Backpacking Staff

Big Wild Adventures is owned and operated by Howie Wolke and Marilyn Olsen.

Howie Wolke has led over four-hundred multi-day treks since the mid 1970s. He is the most experienced backpacking guide in the Western U.S. He has been the subject of various magazine articles and is also a well-known advocate for protecting wilderness. He has written two books on wildland conservation, including the Big Outside (co-authored with Dave Foreman), a historic inventory of America's remaining big wilds. So Howie doesn't just know wilderness, he literally wrote the book on it! Also his articles and essays have appeared in numerous publications. As a public speaker, he has addressed college and other groups across the country. Howie is a part-time instructor of Environmental Studies at Montana State University (Billings campus), where he designed and teaches the course "The American Wilderness". He is also President of the national conservation group Wilderness Watch. Howie also has a particular affinity for wolves and grizzly bears, and has a B.S. in Conservation and Wildlife Ecology.

Marilyn Olsen has explored wilderness from the Everglades to Alaska, from Africa to the Arizona desert. She is a registered nurse with expertise in wilderness medicine. She is a former trip leader for the University of Montana's "Wilderness and Civilization" program, and in that capacity led canoe trips on Montana's wild and scenic upper Missouri River, as well as various backpack treks. An experienced wilderness advocate, Marilyn's efforts in conservation education for young people are particularly innovative. She also has valuable insights on group dynamics, and her ability to see and explore the often overlooked intimacies of the wilderness environment are unique.

Howie and Marilyn live in southern Montana, in the foothills of the Gallatin Range, just north of Yellowstone National Park.

ALL BIG WILD ADVENTURES GUIDES are experienced professionals. Howie and Marilyn lead many of our trips, but our other guides are equally capable, and will provide our guests with an equally great experience. Unlike some outfits, your guide will not be an inexperienced young person.

For example, Steve McCoy is a school psychologist, avid hunter and expert fly fisherman with a special knowledge of fish and wildlife. Larry Campbell is a geologist and professional conservationist plus a past founder and instructor of Southwest Outward Bound. All are Montanans in their late 40s and 50s. And Marilyn and Howie's son, Joshua Mahan, has worked for Big Wild since his teens. He has also been a whitewater river guide for 8 years. It is this unique level of knowledge and proven experience that makes our trips the safest and the best.

Larry Campbell

Larry has guided occasional trips for Big Wild since the mid 1980’s. He grew up in rural Colorado and received a degree in geology from Princeton, where he worked hard to survive culture shock. He is a founder of Southwest Outward Bound and he worked for 10 years as an instructor and course director for Southwest Outward Bound and Colorado Outward Bound. After years of traveling in mountainous pre-industrial cultures, he hand-built a log cabin in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley in an effort to live in comfortable simplicity that might be sustainable without encouraging the reckless pillaging of resources. When he’s not guiding for Big Wild, Larry occasionally works as a mineral exploration geologist, and he also works as a wildland conservationist to “help save the parts”, to paraphrase Aldo Leopold. Being in Wilderness allows Larry to rest his compulsion to help fix abuse wrought by uncontrolled industrial development.

Joshua Mahan

Joshua Mahan was immersed in the big wilds at a very early age by his Mom, Marilyn Olsen, and his Step-Dad, Howie Wolke (Big Wild owners). He survived. Josh has a degree in Journalism with a minor in Environmental Studies from the University of Montana. When not in the wilds, he runs the cutting-edge environmental web magazine “Lowbagger.org”. Josh has been a professional whitewater river guide for 8 years, guiding multi-day river trips on Idaho’s Salmon River among other places. He has periodically worked for Big Wild as an assistant guide since he was a teen-ager, and in more recent years as a guide. Josh is also an avid hunter, fly-fisherman and snowboarder. Despite his youth (still under 30), Josh’s vast reservoir of wilderness experience and training compliment his unusual wisdom to create the perfect Big Wild guide.

Steve McCoy

Steve McCoy has guided for Big Wild since the mid 1980’s, mostly in and around the wilds of Yellowstone. Steve has lived in Montana for over 30 years, including stints at the western and northeastern ends of Big Sky country. Nowadays, he and his wife, Diane, live in Lewistown, smack dab in the state’s center, where the island mountain ranges and the prairies merge. Steve’s conservation advocacy focuses upon protecting and expanding the wild habitats of this largely overlooked big and wide-open region. Nonetheless, Steve is dutifully employed as a school psychologist, but believe it or not he prefers to spend his time making fine furniture, playing his guitar, hunting and training hunting dogs, and above all else, fly-fishing. Steve’s son Dylan – who summers as a wilderness ranger and an occasional Big Wild assistant -- will soon graduate the University of Montana.

Dave Bell

Dave Bell grew up in Salt Lake City, and when young, friends immersed him in the wilds of the nearby High Uintas wilderness. He emerged unscathed, and while attending the University of Utah in the early ´90´s he began to explore the vast Colorado Plateau as a burgeoning "canyon rat", seeking out places where no other humans are found. In the mid 90´s he was drawn north, to the big wilds and open spaces of Montana, where he has taught sailing and worked for conservation organizations to protect and restore grizzly bears and the wild forest habitats upon which they depend. So far, Dave has proven very adept at avoiding excessively close encounters with those grizzlies in the wild forests. Along life´s journey, Dave learned to be a carpenter, which is how he earns his keep when not in the wilds. He currently lives over the ridge from Howie and Marilyn, in the foothills of the Gallatin Range, where he loves to hunt, hike, ski and explore. Despite his Utah roots, nowadays the wilderness within and around Yellowstone is his major inspiration for all of life’s outdoor activities. Welcome, Dave, to our "family" of Big Wild Adventures guides!

It is no wonder that over two-thirds of our clients are
"repeaters" from prior Big Wild trips!

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.