Outdoors

A flight of fancy, on horseback

Published on Tue, 11/06/2018 - 12:00am

Horses are naturally spooked by people firing bows and arrows off the top of them, so it’s important to let them get used to arrows before you start shooting. That

Fly tying: A portal to the spiritual experience of fly-fishing

Published on Tue, 10/30/2018 - 12:00am

The fly in fly-fishing is the conduit in repairing one’s instinctive desire to fool mother nature and respectfully find our equality with her. To dominate seems a bit harsh. Fly-fishing

Pumpkin carving, for the fun of it

Published on Tue, 10/23/2018 - 12:00am

Orange, stringy pumpkin flesh slipped through the fingers of Jesse Gentry, 12, who along with his brothers and mother, carved pumpkins Saturday at Kenyon Noble’s annual Junior Carpenter Pumpkin Carving

Think you’re pretty tough?

Published on Tue, 10/09/2018 - 12:00am

Recently, I watched a Cooper’s hawk take off from a rural, gravel road, clutching a dead meadowlark in its talons. An adult Cooper’s hawk might weigh 1 pound. An adult

Bird hunters beware – be bear aware

Published on Tue, 10/09/2018 - 12:00am

In Montana, bear country can be anywhere in the western half of the state and sometimes beyond. In recent years, grizzly bears have shown up in prairie habitats east of

GUARDIANS OF THE RANCH

Published on Tue, 10/02/2018 - 12:00am

When a black bear came foraging along Chicken Creek this fall, a pair of Brooks Watson’s livestock guardian dogs sent the bear up a tree, just as they are intended

For guests, wildlife more outstanding than geysers

Published on Tue, 09/25/2018 - 12:00am

Snow fell on the mountains Monday, a few hours after my parents pulled out of town, signaling the end of a Montana season I didn’t know existed when I moved

CROSSING THE CRAZIES

Published on Tue, 09/11/2018 - 12:00am

Icrawled out of the tent and kept crawling til I reached the creek — a cold, clear trickle that cut a narrow trench of exposed granite through the carpet of

TODAY’S TOM SAWYER

Published on Wed, 09/05/2018 - 12:00am

Twelve-year-old Livingston resident Vay O’Brien recently completed her expedition to become the youngest woman to captain her own boat down the entirety of the “Last Wild River.” The floatable section

Reflecting on the first 100-degree day in Glacier history

Published on Tue, 08/21/2018 - 12:00am

On the first day temperatures reached 100 degrees in the history of Glacier National Park, I sat with two friends underneath a sheet of melting ice, letting the prehistoric water