Our human civilization often seems far and disconnected from the natural world. Many of us now live in cities and get our food from the grocery store, not the land itself. Our water comes from the faucet, not the creek. We have come a long way in creating our new “human” ecosystem, and often forget

On a gusty day in Half Moon Basin, a meadow surrounded by towering mountains where we were camping, I participated in my favorite school assignment of all time. Every student had the opportunity to pick a plant to observe, sketch, read about in a nature guide, and make a creative piece about it. I had

Last September, we were all beginning our first full semesters of online school. Lab reports, essays, and even exams would be completed from our couches, kitchen tables, and bedrooms. We would tread the same path from bedroom to bathroom to kitchen and back again. If the weather was nice, perhaps we would venture to our

Tromping through a tangle of bushes and grasses, I listen for a trickling sound. I know there must be a small waterfall nearby. We’re in Halfmoon Park – a massive, halfmoon shaped wall stands at the top of a valley. It’s our destination on our backpack and today we have a layover day. When I

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 expected it. I woke up on a flat mat on the third day of an eight-day hike, and because of my lack of preparation, I

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 identical trees across the hillsides. Their haggard branches reach weakly into the air before sloping downward into submission. They unsettle me with their lifeless stature,

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, and I just met my classmates for the next nine weeks. Giddy yet apprehensive about what was to come, I sat on a rock beside

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 a great amount of discomfort from the past four days of backpacking, and the fact that it is 6:00am doesn’t do much to relieve that.

From Missoula to the Rocky Mountain Front, we’ve read and met with Montanans about what’s valued in an inclusive, working landscape. As our readings and guest speakers have so far indicated, defining the ‘Original West’ is tricky, if not counter-productive. But a question lingers in many of our class discussions and peeks its head around

Throughout the second section of the Montana Afoot and Afloat course, I have been able to apply knowledge from the first section to understand this landscape more precisely. Being in Montana, first in the Scapegoat Wilderness, and now floating down the Missouri River, I have realized how small I am, but how enormous my actions