Montana Swan Song

You meet the nicest people in ski resorts. I'm at Big Mountain, in way northwest Montana near Glacier National Park. This morning I latched on to Cindy and Len Kobylenski, a delightful pair of locals, who gave me a daylong tour of the slopes. Turns out they are real estate agents in the Swan River Valley, about 1 1/2 hours from here. They tell me their area is not just gorgeous but affordable -- one of the few almost-undiscovered pieces of paradise in the state called "the last best place." But you'd better hot-foot it to Condon (their town) soon; they say second-home buyers are snapping up property faster than a bear snatches food left at a campsite.