A LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY LADIES
Spanning the generations, women have planted themselves here among the cactus and pine. They’ve forged unconventional paths west — hunting and harvesting stories worth remembering. Today, they are still heeding the call of their heritage, bravely shedding all that is frivolous as they head deeper into the backcountry. They pursue that which will outlive them, in faithful stewardship of the tender shoots of conservation.
This league of extraordinary women have been tested and tried in the high lonesome; blooming amidst the rugged terrain with tenacity and grace that has changed the landscape on which they reside. They are too many to name — those women who have led the way — but each month we aim to share their stories. These are Women of the West.
BRIDGET NOONAN
IDAHO
Bridget Noonan, a self-proclaimed city girl from Chicago, spent her summers traveling west to small mountain towns in search of rivers to fly fish and trails to bike. Year after year, the West beckoned her, but it wasn’t until she and her fiancé traveled to Sun Valley, Idaho that the West finally won them over.
“Sitting at the airport, it was the first time that both of us thought, ‘We don’t want to go home,’” Bridget reminisced. “A year from that day, we ended up moving out here.” Bridget now lives in the mountains of Ketchum, Idaho, working as the marketing director for First Lite. Within a few minutes of the office, she can be in the middle of nowhere.
“There’s a special thing that you only find in the West. There’s certainly a vibe to it, that wild attraction to just getting out there, having the space and seeing things that you can’t in a city,” she
