October 2024
Ken Walcheck
On a sandstone bluff just west of the town of Miles City, a gnarled Mountain Rocky Juniper patriarch stands firmly entrenched in the rocky soil. The juniper has been standing for more than three centuries. To the unperceptive eye, the juniper equates…
October 2024
Jessica Cairoli, photos by Lindsey Hove
Everyone knows it’s impossible not to fall in love with Montana; whether you’re just passing through or have called the beautiful state home for years, its stunning mountains, expansive skies, and friendly inhabitants are guaranteed to…
October 2024
Peter Brancaccio
Cold. The calendar said August, but up at the Specimen Creek Trailhead, 21 miles south of Big Sky, it felt more like late October. The heavy sweater I was pulling over my head at 6:45 a.m. was the fifth layer, and I was not entirely sure it…
September 2024
Fall is right around the corner, and our streams and lakes will cool off in time for some shoulder-season fishing. This time of year will be fitting for the Montana State University Library to showcase its 2024 Trout Lecture. This year’s…
September 2024
Steve McGann
Yellowstone Park forms a rectangle of land in northwest Wyoming. Mostly. The Congressional Act that set aside Yellowstone as a National park listed the boundaries in miles from certain landmarks, then stipulated the meridians thus encountered. The…
August 2024
Steve McGann
The story goes that on the approach to a Himalayan climb in the late 1970s, a couple of the American climbers decided that wearing their huge waffle-stomping boots made no sense. They made the long approach hike in sneakers. At that time, exercise…
August 2024
Sierra Holmes
The gray clouds have dispersed, the sun is hot, snow has melted, and you look up at the beautiful Bridger range framed by a blue sky. Summertime is amazing, and is made even better by being surrounded by the beautiful scenery we have here in Montana…
August 2024
Peter Brancaccio
I grew up in the shadow of NYC and, somehow, I’d never been to the Statue of Liberty. Some things we just take for granted I suppose. I’ve been passing the turn-off on 191 for the Deer Lake Trailhead for 10 years now. I’ve never…
July 2024
Sierra Holmes
Ultra-runner and author Donald Buraglio once said, “The benefits and opportunities of running are available to anyone. You don’t have to be born a natural athlete and you don’t have to be uniquely gifted. A life-shaping experience…
July 2024
Steve McGann
Driving to the end of the road and walking off into the mountains is a wonderful thing. I have been doing it for a long time. There is such a sense of freedom, and something else—a bit of daring, as if it might not be quite legal. I mean, there…
