Wilderness Survival Tips

Knowing your game in the backcountry means preparing for the worst. The following article excerpted from Wilderness Survival by Suzanne Swedo provides the 10 essential items to bring along on any trip.

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service: The Centennial Anniversary of the National Wildlife Refuge System
March 14, 2003 marks a milestone in the history of wildlife conservation in America - the Centennial anniversary of the National Wildlife Refuge System. The National Wildlife Refuge System is America's only network of federal lands dedicated specifically to wildlife conservation, representing a steadfast commitment to protecting our wild heritage...

Building the Going to the Sun Highway
Looking up inside the Park one is struck from all directions by finely-etched peaks and razor-sharp escarpments; the golden points of American regalia. Glacier is unanimously recognized as a crown jewel of both national and international biosphere preserves.....

Bringing The Horses Back for the People
There's a new herd of horses roaming the rolling prairie lands east of Glacier National Park. This is the land of the Blackfeet and the new horses are traditional Indian "ponies" that gained Montana's Indian people the reputation of "Masters of the Plains" for centuries...

The Mann Gulch Fire
August 5, 1999 marked the 50th Anniversary of one of the nation's most famous wildfires: Montana's Mann Gulch Fire. It was here north of Helena along the Missouri River's rugged, remote Gates of the Mountains' canyon that 13 firefighters lost their lives attacking what looked like a small, routine flare up...

Montana Dino Delta
Malta, Montana, is a long way from the Mississippi Delta. But if you rewind time about 75 million years, this part of Montana's Hi Line would look just like that rich river estuary. Now, add a herd of duck-bill dinosaurs struggling to cross one of the region's rivers during high water; some are swept under and drowned...

Montana Scenic Byways Honored
"Montana" and "scenic byway" are words that flow together perfectly. The state's 94 million acres of virtually unspoiled landscape and its 17,000 miles of highway combine to offer travelers spectacular drives like Glacier National Park's Going-to-the-Sun Road and the Beartooth Scenic Highway near Red Lodge...

The Montana Triangle: Three Forks, Three Parks
There are interesting forces at work in the "Montana Triangle." No unexplainable disappearances or strange forces quieting, radios, but there's a magnetism created by a unique concentration of history, culture, geography and geology in this small section of southwestern Montana...

The Flight of the Nez Perce
One-hundred-twenty years ago, some 800 Nez Perce men, women and children journeyed over 1,100 miles across Montana and its neighboring states pursuing freedom from U.S. Indian policy and safety from military action. Today, that journey is commemorated by the Nez Perce National Historic Park, a confederation of 38 sites in five states including three in Montana

Remarkable Cliffs and Great Adventure: Montana's Gates of the Mountains
It was mid-July, 1805, when Captain Meriwether Lewis first viewed the Gates of the Mountains along Montana's Missouri River. His journal entry describes the scene this way: "we entered the most remarkable clifts that we have yet seen. These clifts rise from the water's edge on either side perpendicularly to the height of 1,200 feet. Solid rock for the distance of 5 ¾ miles." This view is still available for today's adventurer and it looks virtually the same as when Capt. Lewis and his Corps of Discovery first laid eyes upon it...

A Remarkable Rock (Pompey's Pillar)
Along the entire Lewis & Clark Trail there is just one spot where you don't have to imagine the famed explorers having been there. That location is Montana's Pompey's Pillar, 28 miles east of Billings, just off of I-94. What makes this Lewis & Clark spot unique from all the others? Let's let Captain William Clark explain. Here is his journal entry from July 25, 1806...

Not "Sheepish" about Fun in Montana
What all started out as a "punny" situation during Montana's 1989 Centennial Celebration has grown to rival the "Running of the Bulls" in Pamplona, Spain. Reedpoint, Montana's annual "Running of the Sheep" is a wild and wooly affair that visitors flock to each September and no one reports having a "baaaaad" time...

Mountain Biking: Flagging Down the Great Divide
When I was around twelve years old, my friends and I would often take off on our mountain bikes from Whitefish, MT for a weekend of freedom and adventure. The whole concept of a bike designed for the mountains was still young. We'd ride to "The Clearing" where we could build a fire and eat beans fresh from a tin can. Or we'd head for Tally Lake to jump off of cliffs, swim the warm waters, and talk with other campers who'd driven in...

Pedaling the Lewis and Clark Trail
Maybe you were born 200 years too late to paddle a canoe in the original Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery but don’t despair. Pack your panniers and tighten your spokes because thanks to the Adventure Cycling Association, you can now pedale the intrepid explorers route using the newly released Lewis and Clark Bicycle Trail...

'Young Mountains' on a Rampage
--"When the earth's crust quivered, water sloshed over the dam and sent a huge wave down-canyon.  Almost simultaneously, the rockslide five miles below slapped the riverbed and threw a tidal wave of water up-canyon. Most people were caught between the two."...

Great Falls Bubbly
Native Americans revered it, directly connecting it to a Blackfeet Indian Sun god. Lewis and Clark stumbled into it while portaging around the "Great Falls" of the Missouri River. And today, you can still experience it for yourself---by the gallon...

Battle of the Little Bighorn Indian Memorial Celebrates Peace through Unity
By June 1876, the several bands of the Lakota Nation along with their ally the Northern Cheyenne Nation, had reached the traditional summer hunting areas in the Yellowstone, Powder, Tongue, and Big Horn River country. Three columns of the United States Army were moving into the same region. ...

Thunderclappers Still Ringing for Lewis & Clark aka The Scoop on the Poop
Here in Montana we take Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery very seriously. That is why we are excited to tell the world about the latest scoop on the, er, poop…or maybe it should be, the tale on the tinkle...