Phil Knight

Phil is a wilderness explorer, guide, author and shameless agitator. He's lived in Bozeman with his wife since the 1980s, traveled to 7 continents, and seen some crazy stuff. 

Content By This Contributor:

The ICE is Calling

Phil Knight

As the sun slips lower with each passing day, we Montanans enter the Season of Ice. It starts as a thin skin on puddles and frost on the roof. You have to start scraping your windshield every morning.  Before long, the dropping temperature…

40 Years of Yellowstone

Phil Knight

When I first came to Yellowstone, the park was only 110 years old. Now it is 151. Of those 41 years, I worked in or visited Yellowstone during all but one of them.I arrived in the West by train in 1982, a total greenhorn, for my first summer of work…

The Wood Wide Web

Phil Knight

I grew up surrounded by trees. The Knight family home in Connecticut was tucked into a forest of oaks, white pine, maple beech and hickory. Our small yard was home to hundreds of trees, mostly black oak. The forest was filled with birds, squirrels…

Let’s Expand the Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness

Phil Knight

Wilderness areas everywhere are under pressure from climate change, air pollution, extinction, extreme wildfires, invasive species, motor vehicle trespassing, and heavy human use. Let’s set aside as much land as we can, while we can. In Montana and…

May Day! May Day!

Phil Knight

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What's Your Beef? Not So Quiet Riot

Phil Knight

Decades ago, when I first lived here, Bozeman was pretty quiet. I could sit in my yard and enjoy a peaceful evening. I could hear and feel the spirit of this Valley of the Flowers. Places do have a spirit – an essence if you will – built…

Just Go

Phil Knight

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Crazy About the Crazies

Phil Knight

Rising like ramparts from the high rolling plains of Central Montana, the Crazy Mountains are the highest and most rugged of Montana’s “island” mountain ranges. To the Crow people, they are known as Awaxaawapia Pia (Ominous…

What's Your Beef? Killer Impact

Phil Knight

In the 1997 movie thriller Asteroid, an extinction-level impact is predicted as an asteroid is aimed at Earth by a passing comet.  Three aircraft with lasers are scrambled and succeed in breaking up the asteroid though smaller fragments still…

Climbing Kilimanjaro at 60

Phil Knight

Even though I am a lifelong climber and mountaineer, before this year I’d never ventured higher than Mount Rainier, 14,410 feet. I had a desire to experience high altitude, somewhere close to 20,000 feet if possible. Like many travelers, I also…

New Wilderness Alliance Brings Forth Bold Proposal

Phil Knight

The new Gallatin Yellowstone Wilderness Alliance (GYWA) has identified Montana’s Custer Gallatin National Forest (CGNF) as the epicenter for some of the most spectacular wild lands in the nation. “We are talking about the top one or two…

The Gallatin Range: Bozeman's Big Back Yard

Phil Knight

Next time you look south of Bozeman to the mountains that border our beautiful valley, consider what you are seeing.  Rising in a riotous mass of sharp peaks, craggy ridges and vast alpine plateaus, split by steep canyons, decorated with clear…

An Unplanned Night on The Frigid Heights

Phil Knight

Even though I had never endured an unplanned bivouac, I knew the clues. I saw it coming. I could feel it, could taste the bitter tang in the air that spoke of cramps, shivering and dehydration, of bones aching against unyielding rock, mouth dry as a…

The Case of the Stolen Citation

Phil Knight

I’ve gone through many cars, and just last year my wife and I bought our first new one. But one car stands out.My generous parents presented me with this most excellent ride in 1992. The Chevy Citation was a not-so-classic of its day, but if…

The Pursuit of Peace & Powder

Phil Knight

Silence. When was the last time you heard it? Do we even know what it is any more? To me, silence is not a lack of sound; it is the presence of only natural sound. The hush of falling snow, tickling your cheeks, making tiny tack tack sounds on your…