Summer 2000

Exuberance meets caution in the roiling snowmelt of southwest Montana. The river was huge. Swollen and discolored from the previous night's rainfall, it looked like a swirling sea of chocolate milk. As I stepped into the…

Bozeman's most famous trail run. Through the fog they come, through the early morning mist: 200 loping crusaders, steely-eyed and sweat-soaked, rushing forward like a herd of wild horses—side-stepping boulders, hurdling…

I intended to mow the lawn. I really did. Not that I felt any real need to, but I’d seen someone else doing it, so I thought what the heck, I might as well do it too.But by the time I got around to it, weeks later,…

I am not a fly fisherman. Lacking a true affinity for political correctness, I am not a fly fisherwoman either. But I do like to fly-fish. It is therapy and yet it is madness, like an addiction. The lure of the river runs…

Climbing in Gallatin Canyon. Easing over a small roof, I mantle up onto an ice cream sandwich-sized ledge, some 300 feet above the Gallatin River. It's our fourth pitch, and I stand quickly, hips tight to the rock, and…

Hiking Montana's mountain trails is enjoyment in and of itself, but when you add the thrill of birding, it takes on a whole new level of wonder and excitement – like turning a lazy, late-afternoon river float into a safari…

By the skin of his teeth.In the summer of 1806, not long after passing through the Gallatin Valley, the Lewis & Clark expedition came across a small camp on the Missouri River belonging to a pair of fur-traders from…