Pack train in the Bob Marshall

We've approached our last day in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. From green, young "tenderfoots" to seasoned and disciplined hikers we have become.

This is a good beginning to our semester and a positive foreshadowing of our adventures to come as a team in the wilderness. The Bob Marshall has also been transformative in other ways too. Immersed in these wild mountains relying upon of our ingenuity, creativity, and observation of nature we have learned to think as scientists and naturalists across time, space, and ways of knowing.

Our readings from Fool's Crow and literature on Traditional Ecological Knowledge help inform our own ways of knowing nature through direct experience, intuition, and sensation. We have been pushing so hard to reach the end of our trail, dreaming of simple pleasures and comforts, that now that we are almost there we find ourselves wanting to turn back in...

We have one more night to savor the Bob though and after a long day on the trail camped on a grassy meadow bluff over the roar of a whitewater canyon. Right after dinner a summer thunderstorm sent us all to our tents to hunker down, sipping tea and watching misty rain speckle the meadow grasses in glistening droplets of water. - zen.