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Blessed Unrest

Change, it is often said, is the only constant. And what a changing world this is! Our nearly month long adventure has come to a close. Leaving Glacier National Park, Dave whisked us away in a passenger van to Missoula. This three hour journey, if completed on bicycles, would have taken three days. What a strange feeling it was to be surrounded by glass and steel again! The direction of the wind no longer mattered. Horses no longer watched us. Isolated, in our own bubble, the world flashed by.

A Brave New World

After one of our best rides of the course, we woke up today to another great day. Today we discussed the fate of the park and explored the many climatic changes already underway here. Collectively we asked the million dollar question: what will this park and its inhabitants look like in a warmer climate?

Sacred Grounds

The science supporting climate change is just about as conclusive as science can get. Look at any climate advocacy website and you can find all the numbers, statistics, and models you could ever need to convince you that climate change is happening. Because there is so much overlap between the scientific community and the climate change activism community, and because there is so much evidence, “Just look at the data” has been the central message of the movement to stop climate change.

Spaceship Earth

Having a certain topic on one’s mind every waking minute of every day for twenty days straight can get a little tiresome. Even if said topic is of great importance and has the potential to change humankind’s existence as we know it, it’s easy to feel apathetic. It’s like saying a word repeatedly until it no longer has any meaning. (Spoon, spoon, spoon, spoo… what? Exactly..) That’s how I was beginning to feel about the topic of climate change. Over the past week we’ve talked causes, impacts, solutions, policy, ethics and every other angle of the issue until I began to gloss over.

The Dinosaur in the Room

There is a dinosaur in the room- both literally and figuratively. As for the actual dinosaur, today we rode from Choteau to Dupuyer, stopping in the town of Bynum along the way. The town of Bynum is home to the Two Medicine Dinosaur Museum and its founder, Dr. David Trexler. The meeting began innocently enough; Dave explained the field of paleontology and what it means to think on time scales that span millions of years.

Healthy Habitats

Wildlife and humans share the same space; we eat, sleep and breathe from the same earth systems. At what point do we care about the conditions of these life giving ecosystem services?

Opening the tent this morning to the peaceful surroundings at Freezeout Lake, a wildlife area nestled in an agricultural valley, we saw the resilience of life in the face of poor habitat. Like the birds and muskrats of the lake, we too are somewhat satisfied and able to live in non optimal conditions. We have a hope that someday our habitat will return to the favorable conditions of our ancestors. Yet how long will we ignore the potentially catastrophic implications of climate change before banding together to improve our own lands?

Trials and Tribulations

It doesn’t get much better than waking up on the beautiful Missouri River, with just a little dew on the ground and the sound of fish jumping out of the water. We also found ourselves right in the center of a one hundred person bike race. Naturally, the Missoulians all knew each other and it was great to be inspired by these riders before we ventured off on our 58 mile tour de hills. We faced our most difficult set of hills thus far, but everyone stayed tough and powered through them with relative ease; these miles must be paying off!

A Political World

Go ahead and picture your stereotypical government bureaucrat. Got it? Okay, well that
guy’s not at all like Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) Director Richard Opper. That much became clear as soon as he pulled up on his scooter to the Helena Public Library to meet with us, sporting a purple shirt and purple tie. But it was straight down to business: he wanted to tell stories.

A Red Death

This morning we woke up in Matt and Elizabeth Erickson's backyard in Helena, Montana. They prepared a hearty breakfast for us, with eggs, toast, biscuits & honey - and a huge pot of coffee. Their backyard was by far the softest ground we've slept on to date. After the long ride we had the day before it was a pleasant treat.

We continued our day by cycling to a hiking trail at the edge of town, where we met a Forest Service forest ecologist to discuss a hot issue: western forests are dying off at an extraordinary rate. In Montana, forest die-off is occurring primarily from one particular pest: the mountain pine beetle.

Resilience

Resilience: to spring back or rebound. To recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.

No doubt about it - today was one of the most mentally and physically challenging days of my life. We cycled 60 miles from Townsend to Helena, the last ten miles of which were uphill, in the rain. Miles I wouldn’t have covered had it not been for the wide range of personalities, characteristics, and strengths the other members of our group offer, which gives us resilience.

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