initial flame, and she encourages each person with whom is comes in contact to do the same. And by doing so, she is living out her truth and her drishti of being a vessel of blessing.