About Big Wild

Wilderness backpacking is the most rewarding way to experience a bit of the original America. It's simply walking through the wilds while carrying food, tent, sleeping bag and clothing in a modern, comfortable backpack. And because you do it on your own two feet, you'll feel a dramatic sense of accomplishment. It's also the camaraderie of small groups sharing wonders of nature that few others ever experience.

Our trips are planned to allow plenty of leisure time, including opportunities to explore the wild with only a light day pack. Even our strenuous trips have one or two layover days, where we spend two nights in a row at the same camp. Backpacking is suited to anybody who is healthy, reasonably fit, and open to new ways of viewing and experiencing the natural world.

Big Wild Adventures is a licensed guide and outfitter with the U.S Forest Service, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land Management. Big Wild Adventures is an Equal Opportunity Service Provider. We have run over 500 multi-day treks since our inception in 1978 and are widely regarded as the leading backpacking company in the United States! We arrange all trip details, secure all required permits, provide transportation from town to and from the trailheads, outfit our guests with quality equipment, and supply three hearty meals daily plus snacks.

All Guides are professionals with many years of wilderness leadership experience. Your guide will not be an inexperienced young adult. Our guides are trained in wilderness medicine and emergency search and rescue procedures. They are also naturalists who enjoy sharing their knowledge of each area's unique flora, fauna and geology. We emphasize safety, the utilization of low-impact hiking and camping techniques, and exploring seldom-visited, little-known wilderness haunts. Our guides are also glad to provide any desired instruction in a variety of wilderness skills.

Wildlife: Viewing wildlife--large and small--is an integral part of the wilderness experience. Our guides know how to spot critters, and they know where to look, depending upon the season and conditions. Although we cannot guarantee any particular level of sightings on any given trip, wildlife is important to us, and chances are great that a Big Wild Adventure will provide an opportunity to watch native animals in their unspoiled natural habitats.

Wilderness: All of our trips are in a wilderness environment with no roads, automobiles, houses, telephones, etc. We specialize in exploring truly remote country. Our guides know the secret wild places, off the beaten path, where few other humans are encountered. In other words, we don't simply hike and camp along major trails; we explore and discover the magical hidden wonders of real wilderness!

We are a "green" business: In these challenging times of human-induced climate crisis and biological meltdown (loss of biological diversity due to habitat destruction, pollution, climate change, competition with exotic species etc.), we believe that it’s the responsibility of all businesses to help solve these and related environmental problems (we believe that the underlying cause is human overpopulation). At Big Wild, protecting and restoring our natural environment is central to our very existence:

• Big Wild Adventures owners, Howie Wolke and Marilyn Olsen, are leaders in the western public lands conservation movement. Howie is a nationally known conservation writer (author of two books on the vanishing American wilderness and of many dozens of articles) and wilderness advocate.
• Howie is an original author of the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act (for more information, go to www.wildrockiesalliance.org), and Howie and Marilyn have worked over the years to improve it and to advance it in Congress.
• Howie and Marilyn are founders of Montanans for Gallatin Wilderness. Howie also co-founded the original Earth First! (A different animal than the current version), the original Wyoming Wilderness Association, and is a founding member of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and Friends of the Bitterroot (with Marilyn and others).
• Howie is the past president of the national conservation group Wilderness Watch, and is an Instructor of Environmental Studies at Montana State University–Billings, where he designed and teaches his course "The American Wilderness".
• Big Wild Adventures teaches and practices and has innovated "Leave No Trace" backcountry use techniques.
• The Big Wild Adventures office and fitness room are 100% run by a solar photovoltaic system, powered by 8 solar panels outside.
• Our office and home are 100% lit by efficient compact fluorescent lighting.
• We recycle all glass, cardboard, office paper, cans and plastics; and we re-use containers and other materials as much as possible.
• We consume primarily organic and/or natural/locally-produced foods at home, and provide some organic foods for our clients on our trips.
• We support and contribute to the efforts of political candidates -- regardless of party affiliation -- who promote effective efforts to protect and restore the natural environment.
• Although we don’t push our wildland conservation viewpoints on our clients, on most trips we do provide a brief campfire talk outlining basic public land information and conservation topics pertaining to the particular area that we’re in at the time. We also provide our guests with various conservation information publications.
• Our guides are also committed conservation activists (see our Backpacking Staff page), including our son, Joshua Mahan, who produces and edits the environmental web magazine www.Lowbagger.org
• Howie and Marilyn also founded and run our sister organization, Big Wild Advocates, which provides activist and educational services to various local and regional conservation groups, including the production and publication of a number of cutting edge reports on vital conservation topics. For more information on the efforts of Big Wild Advocates, please see www.bigwildadvocates.org.
• Occasionally, we do a mailing to our client list, providing pertinent information on who and where to write or email regarding current conservation issues or bills.

Our Conservation Philsophy: Many of America's remaining public wildlands are rapidly disappearing. Logging, mining, road building, resort development, livestock grazing, all-terrain vehicles, subdivisions and more are squeezing our wildlands and wildlife into increasingly small enclaves.

Though our trips are generally within protected areas, it is the policy of Big Wild Adventures to support the efforts of those organizations working to save unprotected wildlands and to restore the American Wilderness. Our guides are well versed in wildland conservation, and are happy to share this information with our groups. In fact while many outdoor companies support and contribute to conservation groups, Howie and Marilyn plus our other guides are working conservationists on the front lines of political and educational efforts to protect wildlands and wildlife habitats. For example, Howie and Marilyn run a small non-profit conservation organization called Big Wild Advocates (www.bigwildadvocates.org) which promotes wilderness and wildlife habitat protection and restoration. Howie is a past board President of the national conservation group Wilderness Watch, which promotes proper stewardship of existing designated Wilderness. Big Wild Adventures is also a leader in practicing and promoting low-impact wilderness use techniques. For more information on low-impact camping click here.

To arrange a trip with us, just print the questionnaire and mail completed forms with deposit to:

Big Wild Adventures
222 Tom Miner Creek Road
Emigrant, Montana 59027
(406) 848-7000

We also provide an equipment list to help you prepare for the trip. For a complete review of connecting information and everything you'll need to travel with us, click here.

Have a great time!

Scheduled Trips 2008
Below, we've listed our trips by region. Trips listed under Yellowstone Backpacking are also listed under the state in which they occur. You'll find complete information on each trip by clicking on the regional heading above each section.

For a chronological list of our adventures, click here.

List prices include our complete gear package and there is a $200 discount if you bring your own (see equipment list and/or questionnaire for details). Also, we offer a $100 discount for the second trip in a calendar year. Scheduled trips are for persons ages 16 and over. Exceptions to the age requirement will be made by us on a case-by-case basis.