Outdoors

The quintessential hike

Published on Tue, 07/16/2019 - 12:00am

It’s the quintessential summer hike every Park County resident — if they really want to call themselves one — has to make: the trek to Pine Creek Lake. If you’ve

When is fruit ready to pick? Nature offers different clues

Published on Tue, 07/09/2019 - 12:00am

It takes just a twist of the wrist to determine when pears are ready to come off the tree. For plums and peaches, flesh firmness is a good way to

Tracking Sioux Falls geese is ‘organized chaos’

Published on Tue, 07/09/2019 - 12:00am

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Researchers with the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Department are no strangers to managing the chaos of honking, kicking and flapping when catching a

North Carolina conservationists work to recover native brook trout population

Published on Tue, 07/09/2019 - 12:00am

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — If brook trout could speak, they might have gurgled something like “back off!” to the men stalking them with Ghostbuster-like backpack electrofishers, nets and scissors. But

Homecoming, new adventures on Smith River

Published on Tue, 06/25/2019 - 12:00am

Last week I spent five days and four nights floating the Smith River with family. It felt like a homecoming the way a trip down the Smith often does, and

One-legged athlete wows on skateboard, slopes

Published on Tue, 06/18/2019 - 12:00am

BOZEMAN (AP) — In May, skateboarding legend Tony Hawk shared a video of a man with one leg flipping a skateboard with his crutches while clearing a gap across the

THE DAY THE MOUNTAIN MOVED

Published on Tue, 06/04/2019 - 12:00am

Twenty-five miles northwest of West Yellowstone, on a quiet night on Aug. 17, 1959, campers were enjoying an evening along the Madison River near Hebgen Lake. Suddenly, at 11:37 p.m.,

The Garden of One Thousand Buddhas

Published on Tue, 05/28/2019 - 12:00am

Rain was pouring in Arlee when I stepped out of the van. Big, fluffy clouds sat low on the mountains as the Garden of 1,000 Buddhas beckoned. It was a

LEWIS & CLARK CAVERNS

Published on Tue, 05/21/2019 - 12:00am

My son Henry is a rock hound. The pockets of his coats are almost always full of rocks, and when I hear the sound of a foreign object clanking in

Discovering morels

Published on Tue, 05/14/2019 - 4:33pm

I couldn’t believe my eyes. Less than three feet away from where I was sitting, growing along the edge of a large tree stump, was the biggest morel mushroom I had ever seen. 

About three years ago is when I first discovered the excitement of hunting for morel mushrooms. 

It was a cool spring morning when my boyfriend suggested we head into the woods to search for the little morsels. 

The idea seemed strange to me at first. Growing up near Chicago, the only time I ever searched for mushrooms was in the produce section of the Jewel-Osco grocery store.