Lexie Pickett: You should waste your money on a patch kit
My sleeping pad popped on the sixth day of the semester. Gear failure was my worst fear for the course, and it came true at a time when I least
Redefining Action: Lessons from People and Place by Sarah Boatner
My favorite poet, Naomi Shihab Nye, says that our lives are poems. Every memory, each conversation, and all the places you exist within are contributions to the narrative that encapsulates
Jessica Bedtka: Creating Change through Relationships
When I signed up for the Montana Afoot and Afloat course last winter, I wasn’t sure exactly what I was getting myself into, but two months of backpacking and kayaking
Clarissa Sprague: The Weird Farmers
The wind swept in as we opened the van door to rolling hills of Montana farm land. Round bales speckled the landscape, still fresh and intact just after summertime hay
Annie Ireland: Embracing vs Conquering
The wind was blowing, the freezing rain felt like continuous stings against my cheeks, my feet had gone numb over an hour ago. So numb now, that they felt as
Karlyn Roberts: Experiencing a Winter Wonderland–In September
The plan was made. No more than four miles and we would be that much closer to the views from the top of Great House Peak. Today was the day.
Jesse Stenske: Disturbance is Life
At first glance, these toothpick forests of the Scapegoat Wilderness in Montana want to invade me with fear and loneliness and hang me out to dry in the sun under
Diane Klement: Professor Garter Snake and Bitterroot
Silence. Lichen spreads between my fingertips like spider webs as the callousness of rock scratches against my hands. It is the first day of WRFI’s Montana Afoot and Afloat course,
Joe Gallucci: Miniscule and Mighty
With frozen toes and tired eyes I tread up the hill that rises high above our camp at Halfmoon Park in the Scapegoat Wilderness of Montana. My body is in
August Schield: The Hypocritical Oath
I am a hypocrite. I preach conservation of lands, understand the importance of biodiversity, believe in climate change, and spent my precious free time recreating in wilderness and national forest,