Last June south-central Montana suffered a historic 500-year flood. High water wiped out bridges and roads in Yellowstone National Park and the Custer Gallatin National Forest, as well as destroyed private homes and bridges. 

On August 4th, more than 400 days later, the Forest Service has restored access to one of the most popular areas in the Beartooth Mountains – East Rosebud Lake.

Here to talk with us today about the recovery efforts is Brett French, outdoor editor for the Billings Gazette.

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The summer of 2003 pushed Glacier National Park’s fire response to new frontiers.

There had been many fires before, including some catastrophic events. But rarely did so many parts of the park get so threatened by so many different kinds of challenges. And rarely did firefighters attempt some tactics that proved essential then, but might not be possible now.

Twenty years later, we look back at the fires of 2003 and what has changed.

On this episode, Rob Chaney, managing editor of the Missoulian, re-visits the fire season and talks about what has changed since.

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It’s like school for elk hunting and the classroom is the Snowcrest Mountains. The bonus is it all happens on a backpacking expedition. 

I am referring to a new course offered by Montana Wilderness school called backpacking skills for aspiring hunters.

The Bozeman-based school has been taking students on expeditions for ten years with a mission of providing “empowering expeditionary wilderness courses to youth that foster personal growth and cultivate a conservation ethic through connecting with remote landscapes and wild places”

In the last couple of years they have offered this course that takes a fundamental approach to backpacking skills but adds the technical skills pursuing large game in the backcountry.

On this episode, Ryan Peters, wilderness program manager for Montana Wilderness School talks about the course.

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From trains and horses to snowmobiles and jet-skis, national parks have had to deal with disruptive technology in wild places.

The latest controversy circles around the popularity of e-bikes. These battery-assisted bicycles make it possible for new crowds of tourists to attempt adventures they might have been too old, young, infirm or inexperienced to try before.

That puts new pressures on the National Park Service, which has to evaluate e-bike impacts on wildlife and wild places, as well as what kind of resources and amenities the e-bikers need.

With me today is Rob Chaney, managing editor of the Missoulian newspaper, who’s traversed Glacier National Park via e-bike and pedal powered bicycles before. 

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The Last Best Place has been discovered.

Across the state, tourists and second-homeowners pull up alongside trucks with stickers of Montana’s outline and the words: “WE’RE FULL.” They stroll through shops with coffee mugs, t-shirts and hats displaying similar sentiments. But the same tourists and transplants inject money into local economies, facilitating jobs and businesses.

The tension, however, comes from the flip-side of growing visitation to the Treasure State: strain on emergency response, crowded recreation facilities, traffic and other overburdened infrastructure. And often, locals are left with the bill after visitors go home. 

That double-edge sword of being a desirable outdoor recreation destination is known as the “amenity trap,” according to a new report from Bozeman-based Headwaters Economics. The report looks at the benefits and burdens faced by towns whose riches in outdoor recreation have brought a wealth of visitors too.

With me today is Joshua Murdock, outdoors and natural resources reporter for the Missoulian and a former reporter at the Idaho Mountain Express in Ketchum-Sun Valley, Idaho, who recently wrote about the report.

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After historically low counts of brown and rainbow trout were found in three popular stretches of the Big Hole River, people have begun rallying around the 153-mile freestone river in southwest Montana.

There’s still pessimism for what the future holds, but the response has been positive.

People genuinely want to find a solution and do what they can to pump life back into the famous Blue Ribbon trout stream.

Nationwide fly fishing brands have joined the rallying cries, and there appears to be momentum building within the state, whether it be state funded or privately funded groups.

The energy is good and necessary to carry out this all-hands-on-deck effort.

But where will we be two months from now when the heat really takes a toll on the Big Hole and its trout?

What happens in two years when the Big Hole no longer dominates the fly fishing news cycle? Will the state keep funding projects to their completion?

There are still a lot of unknowns, and concrete answers are still years away.

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Earlier this year a freight train derailed near Paradise, spilling thousands of beers into the Clark Fork River. For some it was comical, for others it was a close call. 

And now three months later another train derailment. This time, on the other side of the state, into the Yellowstone River. But this wasn’t a close call and not comical by any standards.

Early Saturday morning about 5 miles east of Reed Point, tanker cars from a Montana Rail Link train plunged into the river along with twisted railroad tracks, steel beams and concrete from the trestle. The tankers were each carrying hazardous materials in varying level of toxicity.

With me today is Chirs Jorgensen, managing editor of the Billings Gazette newspaper, who was first to report the situation.

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A recent federal court ruling in Wyoming has once again sparked discussions about the legality of corner crossing.

I want you to visualize a checkerboard. A grid of black and white squares.

Now imagine that layout on a map, where the black squares are public land and the white ones are private. This land ownership layout is common in the west, a relic of past when the government was divvying out land to railroads pushing lines west.

Corner crossing refers to the act of traveling from one piece of that public checkerboard to another, by crossing where they meet in the corners. 

In the recent Wyoming case, a judge found that four Missouri men did not trespass onto adjoining private land as they stepped from public to public land at a corner designated by a survey marker and using a ladder. 

Brett French, Outdoors editor at the Billings Gazette, is here to untangle the issue and give a bit of context as to what this mean for Montana

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The American food system is broken and intact ecosystems can help fix it.

That's according to Cole Mannix, the founder of Old Salt Co-Op, a vertically integrated meat company that's mission is to feed people meat from producers who steward the landscape.

Raised on his family's ranch in the Blackfoot Valley, Mannix takes his father's mantra with him in everything he does - "the land owns us."

On this episode I talk with Mannix about agriculture's role in land conservation and how eating meat doesn't have to be odds odds with a healthy natural world.

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On the heels of a long, wet Montana winter, runoff season is mostly done and anglers are itching to hit the river and ready to target some hungry springtime trout.

Flows are robust and above average for this time of year in some areas. The Big Hole River is no exception. Aesthetically, it appears healthy and full of life. The breathtaking landscape of the Big Hole Valley can inspire optimism, especially in an overly-eager fly angler. 

But he Big Hole River’s trout population is still in decline and Conditions appear dire as ever. the worst seems yet to come.

Experts around southwest Montana say that, among the many factors at play, we should be looking at disease and bureaucratic failures as to why the Big Hole is in its continued state of peril.

Like any conflict, there’s plenty blame to go around. And there’s more than just two sides of the story. The 153-mile freestone river is a complex ecosystem and with that, comes complex issues. 

On this episode is Matt Keiwet, managing editor of the Montana Standard and Independent Record newspapers who recently reported on the imperiled Big Hole River.

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