Tucked into the cozy down sleeping bag in my vintage 1977 Toyota Chinook micro-camper, I yawned, rolled over, and pondered morning coffee. My awakening consciousness was startled by loud clawing outside the camper. I looked out the open window. A grizzly bear’s moist snout was...
Undervaluing creeks seems a perennially popular ailment among fly fishers. Leave ’em to their losses, I say: All the more water and fish for me. Clearly, I don’t suffer from their dysfunction of insight. My first fly-caught fish, a subcompact coastal cutthroat trout, happened on a...
Standing at my window on New Year’s Day — holding a steaming cup and watching the snow in the sliver of light cut by a streetlight across the way — I feel like I’m in one of those holiday coffee commercials. Christmas has come and...
In the fall of 1991, I received a call from Robert Redford’s personal assistant: “Bob is extremely grateful for what you did for him yesterday and asked if he could return the favor,” she said. Seriously? I thought. Robert Redford is granting me a favor? Without...
It’s a cold, rainy off-season night in Jackson, Wyoming. There aren’t many tourists around town, and a lot of businesses are closed for a few-week break, but when I walk into the Silver Dollar Bar & Grill at The Wort Hotel, I’m enveloped by warmth...
Although it was late June, the thermometer in my brother’s truck read 32 degrees Fahrenheit when we reached the trailhead around 8 o’clock in the morning. Such cold on a summer day could have dampened our spirits, but we were excited to see no other...
On the coldest of winter days, when the Montana sky is at its crispiest, palest blue, there’s nothing better than setting out for a morning of cross-country skiing. Maybe that sentiment doesn’t immediately resonate with you. At face value, strapping on a pair of skinny skis...
At 14 months old, Harpy makes her way over upended picnic tables, through tires, and across a wooden ladder suspended 8 feet in the air. Her blond jackrabbit legs slip out from underneath her, first one, then the other. She freezes long enough for the...
If you’ve driven many of Montana’s 13,000 highway miles, you’ve experienced the pit-of-the-stomach dread that one of those mule deer grazing the shoulder will lunge into your lane or that an unseen elk or moose will sprint across the road, forcing you into a dangerous...
In Montana, ice climbing has a bit of a medieval-cult feel. Those who belong are fiendishly devoted; those who’ve never tried it wonder why anyone would fall into its grip. Hanging off frozen icicles, with razor-sharp daggers that might bite more than the ice if...