Moments in Montana: Camping in the Little Belts

I’ve been in Montana for around a month now and my oh my has time flown by! From a snowy start to 90+ degree heat waves, creek jumps and spider-web-filled-bushwhacking hikes for work, plant sightings and meeting up with friends–this month has certainly been an adventure.

This last month I’ve found myself torn between wanting to do absolutely everything and wanting to enjoy the summer off of school and do absolutely nothing.

On my weekdays and weekends I want to be out there hiking the hard trails, reaching the peaks, seeing old friends and meeting new, running up mountains, visiting parks and lakes....there’s so much to do! At the same time I find myself exhausted from a long work week, trying to play catch up on ”boring” life stuff—getting groceries, doing dishes, a ridiculous amount of time spent driving, going into town to do laundry and take an actual shower, and just resting and relaxing (which I’m apparently very bad at doing).

Anyways, I’m currently writing this post on the Friday it will be published (yay procrastination!) following a week of work spent camping in the Little Belt Mountain Range looking for a rare species of columbine (Aquilegia brevistyla) which is a cute short-spurred yellow and lavender flower. The week was full of driving, long hikes to survey points, mapping plant populations, and trying to make it back to camp in time to radio disptach to reassure them we were all alive before the dispatchers checked out for the day at 4:30. There was zero cell reception at camp which was a nice change of pace, though now I feel like I have a million things to catch-up on even though it’s only been four days.

On Monday we drove three hours from Helena to the Little Belts, set up camp and found a nearby Aquilegia population to map and figured out how to use the tablets, properly identify the species, etc. Tuesday was a long day of hiking as the road was washed out to where we wanted to go and we ended up going around 12 miles total with about double the amount of creek crossings....I decided I wanted to try to keep my boots dry so it was an almost constant relay of taking my boots and (wet) socks off, walking precariously through knee deep water, and putting everything back on until the next river crossing. Wednesday featured slightly better conditions as more of the plast populations we were looking for were off of a (drivable) road, though we still walked around 9 miles and I walked through roughly fifty spider webs (yikes). Thursday was more hiking and mapping before driving back to Helena.Overall had some wonderful views, walked a lot of miles, jumped in the creek every night after work, and saw a lot of really cool plants. (Photos below)

Now I’m headed into the weekend trying to figure out what to do with my life....camp again? Drive and visit friends? Chill and rest up? Gahhhh decisions. While I’m definitely exhausted from the week, especially after the previous weekend which consisted of around six + hours of driving to and around Bozeman, a 10+ mile trail run with 4000 feet elevation gain one day and a 4 mile trail run with 2000 ish elevation gain the next day, camping, etc....I still want to get out and “embrace” my time here for the summer.

The rational side of me knows it would probably be better for my health to just rest and explore town or relax and read a book this weekend, but the adventurous (and honestly the anxious side of me as well) really wants to get out and keep exploring. The sayings “you only live once” or “you’re young” or “sleep when you’re dead” are all coming to mind....sigh. I guess you could say I’m still struggling at the intersection of “FOMO“ and “YOLO” where I want to get out and do all the things while at the same time my mind and body are reaching their max and really need to chill. Any advice would be appreciated on how to handle these ~emotions~ otherwise updates will come next week about what I decide to do and/or thoughts and ramblings about “FOMO/YOLO” and similar trends.