Category: Events

Please join us for our first meeting of 2020 on Thursday January 9 at 7pm, at the Presbyterian Church, 1220 West Main Street, Hamilton, MT. This meeting will feature a presentation by club vice president Jesse Crocker.

In 2019 Jesse Crocker entered the 1100 mile Silk Road Mountain Race, an unsupported single stage bikepacking race through the Tian Shan mountains in Kyrgyzstan. It has been described as the worlds toughest mountain bike race. Over the course of the race he froze in snow storms, sweated through deserts, stayed with nomads, and almost hit a camel.

Jesse lives in Darby MT where he spends as much time as possible skiing, but when the snow melts he’s on foot or bike. He has thru hiked the Pacific Crest Trails, biked the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, skied the John Muir Trail, and trekked through the Himalayas. When not outside he is one of the authors of the popular Gaia GPS navigation app.

Please join us for our first meeting of the year on Thursday, Nov 14 at the Presbyterian Church, 1220 West Main Street, Hamilton, MT. We’ll have a member’s meeting and presentation at 7 pm. We can always use more volunteers to serve on the board, so if you have interest in that, please join us at 6 pm. The meeting will feature a presentation by Torrey Ritter about Beavers and the ecosystem benefits they provide.

Torrey Ritter is a non-game wildlife biologist with the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks out of Missoula. He went to Montana State University for a
bachelor’s degree in Organismal Biology.
He then spent the next six years working for various state and federal wildlife agencies on a variety of wildlife species including grizzly bears, elk, small mammals, peregrine falcons, sage grouse and best of all, beavers. Torrey returned to MSU in 2015 for graduate school and spent three years studying beaver dispersal and habitat selection in the Upper Madison and Gallatin river drainages in southwest Montana.
Torrey has become fascinated by beavers and their ability to modify stream and riparian habitat and is very excited that he gets to work on beaver-related projects in his current
position.

The days are getting short, the mountains are getting white, and it’s time for the first club meeting of the year. The November meeting will be held on November 8 at 7pm, at the Presbyterian Church, 1220 West Main Street, Hamilton, MT.
Jesse Crocker give a slideshow and tell stories about the 2018 Tour Divide bike race, a 2700 self supported mountain bike race down the continental divide.